We’ve also had a review published today in the Salisbury Journal, which you can take a look at here.

This is likely to be the last in this series of blogs for Last Eyes Blinded, but keep an eye on the website over the coming months for details of our next project. For now, thank you and good bye!

We’ve also officially launched our marketing drive: see the posters and fliers on the Last Eyes Blinded Production Page and if you feel like it download and print them off if you have the unstoppable urge to put a few up for us! Additionally, I’m wandering round Salisbury on a regular basis convincing local businesses that they’d love to support us by putting up a poster or two, notably a display in Waterstone’s, and working with the lovely people in the Playhouse Marketing Department. As a result, we’ve actually even managed to sell a few tickets, thus beginning my traditional obsessive checking of ticket sales to ensure that we meet our targets and don’t lose lots of money.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to have our first Production Meeting where we make a few decisions without having to bore the actors to death with them! If there are any particularly interesting points I’ll let you know in my next post!

I’ve just sent off the final versions of our marketing materials sent off to the lovely people at EcoPrint, you can find out more about them at ecoprintuk.com, sent an email to the also lovely people at the Salisbury Playhouse Marketing Department who’ve been a great help to us, and will shortly be popping down to Waterstone’s who have allowed us to put up a display in their store in the past but haven’t got back to us about this year. Additionally, this afternoon Joz and I are going to pop to see the Studio Technician, Dave, at the Playhouse to talk about practicalities.

By the end of this week, we hope to have produced our basic lighting design and final schedules for the production week, to make sure that we can have Dave when we need him: that is for the Technical and Dress Rehearsals and most importantly the Performances, as well as finding time to get the lights up, the stage set and so on. We also need to talk to him about whether he needs a second operator in the box or would rather do it alone to prevent overcrowding!

Well, that’s about it. Sorry my posts aren’t as long and interesting as Joz’s, but I expect them to get longer as we get closer to the performances. This week should have quite a bit of admin stuff happening while rehearsals take a short break.

Jake

Having blocked the whole thing, we’ll be rehearsing again on Monday to go over what we’ve done and start working more intensively on particular scenes. After that, we’re taking a break of about a week as Frith, Steve and myself are all going on mini-holidays, but we’ll be regrouping on the 9th of July to carry on with the work. There’s also been some good developments in the production side of things. Firstly, Jake has taken care of the publicity side of things so by next week we should be starting to put up posters here and there and start the advertising campaign. I’ve also been into the Playhouse to talk to George from Stage Management and then Dave, the Studio Technician. George was very helpful in securing us a few of our trickier props or furniture items, such as an armchair and a crate, while talking to Dave was invaluable as he’ll become an integral part of the show when we get into production week. I’ve been asked to draw up a rough schedule for production week and a rough idea of the lighting and sound plan, which I’ll bring in to him next week, and I’ll also pop into the Costume Department to ask about some of our trickier costumes.

So, with developments onstage and backstage, it’s all shaping up nicely, and I’ll hopefully be seeing you all with more good news in the next blog!

Joz

After the read-through we had to wait until Jake turned up so he could take a few headshots of us all for the flyers. Jake had spent the morning sorting out all our marketing issues, talking to the people at EcoPrint who will hopefully be producing our posters and publicity material. Jake had also had a very helpful talk with everybody at the Playhouse and came with important information on one particular trouble-spot, that being a gunshot that is fired during the course of the play. To use an actual gun onstage would, we knew, involve certain legal and safety issues, but we now discovered that those issues outweighed the necessity of having a gun onstage at all, and so we have settled for an offstage sound effect which will work much better over all. This is a very useful thing to have discovered this early, and will save unnecessary confusion later. Tomorrow rehearsals start properly with the blocking of the first duologue scene between Frith and Ollie, and rehearsals will continue all this week. Also, we’ll hopefully be going into the Playhouse to sort out any other contractual and admin business that needs doing at this stage. See you all in the next blog!

Joz

As a few of you might know, last year No Answer produced the first part of this trilogy in the Salberg, which sold to not a massive audience, but a very appreciative one who were keen to see more in the future. There were no concrete plans to perform the second play, even though it had been written, but we had all secretly hoped that when the time got a little nearer, we might be granted permission to come back and perform again. If we wanted to put forward a production for the Playhouse’s approval, then we needed a decent idea of how it was going to shape up, so we started thinking about our approach to the second play quite early on, back at Christmas in fact, particularly with a view to casting. I was to be in the cast again reprising the role of Mundane that I played last year, and it was decided that Steve Bennett, who played Musk last year, should also return to play the role of Anguish, due to a certain connection between the two characters. We wanted to cast Tom Learner, who played the role of Also last year, in the role of Beaujolais, as in Paperwork he was practically mute and it might be nice to give him more to do. However, Tom was sadly uncertain if he’d have enough time to commit to the project, so instead we are rejoined by Ollie Malam, who played Gerard last year and conveniently enough has the same coloured hair as the actress playing his sister. This meant all the male parts were cast and in the female roles we have newcomer and fellow UEA student Frith Taylor as Miracle; Samantha Scott, founder of Haystack Productions as Bridget; and Alice Phelps, perhaps familiar as Hermione from John Cox’s production of The Winter’s Tale as Bella. General wonder boy Jake Anders will again be our Creative Support Director, sorting out all that complex behind-the-scenes stuff that we actors find so difficult ourselves!

With a cast and a general idea of what was going on decided upon, there was nothing else we could do until several months later, when we officially approached the Playhouse with hopes that we might be allowed to perform again. Our friends Mark Powell and Abigail Harte in the Participation, Education and Outreach department could see no problems with us coming back and sent us along to Tim Croall in Marketing, who helped Jake and myself out with how we should submit our production for inclusion in the brochure. After that it was back to uni for me, and I was notified by email by Mark that Philip Wilson, the Playhouse’s Artistic Director, had ok’ed the production and so we were officially placed in the brochure for the autumn season! After this major development it was time to think more actively about how to put the production together. It’s a massive honour to be included officially in the brochure this year, and it means that it’ll be a great help when it comes to the marketing side of things. The next job was to draw up a rehearsal schedule, trying as much as possible to avoid people’s absences, though sometimes this is inevitable and we’ll have to work on scenes without a particular person.

Jake had already started looking into marketing and suchlike by visiting printing companies and trying to find advertising slots, but for all of us on the creative side of the production it was simply a matter of waiting until the read-through, when the play would really start to take shape.

The weight of sin proving too much for a negflectful God, Earth has been abandoned and destroyed in a firey Apocalypse. Five individuals, however, have survived the catastrophe and now gather to question why they are still alive. Miracle, driven mad by her fear, attempts to rule the others through barbarity and horror, while her brother Beaujolais desperately tries to restrain her and inspire love in the others. The tired and despairing Bridget steadfastly attempts to protect herself from Miracle’s wrath and care for her senile, dying husband Anguish, while the young bride Bella mourns the loss of her happiness and finds peace in a kind of wisdom ahead of her years. As they struggle together, a final figure arrives, hiding from the misdeeds of his past, a demonic monster now at peace, and somehow familiar to Anguish’s dying mind.

Last Eyes Blinded Poster

Last Eyes Blinded Flyer

“Last Eyes Blinded” is the sequel to “Paperwork,” produced last year by No Answer to great acclaim.

4th, 5th and 6th September 2008 – 7:30pm
Salberg Studio, Salisbury Playhouse

Tickets £7 (£5 concessions) – Available from salisburyplayhouse.com or from Salisbury Playhouse Box Office (01722 320333)

The demonic figure of Mundane, “the Professor” is bound in by an unending cycle that he cannot break. Every week, every second, he writes and works towards an unknown goal, a goal that he will not know he has reached unless told by his mute manservant Also, similarly bound into this monotonous cycle, endlessly reading over Mundane’s work, unable to ever tell his master when it is complete. Neglected and alone, the only relief from this tireless routine is the Professor’s Friday evenings, when his few remaining friends come to join him, sharing in his company and the darker secrets of his existence. But on this night, the arrival of Glamour, “the She,” an outsider unfamiliar with their world, prompts them all to reconsider the morals of what they do, and what they see, every day of their lives. This is to be the night that changes the weekly cycle forever.

7th September 2007 – 7:30pm &
8th September 2007 – 2:30pm and 7:30pm
Salberg Studio, Salisbury Playhouse

Tickets: £7 (£5 concessions) – Available at salisburyplayhouse.com or from their Box Office (01722 320333)