Actor and talk show host Andrew Tandoh-Adote has stated that acting on stage is extremely challenging and tiring.
“If you see us walking and singing on stage, we make it look easy but actually a lot of work goes into it and what people see is the result of the rehearsal,” he told Doreen Andoh on the Cosmopolitan Mix on Joy FM.
He stated that the team put in a lot of work into the rehearsals of the play to make the final work flawless.
Andrew Tandoh-Adote is a stage play actor for Roverman Productions owned by Uncle Ebo Whyte. He has starred in about 33 plays from the production house.
The actor has featured in plays like “Nicholas,” “Forbidden,” “Unhappy Wives,” “Confused Husbands,” “Sex Scandal,” “Dear God Comma,” “The Comeback,” “The Last Flight,” “Rejected,” “Games Men Play” and “Apartment N” all written by Uncle Ebo Whyte.
He has also starred in movies like “Beasts of No Nation” and season two An African City.
Mr Tandoh-Adote said mistakes can be covered up when acting in movies because it is not live, however, forgetting lines or having a costume problem when acting on a stage can cause a lot of problems.
“At one time, the lines and cue in two plays I was playing a role in were identical, during a rehearsal of one play, someone mentioned the cue and for some reason, I responded as a character in another play,” he said.
The host of “The Tonight Show with Andrew Tandoh-Adote” explained, it is less intimidating when they [the actors] do not put emphasis on the number of plays they are putting out and focus on one play at a time to make line memorization easier.
However, there are times he revealed when they memorised new lines while the play was ongoing.
He stated, his team on one occasion had to work with new lines Uncle Ebo Whyte had written because a character came on stage 30 minutes earlier than his usual time.
“His coming was also a sign that the play is about to end and so many issues [in the play] had not been resolved yet. He comes on stage and we are all shocked because he is not supposed to be there.”
So now, everything we have learnt is out and uncle comes backstage to write new lines for the characters and signal them to come for the lines backstage till the play was done, everyone thought it was flawless but they had no idea what we had just gone through,” he explained.
The Roverman Productions actor said the constant rehearsing and acting puts them in shape and helps them grow to be better on stage than before.
Giving further examples of some mistakes one can make on stage, Mr Tandoh-Adote stated a female actress accidentally drank alcohol on stage because someone forgot to empty the bottle and refill it with water.
“Luckily she was able to say her lines and go through the scene even when she started sweating,” he said.
He added another character once ate so much food on stage he could not walk when he came backstage and had to lie down.
The talk show host explained actors and actresses on stage put in a lot of effort to hide any fault their costumes or any other mistake that may come up while acting.
He said even though they [the actors] put in a lot while rehearsing, to make sure there are no faults, “every now and then something happens.”
Mr Tandoh-Adote explained Uncle Ebo Whyte has been a great support for the team in achieving the goals they set for themselves.
“You’re working with a man who doesn’t fit into the mold of a Ghanaian who is happy with a small achievement, but he’s always looking for a way to challenge himself and his team,” he stated.
Source: Myjoyonline.com
