Hello, Sammi from BDTC. here. This is my first ever update here on the BDTC. blog. This is mostly down to a lack of sufficient attention span and the fact that I sometimes forget about the internet when it comes to BDTC.

For me it all falls into place when in a rehearsal room or performance space, to try and put all the fun and all my thoughts into sensible order and then to post it online seems a little tricky.

But here we are, Internet, you and me. And Macbeth of course, don’t forget about him or he’ll come and get you.

Unfortunately this blog does not cover all our shows since the last post almost a year ago, back with Much Ado About Nothing.

Twelfth Night was our first ever Christmas show, and was a lovely, grand affair. The show featured our longest run to date, full of mince pies and carolling and a lot of larking about. Thanks to one and all, people that got involved/ and people that came to one of the shows, we all had a splendid time.

And so we came to 2013, the year that would see BDTC through its second birthday and the year we hoped to expand on our ambitions and reach even further.

We all agreed and decided on our next project having a longer process, both in rehearsal and performance and that it might be time to try something new.

Ever since Much Ado I’ve been keen to direct again, and to look at very different themes and atmospheres to my previous, summery endeavour, so I declared (rather boldly) that I would like to try out Macbeth.

After many meetings and discussions we had a rough plan and we had a few aims set down, which go something like this:-

We would try our hands at running a short tour, regionally, and we would try and take it to unusual venues, remote places or non-performative spaces around the Lancaster area.

This decision was down to us now being financially capable, but also because we feel deeply attached to the North West and wanted to begin laying down roots in the local area of Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cumbria. It seemed like the next logical step, and hopefully something that we will be expanding on in the future.

We would do our best to form a tight knit, small ensemble company that could last for a number of months.

As a company we have been very lucky to have always worked with a number of local artists who have all helped contribute to a warm, supportive environment.

We wanted to foster that further, especially considering the larger scale of ideas for Macbeth.

We worked with the text and cemented upon having a cast of only eight performers, who would have an almost equal share of the play and would be interwoven throughout the entire show.

The notions behind this lie in the idea of eventually using a core team of actors/producers and technicians over longer periods of time, allowing them to have a much bigger part of company and hopefully in the future, working multiple shows.

We would try our very best to not ruin the company, financially or otherwise.

This would be our first attempts at this kind of tour. We would have to be very careful not to overload our budget or run ourselves to exhaustion and ruin our plans for the future. This meant having to be very strict with ourselves and use Excel much, much more then any decent person should have to.

And that was that.

So, we stepped off into the great unknown of 2013…..

We have our cast, we have our show, I will introduce you to them in later posts (I do promise to post). We have been to a few of our venues already and had an amazing time so far. We hope it continues for the rest of the tour.

We have our hometown dates- 14th & 15th July at the Lancaster Brewery. Tickets are already going at a steady pace so make sure if you plan to attend you grab one off the tickets page or send us a quick email at bingo.dragon@yahoo.co.uk to reserve for the night.

For now, Internet, I will leave you with a couple of rehearsal pictures and get back to you in the next couple of days.

We’re very excited for the weekend, we hope to see you all there!

Peace,

Sammi

BDTC