Abbey Theatre - Amharclann na Mainistreach

Rehearsals continued in the rehearsal room with a run of the play each day to time it and allow the Director to watch the flow of the action. This can be incredibly hard work for stage management as it involves setting up the whole show from the start without the advantage of space that you might have in the theatre.

The Artistic director sits in on one of these runs to get a feel for the directors’ choices and this is the first step for the actors in performing for an audience, besides stage management.
While the rehearsal continues the technical fit-up begins. The previous show Bookworms was dismantled and put in a truck on Monday and then lighting team de-rigged the lights from
that show and began rigging the lights for Plough.

Tuesday we put in the set and the construction manager from the workshop supervised the build. Wednesday rigging of Lx continued and the Towers for lighting were constructed. Thursday was the focus day and the Lighting team focused each lamp to the designers’ requirements. This continued into Friday while sound began to load and listen to some of the effects and music for the show. Moving the furniture and props from the rehearsal room began in the afternoon.

Friday night we began to tech the cloths for the first half of the show so that they would run smoothly when we had the cast on stage for their technical rehearsals on the set with lights, sound and flying.

I’ve just sat down for two minutes with half an hour of tech time left till the dress rehearsal. It’s been a really busy week and a half.

Aisling Mooney