Paulette Randall - Technical rehearsal

For me this is another part of the process that I absolutely love: the technical rehearsal where, for the first time, you get to look at the set. I never go and look at it before; when it's going in I don't look at it then. I don't want to look at the costumes, nothing. I wait until the first day of the technical rehearsal when it's all up and we've got some lights, and we start to look at painting the picture really. It's like doing a film I suppose in a way, except you've got live people and they're going to do it every night, rather than do it then print it. So I find it really exciting and it's quite slow, generally quite slow, because you know you might have to repeat the same thing over and over again as you get the actor to that position and you want the lights on them in that particular way or there might be a problem with the costume. It might just not work at all so then they have to go off and do something else, or there might be something not quite right with the set, so we know that we'll keep going for now but that is going to have to be repainted or changed. So it's how you get the whole picture that the audience comes in to see finally, that process, and it's just fantastic, I love it. And a lot of people say, and I've heard actors say all the time, 'Oh, I hate techs.' Why? Because this is when you are going to get everything put together and you're going to know how fabulous you all are. And it's because they have stop and start and so it's quite frustrating for them. When I work with young actors I say to them 'don't buy this myth about techs being horrible, they're brilliant. Use the time well.' If you know you haven't got much to do and you're in danger of driving yourself mad, get a book, listen to music, do whatever you need to do, but enjoy the tech, because it's brilliant.