It's been more than a week since i stepped into TNS..everything was quite fine except for the super long distance bus rides,,two hours plus everyday.
Everyday i wake up early in the morning and go to the theatre, and when i step out again the sun is already setting..basically TNS is located in the marine parade community centre building basement, and the whole production centre consists of a few admin offices, a rehearsal room, a sets workshop, a pantry, an amazing props room, and an excellent mini theatre called the Black Box. The Black Box is really black, from the floor, the walls and all the way to the ceiling..i quite like it =) Just that after you work in the Black Box for too long, each time you step out into the sun, it feels more glaring than ever..talking about the props room, the 1st time i stepped into it i was so super overwhelmed by the huge collection of props inside!! Very neat and organized too. There were about 8 shelves in total, neatly labelled and with plastic boxes contaning the respective props. They have almost everything that i can think of, all the way from fake stomaches to big luggage bags to old oil lamps to plastic food. Basically u name it, they have it. Even for mirrors they have an entire box of it.. Not to mention the variety of costumes they have. The whole store room is almost twice as big as the entire cabin in cfa, and FULL of props and costumes. I really wonder where they got all that props from..0.0
Finally the workshop with the russian theatre Knam ended, and the very next day the theatre was re-set up for the production in january 2009, Frozen Angels. After doing rehearsals with the actors (only two of them!) for about three days, my conclusion is that, the nus drama clubs including us really has a long way to go. I felt lucky that i managed to get this chance to work with a professional theatre, it was really an eye-opening experience. The actors are always full of passion, and they are able to get into different situations and emotions almost immediately, and they do it very well, not mentioning their ability to memorize a whole 15-page of lines in a mere two days! Excellent i would say..
Other than the usual sai kangs that i did, i was also put to be in charge of collecting costumes from outside companies. Went to joo chiat to get a white shirt yesterday, and tomorrow i need to get a wedding gown from mediacorp, and later in the afternoon go shopping for a handbag for the production. Good thing is you can take taxi where ever you go and get claims from TNS..hahas =p
I was also in charge of the fader in the production, something i had never seen before for my entire life! It was quite interesting working with the fader. Basically they were two machines each with four channels, each linked to either a computer, a dvd player, a camera or a live feed. A live feed is something like a person videoing something and the image is directly projected onto the screen, so the audience is seeing something "live" going on. Frozen Angels uses a lot of multimedia and it makes things technically quite challenging. So each time a fading is done (by moving this lever like thing on the fader), there is a change of image from one channel to another channel, like from a dvd video to a live feed..The 1st day i had quite little time to learn the fader since most of the time was spent on the actors who are not yet familiar with the lines. Had quite little time to test out and it was quite messy. For the 2nd day, some filming and voice recording was done in the morning so i had quite little time to practise as well. For the 3rd day, i was suppose to teach a new intern to use the fader already, since i will not be with the TNS from Jan onwards..pretty fun experience though..=)
Some parts that i like from the script:
"What is your idea of a perfect present?" "A perfect present is someone to be with. Someone to walk with. Someone to hold."
"What causes time to stop?" "When we watch the sunset. When we are together. Time stops. Everything stops."
"The world looks smaller from here. The lights are brighter. The biggest ship is the size of my thumb. I see my fingers in the sea. They are moving away from me, slowly, travelling to new places. But I'm not afraid. Because i know, the ships will come back, to me."
