Farewell, ABC: Hello, Lyric!

The cast of An Officer And A Gentleman have packed up their rehearsal room at ABC studios, Ultimo and are now officially bumped into the Lyric Theatre, The Star ahead of a World Premiere Opening Night in just over 3 weeks, as Alex Rathgeber writes…

It’s not a dream, it’s all real…we’re in the theatre! The crew have been bumping in for the past 4 weeks, and today we’ll be getting into costumes, wigs and mics for our first day on the set.

The past couple of weeks have been hectic, hence my absence from the bloggosphere! Back at the ABC, each day was choc-a-bloc full of edits of the script and score, keeping us all on our toes. But once we had Act Two sorted we were able to run the complete show a couple of times before getting to the theatre. It’s in pretty solid shape now and everyone is amazing in their parts. We’re ready for the theatre.

Our four young guns – Oliver, Michael, Otis and George – who are playing the role of Young Zack, joined us and were each given a run with the full cast whilst also having their own private rehearsals with our resident director/choreographer Tanya (Mitford). These guys are awesome all-rounders, and the energy they bring to the opening number especially is perfect.

[pull_left]We haven’t heard any orchestrations yet, but with all the alterations at the 11th-hour the music department have been working around the clock to get the score ready for rehearsals with the band[/pull_left]

There’s a number in Act One called Liberty involving costume changes on stage, so we had a special early costume run-through in the rehearsal room, which was a lot of fun. Evidently the way Dale (Ferguson) has designed the costumes, and the way Billy Roche and the costume department have produced them, meant that it all seems to be more straight-forward than expected. It was good to see how different it feels in costumes, and a few of the girls watching said the military uniforms looked pretty good too!

All of us playing officer candidates in the show have had our hair cut in more military style. I just had mine done yesterday and I’ve never had my hair this short, so I’m still getting used to it, but there’s no doubting how much more authentic it is for the story.

We haven’t heard any orchestrations yet, but with all the alterations at the 11th-hour the music department have been working around the clock to get the score ready for rehearsals with the band, and we’ll be hearing them for the first time this week, which could not be more exciting. To go from the basic piano accompaniment we’ve had for the past 5 weeks to the fully-realised soundscape is going to be breathtaking.

Anyway….enough talk, more action. I’m off to move into my dressing room, warm up and get on stage.

Lest We Forget and Happy Anzac Day everyone!

Click on the rehearsal images below to enlarge and scroll through. Photography by Shane O’Connor

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