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Bare Bones

20th July 2011

Today's blog was written by LJ.

The day started bright and early — although not early enough for some. At the end of the afternoon, Gloria told us that she felt setting her alarm a little earlier might be worthwhile... even though she was the first of the girls to get up! Or should I say the earliest bird? After a frantic last minute check by Chip that all three ladies were actually out of bed, we set off for the Artrix in Bromsgrove, ready to start a fresh day of rehearsing and designing.

(Above) The assortment of goodies with which Talulah will be shaping our set; and (below) the first tree skeleton.

Since Christmas came early for Tallulah yesterday, she now had all the materials necessary for the week and was itching to begin making her designs a reality. The rest of us left her to it and got to work blocking the first of the five stories in A Bird In Your Ear. Once we were familiar with the basic structure, we played around with ideas to enhance the telling, leading to some incredibly funny moments and a smorgasbord of tea-related puns. Those of us more used to working with scripts felt a bit "discombobulated" — but we all found the freedom of storytelling to provide a refreshing and challenging experience. Of course, we're helped by the amazing cohesive stories made for us by Little Birds!

From left: Gloria, Chip, David and LJ, breathing life to gardening gloves

After lunch, we started on the next story. Before blocking this, we had some practice with the puppets, which are currently in the "gardening glove" stage of their life cycle. This lead to the funniest — and fastest — rendition of 'Nellie the Elephant' the world has ever known... followed by a considerable amount of hand cramp! Before ending the day we experimented with giving our puppets voices, ranging from heavy metal bikers to a gentle Welsh lilt.

We end every day in the theatre so that us storytellers can share our efforts with Talulah, and she can report on her progress to us. Today we had the chance to admire the fantastic tree skeleton that Tallulah had erected in record time around a sturdy lightstand. Now we could really start to envision what this production is going to look like.

Back at the house, David cooked up a delicious rice and veggie dish, with added sausages for the meat-eaters. Yours truly provided dessert in the shape of a fresh fruit salad. Such a healthy dessert was too much for Chip, who doused it in a pint of cream to offset the nutritional value.

After such a busy day, us girls have decided to postpone our inevitable Playing Shakespeare comeback victory until another day...