Edward Stambollouian on The Lion in Winter

I am currently the Masterclass Apprentice Director on Trevor Nunn’s production of The Lion in Winter at Theatre Royal Haymarket.

Our rehearsal room is a large space at the Dominion Theatre on Tottenham Court Road, tucked away in the shadows of the gigantic golden Freddie Mercury statue. We’ve been working for five weeks now and the room is littered with the remnants of intense rehearsals. Photographs of Stephen Brimson Lewis’s beautiful set design line the walls alongside pages of research, timelines and rehearsal calls. There’s a heavily frequented tea and coffee table with a dangerously never-ending supply of bourbons and custard creams! Occasionally on tea break the sounds of We Will Rock You rehearsals drift through the walls and we tap our feet along to yet another power anthem!

The stage space is marked onto the floor with tape so the actors can learn their entrances and exits and start to imagine the size of the playing area. The second a chair is moved an inch one of the stage management team goes flying across the room to ensure that it is marked down with a piece of carefully colour co-ordinated tape. It is a military operation and at the end of the day precise measurements are taken and scribed into the stage management bible.

Every day we receive more and more detailed rehearsal props in place of the show props which will arrive during tech week. During one week a piece of holly morphs from a mimed prop, to a hashed together string of green paper towels and rope to finally some fake leaves. The Christmas tree arrives early in the process so we can get used to the size of it in the space. It’s currently made of pink ribbons and a hat stand. I don’t think it will make the final design! (see below image with Kelsi our Technical Apprentice)

Alongside the rehearsal space are several tables of onlookers, or as Trevor calls them, the judging panel. There’s a large table for stage management which is slowly being taken over by sound equipment as music cues are introduced to rehearsals. Trevor and I sit at a table which is covered in history books and notes; I am on constant alert to field any contextual questions that might fly my way. The understudy cast have just joined the room and will be observing the last few weeks of work; they sit on their own table scribbling down notes onto their scripts. In the far corner is “the family”; a large square table where the L.I.W. cast sit, eat their lunch and run lines. Both on-stage and off the cast maintain the family dynamic; each child is greeted with a hug in the morning from their stage parents, there are affectionate squabbles over who sits where and food is shared around lovingly. If only the Plantagenets got on so well…

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