AT last year's Fringe, aspiring actress Rebecca Smith marvelled as Tam Dean Burn trod the boards at the Traverse Theatre in Venus As A Boy – all the while dreaming that she herself would one day be part of a production as fine as the National Theatre of Scotland's.
Now, just 12 months down the line, that dream is about to become reality. As she readies herself to appear in the National Theatre of Scotland's production of 365, which receives its world premiere at the Playhouse on August 22, Smith admits she is p
inching herself at the prospect of appearing on stage at the famous Greenside Place theatre.
"It's freaking me out a bit," says the Collinton-born actress, who was part of Scottish Youth Theatre and is going to RSAMD in the autumn.
"I know a lot can happen in year, but I didn't dream of something like this. I didn't dare. This is an amazing piece of work to be involved in. It will look fantastic on the stage and it's really going to make people think."
A powerfully visual piece of theatre, 365 has been created for the Edinburgh International Festival by Vicky Featherstone, with text by leading Scots playwright David Harrower.
It follows the lives of a group of young people who, with their humour, imagination, wit and raw courage, pass through a practice flat - one of the state's mechanisms to gently introduce children who have been in care to the adult world - and take their first faltering steps into the outside world.
Smith explains, "Basically it's a wee snippet of the lives of 14 kids who are going through the care system in one way or another. But it's never explicitly said to the audience what each character's real issue is. That's not important.
"It's not a play where it's like 'this character is being abused by her father, 'she's in a really depressed state', or 'she self- harms' or whatever," she continues. "It is a real situation for most people who are in care; there's something that's obviously gone wrong in their lives, but we didn't want there to be barriers between the characters and the audience by having these labels. At the end of the day these are just normal people like everyone else.
"For example, my character has problems accepting herself. She doesn't like the situation she's in and she's angry inside about it. That's common with a lot of the characters in this play. But they've all got something different and new to bring to the table," she adds.
Another member of 365's cast of 14 is Siu Hun Li from Bruntsfield, who is making his professional debut in the play and was a member of West Lothian Youth Theatre.
Like Smith, he is thrilled just to be involved.
"I've just spent three years in London training at RADA," he explains. "I was obviously wanting to start work, so I wrote a letter off to the National Theatre of Scotland. Because everything I've seen from them has been great, they were a company that I wanted to be a part of. They were always my first choice, though I never expected to get to work with them so soon. I just wanted the National Theatre of Scotland to know that I'd finished drama school, and basically that I wanted to work with them at any given opportunity.
"I'm really, really looking forward to appearing at the Playhouse. I haven't been there before, because it's all stuff I don't normally watch, like musicals and so on. But this is a show I totally believe in, and it's going to be great. It will be an amazing experience being part of this show."
• 365, Playhouse Theatre, Greenside Place, August 22-25, 7.30pm (Saturday matinee 2.30pm), £10-£25, 0131 473 2000 The full article contains 647 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
