Rebekah Pickering-Wood Interview : A Christmas Carol Backstage.
Title
Rebekah Pickering-Wood Interview : A Christmas Carol Backstage.
Date
21 November 2018
Description
Oral history interview with Rebekah Pickering-Wood about her childhood experiences of performing at the Theatre Royal in Great Expectations in 1994 and A Christmas Carol in 1995.
What's the story?
Born in Nottingham in 1983, Rebekah Pickering-Wood performed as a child in two Christmas shows, Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol at the Theatre Royal in 1994 and 1995. These two Dickens stage adaptations replaced the traditional Pantomime for two seasons.
From the audition process to performing on stage, Rebekah provides a vivid account of this period in her life, as well as an insight into the life of the theatre.
In this part of the interview Rebekah talks about life backstage as she remembers it.
But it was a great experience and the actors who were involved, particularly Anton Rodgers, he was just one of the most wonderful people that I’d ever met. He was the sort of person who made sure that the children were very much part of what was happening with the wider cast as well and he and some of the others organised a little party for the children so that they felt that they were …. We were never allowed in the green room, we just went back to our room. The green room was for the grown up adults and weren’t really invited in there. And he didn’t like that, so he opened up the doors and said “come on in” and we had a little party in the green room and we got to spend time with the grown up adults.
And I took loads of different photos of the different people who were involved, but not just the actual actors. But I got on really well with a woman called Sharon, who was the wig mistress, and because it took her ages to put my wig on, I ended up spending quite a lot of time with her and I remember thinking, this isn’t just a case of the people who are on stage doing the front of house bits, it’s everybody behind the scenes. It’s how the lighting people make sure that the lighting cues are on time. It’s how the people running up and down with the headsets and making sure that the people are in the right places for their cues. It’s how the people who are behind the stage are stripping off an actress’s dress, to put another dress on because she’s going on in the next scene. And it was wonderful to see that behind the scenes bit. Not just the glory and the glamour of what you see actually on the stage.
From the audition process to performing on stage, Rebekah provides a vivid account of this period in her life, as well as an insight into the life of the theatre.
In this part of the interview Rebekah talks about life backstage as she remembers it.
But it was a great experience and the actors who were involved, particularly Anton Rodgers, he was just one of the most wonderful people that I’d ever met. He was the sort of person who made sure that the children were very much part of what was happening with the wider cast as well and he and some of the others organised a little party for the children so that they felt that they were …. We were never allowed in the green room, we just went back to our room. The green room was for the grown up adults and weren’t really invited in there. And he didn’t like that, so he opened up the doors and said “come on in” and we had a little party in the green room and we got to spend time with the grown up adults.
And I took loads of different photos of the different people who were involved, but not just the actual actors. But I got on really well with a woman called Sharon, who was the wig mistress, and because it took her ages to put my wig on, I ended up spending quite a lot of time with her and I remember thinking, this isn’t just a case of the people who are on stage doing the front of house bits, it’s everybody behind the scenes. It’s how the lighting people make sure that the lighting cues are on time. It’s how the people running up and down with the headsets and making sure that the people are in the right places for their cues. It’s how the people who are behind the stage are stripping off an actress’s dress, to put another dress on because she’s going on in the next scene. And it was wonderful to see that behind the scenes bit. Not just the glory and the glamour of what you see actually on the stage.
Type
Oral Interview
Location of item
Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Rights
Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Contributor
Interviewers: Sally Smith and Phil Smith
Transcriber: David Chilton
Transcriber: David Chilton
