[3 minute read]
Week five and six brought the Crocodile Fever team from their Glasgow-based rehearsal back into the Traverse for their tech. Here’s Assistant Director, Shilpa to tell us what happened...
We’re back into the rehearsal room today with a few essentials after our split tech. week. The set feels imprinted on my brain after looking at it for five days but I’m glad because we’ll need to hold onto a sense of it as we do our final rehearsals.
Week five began with four days in the rehearsal room: we ran the show several times, tightened fight choreography, drilled lines and had final costume fittings.
Over the end of week five and then into week six we teched over at the Traverse. Seeing the set for the first time is always an exciting moment for me, it somehow never fails to amaze me that the thing I saw as a model box several weeks ago is suddenly life-size! I found great joy in discovering the detailing in Grace Smart’s set, my personal favourite being a peek inside the cupboards.
I really felt appreciation for all of the amazing different skill sets that go into making a show. Glance at the stage in the moments before we start a session and the stage is a hive of activity from focusing lights and hiding speakers to adding aesthetic and practical improvements with a bit of net curtain here and a non-slip chair leg there. The stage management team are absolute heroes with a fair bit of mess to clean up and reset at various intervals, and there’s a real team effort across the board to problem solve and create those little moments of theatre magic.
I particularly enjoyed watching sound designer Michael-John McCarthy and lighting designer Simon Wilkinson work with Gareth testing out and slowly building complex moments which frame the action and draw from that 80’s horror inspiration. Patience and precision were required from all to build up moments with cues in just the right place and tech, set, and actors functioning together. We’ll be devoting a good amount of our remaining time to getting these moments down to fine art.
Odd as it is to trundle back to Glasgow for five more days of rehearsal tech, it has left me with an exciting buzz for our return to the Traverse next week.
The Assistant Director position for Crocodile Fever is supported by The JMK Trust. Shilpa T-Hyland is a Leverhulme Arts Scholar and recipient of the JMK regional bursary funded by the Leverhulme Trust Arts Scholarships Fund.