Karen Aldridge (Olivia), Lucy Osborne and Lise Stec during a costume fitting for Twelfth Night

Since arriving in Chicago a week ago I have experienced snow, ice, torrential rain, wind so strong that it is difficult to remain standing, and sunshine so bright and warm that Josie, the director, and I walked along the Pier one evening without coats on and felt too hot. Every morning I arrive at the theatre amazed by the weather that has greeted me that morning, and seasoned Chicagoans nod wisely and sympathetically at my ability to walk to work every day having made completely the wrong clothing choice!

I arrived in Chicago a week before the first day of rehearsal, and this time is absolutely invaluable as it enables us to get ahead with costumes before the actors are needed in rehearsal and time with them becomes very precious, so we use this as an opportunity to do preliminary costume fittings with some of the company who are based in Chicago. It is fantastic to have the luxury of time to talk to them about their initial thoughts about their clothes, and also to share our ideas about costume in the play. We very much want the actors to have ownership over their clothes, to wear them as if they were their own, and to feel real, comfortable and concrete in them. The earlier these conversations start to happen, and the company can absorb these period garments into their thoughts and process the better.

I also visited the workshop where the set is being built. It is already at a very advanced stage of build and it was very useful to see some sections of the planked pier structure laid out. Because the set is all made of long lengths of spruce, one whole room of the enormous warehouse is covered in lengths of wood in the process of being painted, laid out like hundreds of matchsticks. We are getting close to the start of the set build in the theatre, and so there are final details to be discussed; conversations about the pool liner and the process of laying it (Exactly what is the optimum temperature for the water to be at? What happens if it develops a leak?!) and decisions about the methodology of the build.

Very soon we are straight into the first day of rehearsal, which is a day that we have been looking forward to for nearly nine months as we have been thinking about and planning Twelfth Night. It is fantastic to finally see all of the actors in a room for the first time and start to really get a sense of how the show will take shape and how they might inhabit our world. Josie and I are asked to do a design presentation of the costume renderings and model box of the set to the company of the show as well as everybody who works at the theatre. I must admit to being slightly apprehensive about talking to such a large group of people about our ideas and decisions, but they are a very warm audience and the response from everybody is very positive. The actors then stand in a circle facing each other to do a read-through of the play, and even at this early stage they are enjoying themselves and bouncing lines off each other and they have Josie and I, along with the stage management team, on the floor with laughter!

There could not have been a more wonderful start to our rehearsal process!