Racheal - Production Date: 16 November – 01 December, 2001
- Production Company: API Theatre, Brisbane
- Playwright: Alan Ayckbourn
- My Role: Ginny
After starting my acting journey five years ago, I was finally given the opportunity to perform in a lead role. Unfortunately, this show came at a most uncertain time in my life and for the first time ever I realised what it felt like to be stressed!
What should have been a wonderful opportunity and chance to showcase what I could do, I felt like I let the team down. I couldn’t have known when I was initially cast in the role, that would also be going through the potential of being made redundant in my full time job – where I had been working for the past 7 years. This naturally gave me feelings of fear and doubt about job security and what I was going to do if I was made redundant. (Thankfully I didn’t end up being made redundant at the time, but when the second round of redundancies happened the following year, I was much more prepared for it!).
Needless to say, this new found stress and anxiety didn’t help with my performance. I got through it though, but looking back I could have handled it so much better. I don’t remember much about the show or my co-stars, other than one particular show where my co-lead had forgotten to say a line. From memory, our characters had just had an argument, and I was sitting on the bed (the setting for the scene was in a bedroom). I don’t know what the argument was about, nor what the missed line should have been, but I distinctly remember that the phone was meant to ring and that phone call would change the entire direction of the scene.
Normally, if someone forgets a line either that actor, or someone else in the scene will make a comment or re-hash a line to keep the scene moving forward and getting it back on track. I remember sitting on the bed thinking what could I say or do that would help, but that anything I said wouldn’t make sense. It was obvious that the tech crew were waiting on the line before playing the ring tone, but it wasn’t coming. I kept staring at the phone, praying they would make it ring soon. It felt like ages but it did eventually play and the scene continued on.
I’m also surprised I don’t appear to have any photos from the show. We still aren’t really in the digital camera age yet, so many photos had to be developed and the theatre company kept all the hard copies. Sometimes they could be scanned in so they could be put into the show program, but it seems this one didn’t at the time.
CAST: Robyn Henry, Jeff Mitchell, Anthony West.
CREW: Col Hamblyn (Director), Paul Hannah (Stage Manager), Ken Latter (Lighting & Set Design), Maurice Briggs (Lighting & Sound), Julie Bray, Kate Hannah, George Williams, Anthony West, Terry Fuller, Pat Hamblyn.
