It starts tonight ...

I am the director. The director of a Shakespeare play. The director of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is a special production. It's the first time Wollongong Workshop Theatre (est 1952) has done a production like it. We have combined with another local theatre group called Altogether Drama - a theatre group that provides mainstream opportunities for actors with a disability.

We are located in Wollongong, in the State of New South Wales, in Australia and if you are still wondering, try Google Maps. Wollongong Workshop Theatre (WWT) is located in a suburb of Wollongong called Gwynneville. This project was first mooted 2 years ago and now we are finally underway with rehearsals. The Altogether Drama (AD) actors have had their scripts since March and we started rehearsals proper on August 9th 2008.

The AD actors are cast in a full range of roles, 3 as fairies, 2 as part of the 'rude mechanicals', one as the lover Hermia and another as Puck. WWT actors make up the remaining roles. I am the Director and my name is Lajos and I adapted the script to reflect a more Australian feel. I will also be creating a soundtrack for the play with local musicians.

As of this moment there is an administrative production team of six people from Altogether Drama and its auspicing organization Recreation Illawarra and WWT. There is a performance production team of six people (3 of us are in the other team!) which includes my fabulous Stage Manager Tessa. We have engaged a set designer (Simon Greer), a composer (Houston Dunleavy) for the fairy's song, there are sponsors and grants and, well, it's a kind of huge production!

Over the rest of the production period I will be blogging and video recording rehearsals and a video diary and I will try and add some juicy bits of the highs and lows (hopefully too few to mention) of this amazing project ... so ... here we go!