Red Noses - a mad play to do

Welcome to the saga of Sheffield University's production of Red Noses by Peter Barnes. We had the choice of doing Richard 3rd or Red Noses. We chose Red Noses because we'd never read anything quite as mad, funny and challenging.

We chose this design because it reflects the theme of the play, using humour to defeat death. Luckily we're Halloween season so there are plenty of skulls about. We liked this because the eyes follow you about. Death and juggling - not what you usually put together, but this isn't a conventional play.

We had a social reading - in the upstairs room of a pub. This gave people the chance to see if they liked the play before we held auditions. There were actors, back stage crew and members who just fancied a night out. We all laughed a lot at some of the terrible jokes.

The reading showed that the play was somewhat too long, so the director got out the blue pencil and got cutting. As production manager I got to read the revised version and we had several 'debates' about what he'd left in and cut out.

Auditions followed. These can be a very stressful time for would be cast and the director. Ian, as usual was convinced that nobody would turn up and worried all the way down to theatre. People did - they usually do.

The normal format for auditions is to read bits of the play whilst sitting round in a circle. This can be dull and quite competitive. Ian's approach is quite radical and much more fun. He chose scenes from the play and allocated parts in it. He gave people 10 minutes to look at the scene, practice it and then perform it for rest of the group.

This sounds quite daunting, but it was fun. Being able to move around let people relax and perform rather than read. What was really nice was that instead of being competitive people were supportive. There was applause at the end of each scene and we all went away feeling cheered.

There are about 30 speaking parts in Red Noses, with opportunity for some doubling. Ian spent ages casting the play, working around availability and preferences. We'd asked people if they had any extra talents - singing, dancing, juggling etc. I’m very happy to be playing Camille (Chair of the Guild of Prostitutes) – 24 lines and some on stage humping. There’s more than enough to do as production manager - finding ludicrous props and sorting the publicity.

Over the summer we had several production meetings to discuss the set. At the Drama Studio we can’t paint the floor, which leaves us a vast expanse of black to contend with. However, the Studio has rostra that we can paint, so it’s in our interests to use a multi-layered set and break up the black. After several meetings – technical manager, wardrobe mistress, stage manager, me and Ian – we finally decided on the set. We’ve being doing this for a while, so what we’ve come up with is a sort of cut and paste of previous sets.

The director wants to fly things from the grid, have back projection, gauzes, smoke and somebody emerging from under the stage. The technical manager is having nightmares about the health and safety and the stage manager wants to throttle him! Usually after a load of negotiation we get to a compromise but we’re not there yet.

We had a workshop before rehearsals started. We played silly games and discussed the set. After lunch Martin arrived. He’s the expert juggler we recruited to train the cast. Several characters have to juggle. Irritatingly, those playing the parts that don’t need to can juggle and several of those have to can’t! A happy afternoon was spent with the noise of thuds hitting the ground.

Enough of the group therapy – rehearsals started this week.

The director, stage manager and me got to the rehearsal room and spent a happy half an hour marking out the rough layout of the set on the floor with electrical tape. Red showed the rostra with steps marked in black.

Ian has a clear idea of what he wants, but is open to negotiation if an actor isn’t comfortable. Blocking is necessary but quite dull – lots of scribbling down move that you can’t read later. The stage manager usually marks the moves down to settle disputes later.

Once the blocking is finished, we’ll stagger through the play to give those playing small parts an idea of what’s going on. We’re not there yet.

I’m off on holiday tomorrow, so I’ll update when I get back and see what mayhem has happened in my absence.