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WATCH THE NEXT VIDEO BLOG BEHIND THE SCENES 2

Rehearsals for our fabulous Christmas show Cinderella: A Fairytale started with a bang!

The five talented actors from Bristol, London and Ireland and nine strong creative team and crew came together for the start of four weeks of intensive rehearsals. After months of research, preparation, auditions and anticipation this is where the fun starts.

The way that director Sally Cookson works is that they start with the basis of the story, in this case the Grimms version of Cinderella, and then using play, workshops, research and lots of devising techniques bring the story to life.

Assistant director Anthony Almeida tells us a bit more about it:
“What’s been most exciting is witnessing how ideas and storylines materialise in the rehearsal space.  We are not working from a fixed script and the process of generating material is collaborative and organic but above all, playful.

Tuesday was a brave day. We had worked till lunch on an opening focused on Cinderella’s relationship with the birds. In the afternoon this completely changed.  We shifted to working on developing the ties between Cinderella and her father.  This opening sets up our version Cinderella clearly. It definitely establishes a more truthful tale.  I am excited to see how things develop and change over the coming weeks.”

As well as the cast and crew, we’ve had more local experts in the rehearsal space working on specific scenes and processes.

Puppeteer Chris Pirie from Puppet Place has been in to help develop some fantastic and evocative puppetry. Music director Benji Bower and his brother Will have been offering up evocative musical melodies throughout the week, which will form the basis of the soundscape and writing toe-tapping songs for the soundtrack of the show. Choreographer Joel Daniel has been putting the cast through their dancing paces and they’ve had sore thighs ever since!

SPOILER ALERT FROM ANTHONY “The performers are also developing wonderfully refreshing characters.  Without giving too much away – we now have a step brother, the Prince is not conventionally charming and Cinderella has a wild streak to her!” 

Toby Farrow from Farrowscreative also came in to take some gorgeous pics (below) and the brilliant Nick from Travelling Light has been documenting a video blog of the week which we will be updating regularly each week – so come back soon for the next video blog (current one at the top of the page).

For more info on the show, times and bookings click here.