GIRLS' NIGHT OUT by Dave Simpson

David Hmuksworth discusses his productioJl for Woking Youth Theatre

very conversa ti on:In many res pects Girls' Howeve r, the com ighl Oul is in the genre of needs careful plo tti ng arThe Filii MOi lty. Four girls timing, and deliver 1 aembark on a hen night to pace need to be \n'celebrate the weddin next orchestrated. To make tday of Jane w ho is he~ \'ily laugh.s come the cas t n pregnant. Once at th e to work ha rd annightclub it soon becomes concentration has to !:-t.apparent that the four high. To give rei,lism hyoung Illen in The Feas t of the piece the boys ne d IIFlesh s trip l'O u ti lw Me be happy walking .lbout inknown to the g irls - one is their dressing room w iththe ·o n of th hen night very little on for mo t oforganiser and the oth rs the time, o therwise theare form er or cu rrent p i ce is stilted and fore >c1 .boyfri ends of th olhex

girls.

1 he first half <.If the p lay We . ga thered everyonesets the scene ilnd lays the who was interes ted inplot whilst the econd ha lf being auditioned to a fuJ Idea ls w ith the inevitable reading of the play. Th isshowdow n ba ks tage in was to ensure that ailthe boys' dr .. ing room. concerned knew exactl y Although the pl "y is a wha t they would be in for bawdy comedy, there is a

sub-plot w hich makes some important sta tements about the sort of liv 's s uch people live. Kicking over the traces an d doing your own thing Me two themes whid, spring to mind.

CAST The play requires four men and fo ur women. Ivy is the middle-agt?d aunt who has organ ised the hen night for her pregnant, soon to be married niece, Jane. N icola is engaged to Ivy's son Tony but it is doubtful if she will every marry since her aim in life seems to be to try and build up the bigges t bottom drawer ever. 0 bargains can ever be resis ted by icol<1. Sara is the cynicil l one of the group and has some of the bes t comedy lines in the play.

Darren is a sort of leader of the pack of the m en, intent on telling everyone that he is a "new man" and an expert on relationships wi th women. Robbie spends most of his time deflecting Darren 's qu es tions about his sexuality and finally admits that he is gay. Phil is the deep thinker, nice guy of the pack, and rony is the newcomer who is standing in for a member of the group who is ill.

Apart from Ivy w ho is about early forties, all the other characters are late teens/ea rly twenties. All four men need to be able to do solo dance ((Jutines and a collective one

reminiscent of the sort of titillating numbers done by the Chippendales. They need to be tota lly w,inhibited and should be capable of giving the women in the audience that smouldering, come to bed look. The contract states that no-one in the play has to take their clothes of completely, but they do get very close.

~""F.-"'~-~

We had a total of twelve rehearsals over a six-week per iod . The first

if cas t. We then chose audition pieces and aud itioned the boys and the girls. After thi s, all the boys were g iven a s imple dance routine to learn which included tuking off T-shirts and trousers . From these auditions a cast was chosen. The boys auditioning were keen and, in fact, uninh ibi ted enough to give us a real choice w hen casting.

SCENER

The play has a series of scenes set in a suburban lounge, a nig htclub dressing room and· the nightclub itself. The short prologue in Tony's bedroo m needs only a flat with a mirror on it which can be c1ea red qu ickl y.

We put the lounge and dressing room sets on trucks st,'ge left and right. This works well in the first half beca use each set is

used tw ice and then needs to be cleared away for the final scene in the nightclub. In the second act the lounge is not used so the action alterna tes between dressing room und nightclub.

The finale to each act is the dance routine in the nightclub so you need the maXimLUTI space possible. We had a rostrum three feet high across the back of the stage faced with a fabe proscenium. A slash curtain was used and all the rou tines started either with the

three rehearsa ls were spent entirely on teaching the routines to the men. The IWXt three rehearsals wcre split so thilt we repeated and polished the routines and also blocked the dialogue. In the first act it is poss ible to be blocking girls' diillogue whilst the boys learn the dilnces, since the two groups don't meet up on stage until the end of Act One. For the res t of the schedule we riln the entire play, slotting in the dance routines as they occurred.

The dialogue is easy to learn and is

DECEMBER,"Ii 16

boys coming through the slash or with thc slash curtain rising to revea l the boys behind. In front of the rostrum was a central four-foot square platform with a set of trends down to the stage proper. The girls' table (the only one that is need ed) was set stage left of the steps to giveea:;y access for the boys to plGY to the g irls in the danc

LIGHTING

For the lounge s im p l!' interior ligh ti ng is sufficient. f h lights in til(' d ress ing room need to be iI bit di ngy with the lit dre$sing table mirror hav ing one or two bulbs mi,sing to give a touch of ma lity. Tb ' n ightclub needs low level, all over cover, just enough fo r the gi rls sitt ing at their tabl" to be seen properly. Full, bright and g litzy li gh ting with fo ll ow spo ts is need ed fo r the routines, with plen ty of "tmospheric changes of colou r to suit the mood s of the dances.

COSTO

\ e askpd the gi.rl in the cast to go ou t and get <my glitzy, over the top costume for tl, mselve' They seem d to c: njoy this and the results wen:- exactly right for the characters they portrayed. Ivy was ve ry do ne up in poo r taste, ico la \. as und ers tated as if fri ghtened to le t herself g-o, and Sara foun! (1 two­piece su it with a very short skirt with which slw wore boot~ and looked great. j, nt needs an evening ou tfit and a wedding dress, bo th of which ha ve to cover her bump.

The boys all provided their own day outfits, whid , WC[p -shirts, je<lns, jackets and trai ne rs. o r their routines we had to provid James Bo nd dinne r su its, mo nk:;' and highwaymen's ou tfits. The James Bond dinner suit trousers had to be

fi tted with velcro so that they could be ripped off at the appropriate moment in the strip routine. Under the trousers tll boys wore purple posing pouches purchased from an Ann Summl"rs shop in Soho'

~-...........MUSIC

Some of the music is referred to in the script, so we used that. O ther routines had no particular music mentioned so we had to find music for the monks' routine (Faith by George Michael), the highwaymen (Stan d IIl1d Deliver by Adam Ant),

a ny's solo (BulI1p and Crimi by R Kelly) and Ilw Diet Coke break adverti s ment mu sic. All the music has to b of an appropriate leng th as no routine mus t go on too long and bore th e audience by feeling .'p ti tious.

All th dalK e routines need to be st,lged effecti vely, oth rwise they do become v ry si mib r. We fund ., motor cycle 'for Robb ie's so lo, a co il of thick rope for Darren', solo and W l' mad e Tony'o routine become a weightlifting, body­bu ilding sess ion \ hich was very -ugges ti ve in its movemen ts . The fi na le to eac h act needs mood lighting and follow spob backed by colou rful di sco lighting.

All o ther props are fairl y stra i ' htforward. Ln Ivy 's lounge a grea t dea l of pre-nightclub dri nking goes on and brandy <lnd Babycham is refe rred to in the script, as are nibbles to consume with the drinks.

TIle boys need il la rge number of persona l belongings in the dress ing room which must include clothing, dress ing gowns, jac.kets, bags of personal props such as deodorant, magaz ines and so on. Towels

,n.DECEMBER

s trategica lly pre-set proved a god,end to prov ide shelter!

CONCLUSION --­We had a g reat deal of fun wi th Girl<' lVigill Oll t. To do credit to the piece you mus t have a cast who a re totally committed to it. They need to bond in a way not so neces'a ry perhaps in more s trilightforward p lay' The girls need to be a cohesiv ' unit out fo r a laugh and drink prior to the wedding. The boys Zlre a team, despite some frict ion within their ranb. When thpy pe rform their rou tines they must be highl y professional and strut the ir tuff in an uninhibited way. They should be completely at ease wi th ha rdly any clo thes on for many of the second ac t d ressing room scene -. Ion has the difficult job of being the temporary s tand-in who mus t ge t bits of the early routi nes muddled up but who comes into his own in the second ac t showdown wi th N icola.

Rehearsals were great fun. You have to let the ca;;r get a ll the laughter out of their systems first in order to t, ke the comedy timing as serio usly as is requir(' d . The girls must be fully relaxed abou t seeing the boys in next to nothing and likewise the boys have to be a t ease with w ry little on. We got this completely from our cas t.

The show was slow to sell at the s ta rt but sa les picked up quickly in the week before the production. We even had four real hen night bookings who came away sa tisfied (if that's th right word I). Audience rf,ac tion is absolutely vital in this play. Once the cast hear that fi rs t belly laugh from the audience in the first scene they know that they are there to enjoy themselves and you a re on it roller coas ter of fun from then on.

Our audiences screamed for more and s tamped and cheered at each performance. I like to think that this was in part acknowledgement of the sheer cheek of the company for taking o n such a play. For me, the audience reac tion proved tha t

the time spent on timing laugh lin es in an empty rehearsal room had paid off. The company did great credit to Dave Simpson's script.

We only had two complaints from the public. Bo th, surprisingly, took exception to our posters. On these we used a seaside postcard type C<ll'toon of a delighted woman clutching her handbag and looking at a muscular man's legs from upper thigh down to ankles from the back view, and a ny thing offens ive must have been in the eye of the beholder. The two complainants did not see the show'

TEL: 0171-837-5655 FAX: 0171-833-0609

17