Show Day: Friday 13th, Matinee

The matinee performance on Friday 13^th was made up of a large group of students from an all girl’s school. On this performance we had to add another two rows of seats to accommodate for the large number of students, this then reduced our performance space which was already limited at specific moments. This meant that during the performance we had to automatically accommodate to our smaller performance space. I felt that this was done effectively as we ensured that our placing in dances was kept tight and that we went slightly further when exiting off stage via the audience. Much like the Wednesday matinee the girls were not afraid to interact with us and were always willing to give a boo or cheer when needed, which always gives us an extra boost of energy when on stage.

As with any show you have to pay close attention to the audience in moments when they react, examples of this was when shouting “Hello” to Buttons or booing the Baroness. The dialogue cannot continue until they’ve finished shouting out or the dialogue will be lost. With this matinee we had to play close attention to this as the girls would cheer and boo slightly longer than our previous matinee audiences. In Act 1, Scene 3 when the Fairy Godfather comes on with his dog “Hotdog” there was a loud reaction from the girls as they cooed at the dog, this meant that we had to wait that little bit longer before the dialogue started to allow the girls to react completely. With each show you have to adapt to the audience and how they’re going to react to the show to ensure they get the fullest experience.  

The Fairy Godfather's entrance with Hot Dog and the fairies.