NYMF's Three Sides: Caroline's Blog #4

Three Sides – UK to USA
Blog Entry #4, "Clean Toilets and Pastrami"
By Caroline Sheen 

Actress Caroline Sheen, of the New York Musical Theatre Festival Musical show "Three Sides," concludes her four-part series of blog entries about her experiences with the new UK-born musical.

Well, what can I say? I think I may have had the busiest 3 days of my entire life! I have been in New York now for about 3 1/2 days and I have done sooo much.

The first day I was here we had to shop for the afore mentioned leather trousers, we had a runthrough of the show in front of our American producers, we went to Virgin Megastore in Times Square to perform in a promotional concert, then we went back to a music studio to have our sitzprobe (runthrough with the band). We barely had time to grab a sandwich! It was bloody exciting though. 

The studio we did our run-through in is in a building with about 25 rehearsal studios in. There were Broadway shows being rehearsed there and loads of people hanging around outside studios waiting to audition for stuff. Whereas at home we are lucky to get a chair to wait on outside auditions, here they had wicker seats with big comfy cushions on, rugs on the floor, tables with vases of flowers on, CLEAN TOILETS! It puts the London rehearsal spaces to shame (except perhaps Sadlers Wells).

The concert at Virgin Megastore was fun. There weren't many people watching who weren't actually involved in NYMF but what the hell! Can you imagine doing something like that in the Virgin Store on Oxford Street back home? Nope!

Our sitzprobe was good, but a little bit weird – it was about 8 at night here, which by our body clocks was 1 in the morning! By 2 in the morning we were pretty much hysterical…so tired I felt a bit drunk!

We opened the next day, after a day long tech which meant NO DRESS REHEARSAL! It went really well, and continues to do so. It's going down really well with the American audiences. The new scenes work well, and it's so interesting observing what the audiences here find funny compared with audiences at home.

Today was the first day I had to myself really. We have a show tonight at 8. But having the day off meant just one thing: GOING TO SEE FLYBOYS! I am actually the most proud girlfriend in the whole entire universe. I was crying even before I went in the theatre! Mike comes over brilliantly on the big screen and his character is so well-defined. He is in it LOADS as well. It was slightly disturbing seeing his final scene (I won't spoil it for people who want to see it). I'm simply busting with pride and I know he's heartbroken not to be able to come over and see it. But, he's stuck in The Canterbury Tales for another six weeks!

I'm going to go now and get me some "pastrami on rye" or some other such New York thing. Thanks for all your lovely comments and good luck messages. You've made a jetlagged girl very happy!

Caroline Sheen (Carrie) was born and raised in South Wales. She trained at the prestigious Guildford School of Acting and graduated with a first class honors degree. Her West End credits include Jennifer in The Witches of Eastwick, Florinda in Into the Woods, Eponine in Les Misérables, Sandy in Grease, and Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. She has worked at The National Theatre twice in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Once in a Lifetime. She created the role of Gestetna in Toby Davies and Grant Olding's Spittin' Distance at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. She is delighted to be performing in the NYMF. Keep supporting new writing!

Visit www.nymf.org for tickets or more information.

Photo--Caroline Sheen, Mark McGee and Jon-Paul Hevey