BULLS*** R+D weeks one and two

What is it about rehearsal periods which make you think you're going to become the healthiest human on the planet? You'll eat well, sleep lots and regularly, reflect and journal daily, meditate, exercise, and generally be the best version of yourself. Right.

Ok, so I did manage some of these - and it is entirely possible that between our whole cast and creative team, we may have achieved them all. At least once. But on the whole, by the end of the second week of our R+D, I was pretty exhausted, kinda ill, on occasion slightly delirious, and definitely no longer managing week one's 7.30 am runs. Ok fine, 8 am runs. I was also completely invigorated, stimulated, fuelled by creativity, ideas and laughter, and incredibly excited to get into the room every morning to play and create with the 5 other wonderful humans we were beginning to make BULLS*** with.

So many ideas to discuss!

We spent the first couple of days at the Lab, Theatre Royal Plymouth's dedicated studio space, where the show will be performed in December. [PLUG: Thurs 13th - Sat 15th, 8pm every night, tickets available HERE: https://www.theatreroyal.com/whats-on/2018/bulls/. Come see us be creative and serious and very silly in equal measure.] We drew behind-our-backs portraits of each other, learnt that Sophie was in fact once chased by a bull, Reon has a birthmark under his toenail (but was NOT attacked by a dog), and that I definitely do not speak Spanish. We created an ace new game (cowboy croquet - challenge us to a tournament some day...). We also played with purpose (and without), and spent time sharing ideas stimulated by our research, and talking about what we'd like to see in the show. We mashed together a multitude of opposite things (cowboy erotica and corporate CEO's, anybody?), and made accidental discoveries, which are always, always the best kind. Come Wednesday, we moved over to TR2, the Theatre's dedicated production facility, and spent the rest of the week starting to hone in, and create moments and beginnings of scenes within the parameters of what had interested us from the first two days. We spent our mornings working physically, discovering and refining the physical language of the show, under the careful eye of our wonderful movement director, Sophie. Our writer Sian worked on hashing out a structure and a plot, and determining initial character profiles, and we started to develop certain formal conventions and chuck others out of the window.

Oh, and most importantly, Lucy did a sterling job of representing about 850 bulls and Megan learnt to be to opposite of a banana (until Sophie told her that for certain physical moments, she did in fact need to be... more of a banana). Come week two, we got really stuck in. Working within a solid structure and exciting storyline refined by our writer, we started making scenes, and developing physical montages, which is one of the ways we have chosen to depict parts of the story which involve a lot of action or the passage of time. I was amazed daily by the effort and efficiency of our wonderful collaborative devisers and performers, through whose hard work, boundless creativity, and immense good humour, we managed to rough out much of our story within about 3 days. Before we knew it, it was Friday, and we were creating our last moments and testing our last ideas, before wrapping up with a photo shoot with the wonderful Matt Austin (photos to come... watch this space!). And to top it all off, we couldn't end without giant pizzas, which Reon reliably informs us he hasn't been able to stop thinking about since. Whirlwind, totally wonderful whirlwind. Bring on December!

Whirlwind done, bring on December.