Briony and I have been spending most of the last week by sea. As you can guess by the overcast skies and glowering downpours, we weren’t lying on a beach. We were holed up at the Kalk Bay Theatre, getting rehearsing for Owl. We’ll be running there for a week; we were invited when 2 weeks ago when a gap came opened up in their schedule. So we’ll be opening on Monday the 30th April and then running from Wednesday til Saturday 5th May. The show is at 8.30pm. All the booking is through the Kalk Bay Theatre – www.kbt.co.za – and they have some great meal offers for their restaurant right above the stage.

This time around Christine Skinner is handling the publicity and we’ve had a photo in the Argus and a give-away in the Cape Times. Here’s a link to an interview I did with Daniel Derckson for his newsletter, The Notepad. And on Sunday Briony and I’ll be interviewed by Jonathan Duguid on UCT radio at 1.30pm.

We’re very excited to be doing the play again and this run gives us a chance to try out some changes before we head up to Grahamstown.

The Kalk Bay space is very different, a wide stage with audience nearly 180° around it. This makes the blocking a challenge and we decided to have a bit of fun with it while opening up and simplifying the lights. But the biggest changes are to the text. Nothing fundamental – I rewrote one scene completely and added bits and cut others to try and drive the characters’ along more. Then I also put back a scene that sort of slows and shifts the mood, the exact reasons we cut it in the first place.

If you do see Owl for a second time, I’d be really interested in hearing your thoughts on the changes – you can email me or post on the blog.