The Dead Shall Walk The Earth, my exprince working for Time Will Tell Theater

So as the title suggests, I worked with Time Will Tell Theatre during Halloween for their Dracula performance at Whitby Abbey. I was a cover for two of the younger actors, who play ghosts, which have bonds to the main characters, wandering around the abbey, unaware that they are dead. The ghosts were mostly played by actors from Coventry University Scarborough students. (Leonardo Corless, Tom Dawes, Mya Haigh and Harry Lee) As well as myself, the other main cover was also a graduate from CU Scarbrough, Ethan Brown)

I even got to watch the show a couple days before, following the actors every move and character motives.  It was nice getting to work with them all, as it's been quite some time since I worked with some of them. Not to mention working with all the actors from Time Will Tell was wonderful too. They were all so kind and welcoming. 

When I first got the email from the company telling me who I was playing, and what days I was working, I was so nervous. Before the email came I was fairly relaxed, but as soon as the email came, it all felt too real, too fast. I was nervous that I was going to mess up and ruin the show. Not to mention I was now a paid professional, and it was one of my first paying acting jobs since I graduated. In hindsight, the work was fairly simple. All I had to do was wander around the abbey, saying two lines, and somewhat ignore people. As well as show people which way to go in between scenes, and do a couple of movements in the fourth and final scene. But in that first twenty four hours after receiving the email I was almost dreading it. Then I took a couple of breaths and thought back to what another fellow actor told me about nerves. 

“Nerves and excitement are almost the same feeling”- John Campling 2024.

After hearing that just after I graduated, it has helped calm my nerves and turn them into excitement. Which was so much more useful. So thank you John, I wish you the best in life.

After that, I had a couple of days before I watched all the original ghosts perform. Naturally I came with almost a hundred questions to ask the actors, both in and out of character. And then a day or two later, it was my turn to perform.

My First Performance was really something. It was Wednesday 29th of October. We’d added extra fabric to my skirt to give it more shape, however the safety pins weren't the best, and within the first 15 minutes it was starting to slip down. Then to make matters worse, whilst going up the stairs, I tripped on it, pulling it down futher. ( Throughout the performances this skirt would be the bane of my existence) however in between shows we re pinned everything. This did alter how I walked around in a good way though. Early on I was picking up my dress, and physically moving one step at a time, ( This character had been dragged down by weeds in the pond and drowned) so this did work, however I was very slow, and couldn't get very far without breaking character slightly. So during the second show of the night, I changed it to one foot being dragged instead of both. I did still have to carry my skirt,petticoat and dress, but it was much more manageable, and gave me less back ache.

Crystal as Charles/Charlotte Linnet

Not to mention, (spoiler alert) the monster/dead zombielike thing (man on stilts) nearly fell over, which would have been on top of me. So I'm very grateful that he managed to stabilise himself.

During my first night we saw someone very familiar in the audience. Mine and Ethan's old uni tutor. It was very nice to see her in the audience, I did however have a double take to see if it was her or night. So naturally I did what anyone would do when one actor spots your old tutor and tries to take them to where they last saw them, just to see they are behind you. I circled around her and off on my way.

Also this night there was an adorable young boy, who was extremely scared to be around all of us. So the dad, who had the boy in his arms, came up to all us ghosts individually and told the child that they were not scary or going to hurt him. Now this was one of the few times where I did break character and smile slightly, wave and even gave him a high five. ( at his dads request.) Just after the second show, all of us actors were heading back to camp to get changed and what not. And when walking past we heard the dad say, “see their just actors, it's all okay”. The boy was now on the ground but he was adorable, bless him. 

In between my working days I still ended up in whitby, not only because it was halloween, but Paul/What A Palaver on social media, (our fire man/does tricks with fire during the show) was giving us actors a free workshop on how to swallow fire, and breathe fire. Which is very cool. I did end up bringing my partner and he really enjoyed both tricks and wants to learn more. Me on the other hand, who is slightly afraid of fire, did enjoy becoming a dragon and breathing fire, was too much of a coward to actually eat it and put it in my mouth. So instead I filmed everyone's. I struggled to breathe the fire more than the others, so when I did breathe fire, they only filmed it once where I had small flames, when I had bigger flames on the other hand, they cut the cameras. Lol. problems of being the one to video everyone. No one films you. Oh well. Thanks Tom for filming what you did for me.

Final Night:

Crystal as Rowena and Tom as young Pargter

It was Saturday the 1st, day of the dead. Still a perfect time to see ghosts roaming around the abbey. This day was way more busy than my previous night, as it was the official start to whitby gothweekend. And whilst the skirt was tied tight enough to me (that's my own fault) I still had a blast working that night. Now whilst i was fairly good at not reacting to the odd peoples comments as their walking past in the que. This night, there were some funny one liners that did get me to crack a smile. Every noe and again throughout the night, fireworks would go off. One of my lines for this character were “i heard a rushing sound”, and “something took me up” (this refers to Dracula rushing around and taking her up into the sky before he kills her) so it was quite nice for me to react to the loud banging noises, as i was constantly looking around feeling like im being chased. The random drones were also nice to add some realism as the actor and give me more to react to.

At the end of the night the team behind Time Will Tell very graciously gave me a little bag of gifts. I received 2 books and a postcard written to me by them. Ironically I had bought them one of the books to give them as well as a thank you gift, and a card that all the cast had signed. I did give one of the students the card, so they could sign but they left it at home on the last day, so that actor and I very quickly wrote in the book. And yes, I did put a p.s. In the back of the book. This time, we signed it for everyone instead.

And that was my lovely Halloween job.

I would just like to thank everyone at Time Will Tell Theater for giving me this amazing opportunity. 

As well as Kathy and Paul for looking after us and teaching us fire tricks.

Stephen Brailsford for suggesting me for the job

Ethan,Leo,Tom,Mya, and Harry for being very helpful ghosts to me.

And a BIG Thank You to everyone who came to the Abbey and saw us preform.

Goodbye for now.