“Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep.” Henry 5 Act 4, Scene 1

by Anne Flinders, dramaturg [caption id="attachment_1154" align="alignleft" width="300"]

Henry 5 Rehearsal. L to R: Kristen Leinbach as Montjoy and Mackenzie Larsen as King Henry V.

Rehearsal, Henry 5 . L to R: Kristen Leinbach as Montjoy and Mackenzie Larsen as King Henry V.[/caption] Last week the Henry 5 cast held three more rehearsals. Rehearsal days are exhausting; a typical rehearsal for this play begins at 8:00 a.m. with a physical warm-up and an overview of the day’s work. This is followed by dance and fight choreography, blocking more of the stage action, and some scene polishing. The cast is generally allowed a half-hour break for lunch, after which they return to the rehearsal space to run and polish scenes until 2:00 p.m. [caption id="attachment_1155" align="alignright" width="300"]

Rehearsal, Henry 5. Matthew Fife as Fluellen.[/caption] Six hours is a long rehearsal for a student, particularly when many in the cast go to classes immediately after, but this week’s Thursday rehearsal was especially challenging. The cast arrived at 7:00 a.m. and learned new choreography for some segments of the opening and closing dance numbers. They blocked and choreographed another fight sequence for one of the historic battle scenes, after which they ran the entire play. Following the run-through, the cast was trained by the hair and make-up designers. As Henry 5 will be a touring show, the cast members need to be able to do their own hair and make-up on the road. After an hour break, the cast returned in costume and make-up to meet with a photographer for a publicity photo shoot. (Great action-packed shots were taken which will be released soon.) Following the photo shoot, a camera crew arrived and a video shoot was taped that will be released as advertisement for the play. The shoot wrapped at 6:00 p.m, ending a successful day of rehearsal for this hard-working cast. [caption id="attachment_1156" align="alignleft" width="300"]

Rehearsal, Henry 5. L to R: Sarah Flinders as the Boy and Mackenzie Larsen as King Henry V.[/caption] This marathon Thursday was followed by an extra rehearsal that was called on Saturday at 8:00 a.m. The cast was joined by two BYU Young Company alumni, Sarah Kron (The Hundred Dresses, 2011) and Jenna Hawkins (The Merchant of Venice, 2012), who trained them in how to run workshops for the elementary students who the play will be performed for. The cast chose games and activities to enrich the experience the children will have with this Shakespeare play. After a brief break, the cast worked for an hour on polishing transitions between scenes, dances, and battles. Then the play was given another full run with props incorporated. The last week of January will also mark the last week of rehearsals for the cast of Henry 5. The show opens its elementary school tour on the 5^th of February, and the play opens in the Nelke Theatre at BYU’s Harris Fine Arts Center on February 6^th at 7:00 p.m. The show runs through February 16th. Tickets are on sale now.

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by Amelia Johnson, Dramaturg Creating a show is a process. Though the run of the show is over, there was a lot more that went into the show than what was seen in those few weeks. Months before the run, the production team began meetings. They discussed the director’s vision for the show and began planning designs. Everything was approved of and discussed before lights were set, sets, were built, and the costume and makeup designs were implemented. This year, the costume and makeup designers drew inspiration from the local artist, James Christensen. Having passed away earlier this year, director Dallyn Bayles thought it would be nice to pay tribute to him in this way. Costume designer Dennis Wright was thrilled to base his designs of Christensen's style. He said, “What I really love about Christensen’s work is the whimsy that he incorporates into his characters. His distinctive use of patterns, layers and silhouette is really fun and distinctive. I wanted to be sure to capture that in the costume designs for this production. “I love this show, and the concept and design choices our team has made. I am excited to share it with our audience. As a big James Christensen fan, my one regret is that I didn’t actually get to meet the artist in person. I just returned to Utah last year and sadly, missed my chance. I am very grateful to be able to pay tribute to him in this small way”. Makeup and hair designer Sarah Bult also shared some of her thoughts. “After reading the script I looked through as many James Christensen paintings as I could find. I picked out textures, colors, broke it all down and paired certain characters with those elements. His artwork influenced everything from the shape and colors of hair down to the detail on the bead work of the hairpins. I loved that I could draw my inspiration from his work and create something that really embodied his artwork." Bult continued, “One thing I didn’t expect to be a challenge was that not many Christensen pieces have hair showing. This created a very unique and fun challenge for me. I had to look many different paintings, combine textures and colors, and use my own design style to come up with fun fairy tale hair and makeup styles that were reminiscent of Christensen’s artwork. I am very excited to see how all of the elements come together”. Join us on the 4th Wall next time to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes!

“Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep.” Henry 5 Act 4, Scene 1

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