Follow Pauline Lynch, director of Secret Wrapped In Lead, as she reflects on what she’s learned.

Wednesday 31st May

Production manager, Paul, and I, completed our reccies of the venues. It’s a laborious process co-ordinating with everyone’s schedules to gain access so it feels like we’re through an important phase.

Earlier thoughts of theatre in the round have been dismissed due to capacity concerns. I’ve found it so interesting to see these different spaces with Paul and discover all the factors that I never had to consider as an actor.

Suddenly, the distance between the audience’s chairs is fascinating.

How far are we from the fire exit?

How are the sightlines from this angle? Can we have a bar? Where will the actors get ready? And the answer to these questions are usually different in each venue. We need to be very flexible with this level of small-scale touring, and the actors will be asked to do something different in each new space.

Today we also had the opportunity to lay out our aluminium decks in Loaningdale and what a difference it makes to see them on the floor, and to walk on them. Paul was right – 4 is plenty and I can’t believe I ever thought I needed 6. A couple of our halls are too small to accommodate 4 and the size of audience we want, so we will use 3 in those spaces.

In other news, Cristina wasn’t so lucky in gaining access to the space she wanted to shoot in so it was all change today.

Luckily, she had no problems finding a new space.

The only issue is we can’t access it until the day before the shoot so we will have to use what we get. How showbiz! I would have been terrified by this not so long ago. Now, I know we’ll make it work.

I’ve known Cristina for years but this is the first opportunity I’ve had to work with her. Her tech skills leave me in awe, but more than this – she seems to understand and interpret my vague ideas perfectly.

I had no thoughts of making a trailer when we were putting the application for Secret together so this feels like some very exciting icing on the cake.

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