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25•August•2015

LunchBox Theatre – fancy trying out directing?

By The Black Box

Directing The Circle

I was first approached to direct a read through of The Circle so that the writer, Joe, could see what was going right and what was going a wee bit up the left.

I read the script first and because I like script editing suggested to Joe that we take our time and get the script bang on.

Joe is a very funny and clever writer by nature. My job was pushing the dialogue up a gear to make it really earn its keep.

We met sporadically to talk over the script, drank terrible coffee but remained focussed on the job at hand.

I knew there was a script and a play in there, we just had to work at it and be pretty ruthless. We developed a pretty good way of working together on it which was a relief for me as the director.

I wanted to retain as much of the essence of Joe’s writing and his humour in the play as I could but tighten everything up.

We got to a place where we were happy to look for cast eventually. I had wanted to work with Mary Lindsay for a long time so she luckily for me agreed to play the lead lady, Barbara.

Tom, the leading man, I thought was going to be really tricky to cast. Then Matt Faris auditioned and he just was Tom to me. I think what sealed it was Matt’s own personality was the polar opposite of Tom so he could really capture someone who was pretty ghastly easily.

We had a lot of fun rehearsing. Matt and Mary were great together as well as individually so my job as director was much easier that way.

The scariest moment for me was when Joe came to one of our last rehearsals. Luckily he loved what we had done.

Although nothing beats the terror of a pretty full house of a lunchtime. I felt tangible relief when the audience laughed when they should have as well as unexpectedly. I would direct again in a heartbeat.

Do you fancy trying your hand at directing?  Then get in touch with the LunchBox Theatre team by emailing a short CV and cover letter to [email protected]m with LUNCHBOX DIRECTOR in the subject heading.

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