Hello there, everyone! I am Julia Carstairs – a devoted FCTer – and I will be giving you all the behind-the-scenes gossip from ‘The Chess Game’ rehearsals. I will keep you posted with the latest FCT updates….but I’ll also be giving you a personal insight to our jolly cast!
Hopefully I will manage some interviews – I am especially keen to interview Ian Macdonald and find out what inspired him to write ‘The Chess Game’. There are many levels to this show so it would be great to develop a better understanding of the reasons behind the characters and plot, and from who better than the creator!
Rehearsals have been going very well – we have learnt almost all of the songs in Act 1, and Kirsty Shaw has choreographed a wonderfully quirky piece of movement for one of the numbers.
Ian said he was ‘impressed’ with how quickly the cast had picked up the music (GREAT RESULT!) – and I can personally tell you that a few of the songs are actually very tricky! Some of these notes I didn’t even know existed! The cast are having great fun developing their characters – and I’ll tell you there is a wonderful mix of characters to behold – French Queens, Yogi Bishops and Oh-So-Posh Knights!
The biggest challenge for the cast will be understanding the darker messages involved in the production and portraying them effectively. The musical has a lot to offer intellectually and raises several potent and serious questions about today’s society – a lot of the more jazzy songs are full of tongue-in-cheek subtext so the cast will have to develop their sense of irony. We will be helped along the way with the brilliant direction of Vic Laing and this show will be one that is NOT to be missed!
So if you are planning on seeing a show in this years Fringe – make it FCT’s ‘The Chess Game’! It will be excellent, thought-provoking and memorable! Haha…that was so biased…but oh well… (expect a lot of this from me – I am a big FCT geek!)
MORE TO COME SOON.
Cheers
Julia (Black Queen)