Emma Kasprzak explains why she’ll soon be stripping off on a Shropshire stage.

Emma Kasprzak

Earlier this year, I helped out backstage at an amateur production of the musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in Shrewsbury.

Having whetted my appetite for the theatre I decided to take the plunge and audition for Mad Cow Productions’ next show, the farce Move Over Mrs Markham.

Luckily, this is a straight play with no singing or dancing involved, so I thought I’d be saving myself from embarrassment. But that’s not entirely true.

Now I should point out the last time I was on stage was while I was at university when I acted in the comedy What the Butler Saw. In true farce style, that role saw me running around stage in my underwear.

Roll forward five years and I have landed the part of Felicity Jane Wilkinson, a former debutante who spends most of the play running around in her underwear. Shrugging off any fears that I might be getting typecast, I am genuinely thrilled, and a bit terrified, at the prospect of having to stand up in front of hundreds of people while wearing very little.

For their latest show, Mad Cow Productions will be performing for the first time in the auditorium at Theatre Severn, having sold out every night of their last play in the smaller Walker Theatre.

The audition for my part was in front of two people and was a bit nerve wracking to say the least, so I wonder how I will get on in front of 600 people.

Unfortunately I was on holiday during the read-through (the first reading of the play with the entire cast) but I did take my script with me, and practiced my lines with my boyfriend Andy who took to reading all the different characters very well.

When I got back, I went along to my first rehearsal. Rehearsals are quite a strange experience for the uninitiated. You arrive to meet a room full of strangers, and after brief introductions you could soon be playing their lover or wife.

The first few rehearsals are spent “blocking” – working out which side of the stage you come on from, and exit to, and where you need to be standing when you deliver your lines.

You need patience . . . this can be quite a slow process as the director seeks to make sure everything looks realistic and not too staged.

You also need to think about where you will pick up any props from, and where you will put them down.

While everyone is learning their lines and trying to get “off book” (put down their script) there are also frequent pauses if people forget their lines or miss a cue.

The play itself, written by Ray Cooney and John Chapman and first produced at the Richmond Theatre, in London in 1969, takes place in a top floor London flat on a warm summer evening. Without wanting to give too much away, it exposes the complications that ensue when different sets of lovers all turn up at a supposedly empty flat and are forced to lie their way out of the situation.

My character is described as the same age as me, “a 27-year-old ex-deb, very pretty, kooky, with large horn-rimmed glasses,” which doesn’t sound too bad – although I will have to acquire some horn rimmed glasses.

If all goes to plan, in the next few weeks I’ll be word perfect and can get to grips with the various actions required . . . including the whole stripping off on stage thing – eek!

• Move Over Mrs Markham will run from September 29 to October 2 at Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.
• Tickets will be on sale soon at www.theatresevern.co.uk or the box office on 01743 281281.