Mindscape of a roguespirit: The winters tale in Poland

So here we are back in Gdansk. This is now my 3rd summer in Gdansk in 4 years and It is so strange to come to a foreign city that feels so familiar. Strange but wonderful. My favourite moment has to be walking into the town centre and hearing a high pitched voice call my name and suddenly being hugged by a 9 year old boy that remembered me from 2 years ago. Warmed my heart.

Anyway we got of the plane and headed straight into a 5 hour rehearsal in which

I got to meet the 30 odd

members of the Polish cast for the first time. And here is the first hurdle. Never have I done the same project twice with different people in such a short space of time. The triumph of what we achieved in Ostrava and the wonderful people we met and became friends with there still ride high in my mind. And yet in order to engage with and create something new and wonderful here, it will be necessary

push it away a little (just a little) so that what we do here truly becomes its own unique adventure.

Our rehearsal venue is the Gdansk Fine Arts Academy department of sculpture and is an amazing place.

Have a little tour.

The first day we spent doing lots of games and while this is fun it is also hard work. It allows us to see how a cast will engage with each other, with the director and with the silliness that is generally part of the acting life. And the cast responded with such a wonderful level of engagement that it was a truly wonderful day. The pictures that litter this post are an example of how silly these folk are willing to get - and that's a good thing.

The second day. A lovely Sunday was mostly music and my word what a musical bunch they are. There are a lot of musicians in this crowd and among the instruments people brought to play with are a violin, a recorder, 2 guitars, a bass, a digeridoo, a hand drum and a mouth harp!!!

Here's an example of the cast trying out a 4 part number form the show

We ended this day with a hilarious summary of the play which I got the cast to act out. Needless to say there

was much laughter, from a company that range from 8 to 70 yrs old. We have also brought 4 members of the Czech team with us and it is beautiful to see how everyone is meshing together. It's lovely to see a couple of members from our show Pericles from 2 years ago

Let me leave you with a couple of local wow moments. The first is a couple of buskers that are a cut above the average performing some Vivaldi I believe.