Creative Producing

As a Creative Producer taking my own script through to production has been an interesting journey. See my previous blog for how I got the funding and the theatre space.

But at this point, I've done all the writing and rewrites on my play The Mysterious Gentleman, and now it's time to hand that over to the director, Kasia Różycki and the actors to work their magic with my words.

We held auditions for the two actors who are joining the already cast Andrew Thorn as JN Maskelyne, and it was really interesting seeing lots of actors reading for us and playing around with the script. It wasn't obvious who to choose at first, but we did a few recalls and asked the actors to delve a little bit deeper and to start building characters and soon two obvious choices emerged. So Dave Short and Josh Harper have joined us to play George Cooke & Nevil Maskelyne.

We start rehearsals in a week, and finding space in central London was tricky, but we finally settled on the very reasonably priced Theatre Delicatessen theatredelicatessen.co.uk

Marketing is the bit most creative people hate, but it's necessary if we're going to get an audience, which is really the point of all the work we've put in so far. We've got a great team doing all our online stuff - thanks Kelly France & Chris Hislop. But I'm thinking about what it is we're offering to our audiences. If you were thinking of coming along, what could I say to entice you?

It's a play about a magician who asked the question 'what happens to us after we die'? It's funny in places, and spine tingling in others. There will be magic onstage which will hopefully impress you, and there will be thought provoking moments where you'll see the struggle the characters have holding on to their beliefs. But most of all you'll be taken on a thoroughly entertaining journey into the world of Victorian magic.

I'll leave the last word to an audience member who saw the original production - 'It appealed to my dark side, of course, and I loved the mix of scepticism and the poignant desire for 'contact' after a death.'
 
And the final, final word to the Gloucestershire Echo who gave it a 5* review

From the outset, I was transfixed by a highly absorbing story that drew me inexorably in as the revelations unfolded.