Remote Rehearsal Diary – NT Connections Festival

Tue 12 Apr 2022

Remote is back! This time it’s part of our NT Connections Festival where The Marlowe acts as a host venue for nine companies from the South East who will perform their Connections shows over five days in The Studio. NT Connections is a project by the National Theatre where 10 plays are commissioned each year specifically for young people across the country to perform, and saw members of The Marlowe Youth Company perform Stef Smith’s Remote back in February. As they return to rehearse for their May performance, we have got members of the company to keep us up to date on their progress with our Remote Rehearsal Diary! Find out more on how rehearsals have been going so far…

Wednesday 23 March
Today was our first rehearsal since doing our performance in February. It was really fun and nice to see all the cast again and familiarise ourselves with our characters again. We started the rehearsal with our director Ellie giving us notes she had been given and also notes that she had herself, such as making some moments even more humorous and lighter. She also asked if there was anything particular anyone wanted to go over, but nobody had anything. The first scene we went over in the session was the tree climbing scene at the very start, which, although I’m not in that scene, was nice to see everyone being a company again. We were also getting back into our “character bodies”, how we move as characters, and remembering the different physicalities our respective characters had. We then went through a few other scenes which I was in and ran through them a couple of times to get the feel of them again and adjusted some things, like emphasising the sarcasm on some lines. All in all, it was a great rehearsal and I can’t believe we’ll be performing Remote again in just a month!
Mia (Desk)

Wednesday 30 March
Today we rehearsed in The Studio, as another company were using The Kit. We first ran through two other characters’ scenes. As one of them wasn’t there, I had to read their lines to allow everyone else to rehearse the scenes. It was quite funny to play a character very different from my own and interesting to immerse myself in other scenes which I haven’t been in before, as being in them is very different from watching them backstage. It was interesting to see even more that being part of a show – or anything really – is about the whole ensemble, the whole group. Sometimes we have to read in for others but it’s still really fun and the whole group supports you when you’re doing it. This rehearsal was mainly about how the chorus reacts to different characters and what they do and was our first one before the Easter holidays. After that, we’ll only have a few weeks left!
Mia (Desk)

Remote, performed by members of The Marlowe Youth Company, is playing in The Studio as part of the NT Connections Festival on Sunday 1 May. The NT Connections Festival runs from Thursday 28 April to Sunday 1 May and tickets can be purchased here. You can also find out more about our Youth Company.