Everything in Cambridge moves quickly and rehearsals are no different. Previously I’ve only had around two weeks to rehearse 90 minute shows, so rehearsals would happen every day in order to block the show in time. This time, however, we are blessed with four long weeks to put the show together, and according to schedule the show should be blocked within the first two weeks of that time, leaving us another two weeks to perfect it. This is highly unusual, and I’m determined to make the most of the time available. We’ve had just one week of rehearsals so far, but we’ve rehearsed every day except the weekend to try and get the initial blocking together as fast as possible. It helps that we started before term.

Rehearsals tend to follow a fairly basic format that seems to work. The first step is obviously preparing for the rehearsal – this is something I try to do the night before, but I usually end up doing it over breakfast. The purpose of this is to get a basic idea of how the scenes work and to identify problem areas. I like to have a basic vision of how the scene will work before I go into the rehearsal room so that I am not immediately influenced by Ella’s performance. One of the most interesting aspects of a rehearsal is seeing how different our interpretations of the scene are, and taking the best parts of both ideas. This is especially important in a one-person play, as Ella has complete control over the scene – she can guide it in any direction that she wants, so having multiple ideas is hugely valuable. The other purpose is to identify problem areas; the biggest danger in a one-person show is losing the audience’s attention, so dealing with large blocks of descriptive text is essential.

The next step of the rehearsal preparation process happens in the rehearsal room with Ella. One of the amazing things about directing My Name is Rachel Corrie is that her complete journals have been published – they contain the vast majority of the text that is in the play, as well as all her other journal entries and numerous emails. In addition to this, they contain many of her sketches, which are an incredible insight into her creative mind. Many of the monologues in the play are edited and cut down versions of longer journal entries in the text, and a lot of them are stitched together from completely different entries pages apart. In the rehearsal room we start by sitting down and unpicking the editors’ hard work to see what they’ve done. Often extracts can seem nonsensical and irrelevant until we read the full journal entry, which we then have the challenge of communicating to the audience. When reading these entries, I regularly ask Ella to read them out loud to me in order for her to practise and warm up her American accent.

The most exciting part of the rehearsal is getting the script on its feet. At this point anything can happen. All the preparation can go completely out of the window once we realise that it simply does not work. Ideas can seem forced or out of place and transitions in particular can become problem areas. At this point we try to stitch together both our interpretations of the script and create a cohesive whole. Fortunately most of the time we are on similar wavelengths, so it’s never really the case that we’re trying to fit together two completely opposing ideas. If that were the case we probably wouldn’t be trying to fit them together at all, and we’d simply go with one interpretation.

Often in these rehearsals we have found that music brings the scene to life. Subtle background music can go a long way to making the scene seem more free and exciting. If nothing else, it keeps the audience’s attention and they can enjoy the music. This music tends to be instrumental, so the focus is still on Rachel Corrie’s words, rather than the production, and it is used to enhance the scene rather than to hold it together. One of the reasons I chose to put on My Name is Rachel Corrie was because it is a very modern play, and it has the potential to be put on in a very modern and innovative way. I was keen to explore the use of technology in modern theatre to tell stories in more interesting ways. The use of music is an important part of this. The productions of My Name is Rachel Corrie that we found online are very naturalistic and straightforward monologues, but this was something I desperately wanted to avoid. From the opening scene of our production, the audience will be drawn in by lights, music, physical theatre and a powerful monologue that will set the tone for the piece. Although it is a one-person play, it should never feel like a string of monologues, but a powerful cohesive whole.

The next week will be spent blocking the rest of the piece before we start perfecting it. There are very exciting times ahead.