The joy of a Dress Rehearsal

Even Gestas, the bad thief, is enjoying the rehearsal

We had the Dress Rehearsal last Saturday and it went very well. It is such an important part of the preparation for the Passion Play and we had over 50 people join in.
The Pauline Fathers held Mass at 8am so anyone that arrived early could start the day off right. Then we gathered at the house to allocate and fit costumes.
There are so many costumes and almost all of them have been repaired, upgraded or re-created this year through the hard work of our team of seamstresses. You can see one of the new thieves gowns on our bad thief, Gestas. Jesus is showing off his new "seamless" gown which he will wear and be gambled off by the soldiers while he is being crucified.

Jesus Wants You

The Women of Jerusalem have a multitude of reasonably coloured outfits, Claudia Procula, the wife of Pontius Pilate, looked stunning in her regal outfit and the support teams looked good in their costumes too.
Once we had all the costumes we travelled to the start of the play at the entrance and began at Scene 1 - Judas makes a deal with Caiaphas and the priests.
As we went through each scene, we reviewed where everyone would stand, how they would interact with each other and spectators, where the sound truck would be, who would have the microphones, discussed the manner of speaking and reacting. All up, it is very important to try out each scene with the other actors so that on the day it all flows much easier.
As scenes grew in intensity such as the arrest off Jesus and corresponding scuffle between the apostles and Jewish Guards, the trial at the House of Caiaphas and the beating up of Jesus by the guards and so on, it became very important to run through the choreography so that everyone knows how to act and react.

Rain can't stop us

In one scene a Jewish Guard lightly pushed someone and that person fell to the ground as if pushed much harder. The two of them had been practicing this but no-one else realised so when the person fell to the ground we all cried out and accused the Jewish Guard of being excessively rough. He looked at us bewildered and said, "What?" and the person who has pushed got up laughing saying, "We wanted it to be more dramatic." I answered, "Well it was. Thanks for the warning."

This illustrated the interactive nature of the dress rehearsal. Throughout the scenes each of the actors often had excellent ideas as to how they wanted to play their parts.
In the majority of cases these ideas are incorporated onto the play.

Claudia Procula walking in the gardens

 That is why the play is different - but the same - every year.
For the first time we were able to practice with the microphones and the sound truck. This meant actors and crew were able to see what the sound would be like and how loud they had to speak and how to hold the microphones. It is such an important thing to make sure the sound works as well as it can. With typically over 5,000 people in attendance, not everyone can be at the front at every scene so the sound quality is an important part of the play experience.

The son of Simon of Cyrene enjoying himself

Some clouds did come across and in a couple of parts we had to bear some rain but it was only in short bursts. As you can see from these sample photos the rain did not dampen the enthusiasm of the actors and crew.
Our audio visual team were also on the job preparing for the day, working to get the best positions between them so they could capture the best images on the day.

Overall we are very happy with how the rehearsal went. We are much more ready for the big day on Good Friday.

If you want to take part, we still have some room for a few apostles, Marshalls, microphone runners and Alms collectors. All of these positions are important as everyone completes their part, whether it is perceived as big or small, and the play goes so much smoother and is an overall better experience.

A gentlemanly Jewish Guard providing rain cover

Women of Jerusalem watching on

Jesus preparing for His Passion