Suits you Madam!

What would Elizabeth wear? Assuming she's around in the 40s/50s in Britain that is. The costume department have the answer and here it is:

Eyes wide shut

A rather fetching two piece and my daughter assures me that turbans are very 'now'  so that's all right. Sadly, my alter ego Elizabeth, alias Linda,  is distinctly slimmer round the waist than me so a bit of strategically placed elastic should ensure that we can both wear it. A rather lumpy cardigan thing and some black court shoes complete the look. I try out the shoes walking at speed as I'm reminded that the stage is huge. Not bad. I don't want to do a Naomi Campbell in front of 1,400 people, do I?

Acting by numbers

This is blocking as I've never done it before. There are laminated pieces of A4 laid out on the floor labelled B6 C7 etc. When you have hundreds of actors on a huge stage, everyone has to know where they're going. A voice calls out:

'39 and 21 enter Red 7'

 '21 exit Red 9'

'40 enters C3, crosses stage left'
'D3 door shuts on Mary and Joseph'

It's all starting to make sense, though there some funny moments:
Director to Joseph, 'What are you doing?'
Joseph, 'I'm acting!'

Most of the time, I'm not acting but watching as they work out a scene I'm not in. I forgot to bring a good book, so I chat to others and keep an eye on proceedings. 

Here's Ruth and Eileen catching up... We all treat Ruth with great respect - the only woman we know who's ever played God in the Mystery Plays!

I'm in Japhet's gang - May 15th

So keep walking in a diagonal direction and remember who you're with.

It's easy really so how come I ended up with Ham's group? It won't happen again. Today I'm with my new Potter partner - who turns out to be Linda from my French class - isn't York like that? We've also got the kids and under Damian's direction, we turn into families, living normal lives. Some are making bread, others teaching or weeding the fields - it's amazing how we become snapshots of everyday life before the alarm spreads when soldiers appear to round us up.

The scenes we're rehearsing are 'Humanity goes to the dogs' and 'The journey to Bethlehem'. I am part of a long line of women washing bloodstained clothing symbolising humanity going to the dogs. It's an arresting image and I'm sure it will be one of many to surprise and affect the audience.

Rumours are flying around about who will play God/Jesus. Lots of famous names are mentioned but the good news is that we hear that the announcement is coming soon, very soon. We also hear that already about a third of the tickets have been sold - better get the family tickets organised!

Meet the family - Tuesday 8th May

We've been rehearsing for about a month now - those with speaking parts large and small...

Mine's small - I play Elizabeth, Mary's cousin and mother of John the Baptist in the Bible - and Mary's best mate/protector in this play. Today, we meet the others from the ensemble - that's what we used to call the crowd -  and we're all in it. I'm a Carpenter with a red tee shirt - bear with me - all will become clear.

There seem to be hundreds of us and we're only the Reds! There are 3 more teams like us - thank God the stage is going to be huge. Today's task is to sort out the stage after the flood. Noah's ark has to be removed and then we form into lines shuffling forward like refugees. Soldiers appear from nowhere and start barking orders.They're calling out for men and boys to be pulled from the line - there's a sudden horrific echo to me at least - of the massacres at Srebrenice and among the laughter of a large crowd of people trying to get themselves organised, I shiver.

Eventually, we mange to get to the right place with Damian marshalling us. That's him in the picture but that's obviously not me, even though she's wearing a red tee shirt cos she's a Potter and I'm a Carpenter. See? Told you it was easy. We're given a plan of the stage with its colour coded entrances and exits and squares labelled Blue 5 and Yellow 3 and the like. There are sub stage ramps and seating banks and it all makes perfect sense - to the directors at least. I need to study it.