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Acting | Set Design | Audition Techniques | Production | Direction | West End Reviews
Linda Kirkman explains the origins of this Daily Echo column and why you should use it more.
WHEN Ray asked me to write a little something for On-Cue he suggested my thoughts on the 2001/2 Curtain Call year might be a possibility – but to avoid being lynched when the Awards are announced in October, I feel I’m on safer ground if I avoid that particular subject. Having discarded it I sat chewing my pen for the next few weeks, totally devoid of any inspiration whatsoever, until a chance remark set me thinking..
Alastair Griffith gives us a fascinating glimpse of the Artistry required in Lighting Design.
THE LIGHTING “TECHIE” COMMUNITY like to hide behind a lot of cryptic names and activities such as Gobos, Grelcos, Grid, Patching, Gels, Racks and Boards. What are these tools of the trade, what do we do with them and how do they contribute to the show? Read on…
Linda Kirkman comments on an unique event.
A licence for an amateur company to produce a play when a professional version is being aired are as rare as a barmaid marrying a millionaire. It was consequently quite astounding when the Little Theatre were granted a licence to perform Absurd Person Singular at the time when a professional company were performing the Ayckbourne’s play at the Pier Theatre. Linda Kirkman saw both shows and took advantage of this unique occasion to make some interesting comparisons.
Keith Rawlings takes a light hearted canter through his memories of Bournemouth Little Theatre.
In the late 1940s, I holidayed in Bournemouth and saw three different plays in one week at what was then The Palace Court Theatre (now the Wessex Christian Centre) in Hinton Road. They were School for Scandal, Getting Married by Bernard Shaw; I can’t remember the third, but I think Alec Clunes was the star. I went down to the gents’ in an interval and, on the way up, I said to a chap, “What a marvellous theatre”. He told me it was built and owned by Bournemouth Little Theatre Club. I resolved to get a job in Bournemouth as soon as I could.
Alfred Hitchcock discusses how to build up suspense in a scene and induce an element of fear.
The public have always enjoyed fear. I think it all starts when the child is three months old. The tiny baby is in its mother’s arms and the mother says, “Boo”. It gives the poor child the hiccups, but eventually the child recovers from the shock and smiles, so the mother smiles too. That’s the first taste of fear ever given to a child.
If one name stands out in the history of the great American Musical, that name is Richard Rodgers. Sing any tune from the rich repetoire of that jazzy period between the wars and those vibrant years in the middle of the last century, when the Hollywood Musical was in its heyday and the odds are you’ll be singing a Richard Rodger’s song. Even now, 20 years after his death, those melodies are being played and sung on stages somewhere in the world. He truly was the ‘sound of music’.
Superstitions and Tradition
Pantomime, and the Theatre itself is the stronghold for superstitions, and tradition. As an art form that is ‘handed down’ from one performer to another, it is rife with traditions and superstitions, the origins of which have sometimes been long forgotten. Acting itself, a precarious occupation, tends to make the artist cautious and reliant very heavily on ‘Good Luck’.
The musical at its best is probably the most difficult, but can be the most uplifting of all theatrical forms, combining as it does drama, dance, design and song. A heady mixture.
The author and screenwriter, Freddy Raphael explains what sort of welcome a screenwriter (or an actor) who has been called to Hollywood might expect. He called it Talking Chinese - Hollywoodese. The article is based in part on extracts from one of his highly entertaining novels, I think it was "California Time" published in 1975.
The founder of Word in Action Explains the rationale behind their theatrical wing.
The problem with Wanda Theatre is that it is not an amateur company; but neither is it a conventional professional company.
This article has been included as there are so many teachers in amateur theatre and although it is American in origin it shows what is happening in the contemporary USA school scene. RS
The theme for high school theater productions this spring appears to be “reprise.” According to Dramatics, an educational theater magazine, millennial teachers are staging many of the same plays that were popular in the middle of the last century. A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the quintessential play-that-won’t-go-away, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, are among the most produced plays in high schools lately. Even many of the newer musicals currently in heavy rotation—Godspell, Grease, and Little Shop of Horrors—are decades old.
Last week, Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things at the Almeida didn’t have a curtain call, which made this premiere the most oddly shaped show in the country, if also one of its hottest tickets. How brave, you may think, if difficult on the actors, who are deprived of those final bows that act as a traditional salve to the thespian ego (although one of the cast, Frederick Weller, who does not appear in the final scene, says he loves the chance to grab the best seat in the bar).
Linda Kirkman gives an end-of-term report.
BY the time the 2000/2001 theatre season ends in the middle of August, my colleagues and I will have reviewed 102 amateur shows in the Echo circulation area – which is roughly bordered by Swanage to the West, Fordingbridge to the North and Burley to the East.
Article by Richard Zoglin from Time Magazine - Monday, April 23, 2001
Except for the scenic route taken from the airport by their limo driver and an inspiring visit to Ellis Island, Sean Campion and Conleth Hill still haven’t seen much of New York City. And since this is their first visit to the U.S., they’re a bit overwhelmed. That is not to say the place is entirely new to them. “You’re so familiar with the city from movies and TV that you feel like you’ve been here before,” says Campion. Adds Hill: “All my terms of reference for New York are television. Where would Rhoda and Brenda have lived? Where would Seinfeld have lived?”
Mel Brooks knew who to credit when he collected a record 12 Tonys for the stage version of The Producers.
Poking fun at Jews; taking a rise out of gays, blacks, Germans and the Irish; re-inventing little old ladies as nymphomaniacs: none of these testaments to the politically incorrect impeded the progress of the musical The Producers to a record 12 Tony awards for Broadway theatre on Sunday night.
When Peter Brook, the most revered theatre director in the world, brings his acclaimed new production of Hamlet from Paris to London next month, it will be playing at the Young Vic.
A fine 'Fair Lady' for the Royal National and a dramatic debut for Martine McCutcheon.
The drama surrounding the new production of My Fair Lady at Britain’s Royal National Theatre would make a terrific musical. It’s a twisting tale with all the ingredients for a ripping three-acter.
There was an interesting article by Michael Billington in the Arts section of yesterday’s Guardian . (Yesterday being February 8). He makes the point that sex and death are two of dramas most enduring themes, and most people, if they are lucky, get to experience both in bed.
I have a second-hand copy of Hamlet. So far, I have discovered the skeletons of three previous owners. I think my own sense of humour is in there as well, just after a particularly nasty soliloquy in scene three. So, with this backdrop, and a total lack of modern cinematic and theatrical techniques (such as nudity, cannibalism and spatulas), you would think that for your average teenager two and a half hour performance of Hamlet would be boring. You would be wrong. It’s actually incredibly boring.
Geoff Whipp and Kate Chamberain spent two weeks in Sri Lanka helping with projects to restore some normality after the devastating Tsunami of 2004.
Not knowing what was in store for us, Kate Chamberlain and I set off on the first leg of the fifteen hour journey, firstly by plane before travelling by road to Galle, a four hour journey south of Colombo, the country’s capital in the south west of this beautiful island which is named (very aptly, after Tsunami) the teardrop in the Indian Ocean. We soon got stuck in to the allocated tasks, varying from tree planting, replacing some of the many trees which were destroyed along the coastline to minor rebuilding work, and, more commonly, painting work, firstly at a home for elderly men as well as painting and renovating desks and chairs at a local junior school.
A Musical by Andrew LLoyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourn based on characters created by P. G. Wodehouse.
This “new” musical opened on the last Sunday in October in the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway, showing that in New York things are gradually returning to normal. I say “new” musical, when in fact it is a second dip in the bran tub, as the original version called plain “Jeeves”, was not a success when produced in London in the seventies.
ALAN AYCKBOURN had this to say about the original JEEVES musical...
There was a mooted plot afoot that it would be nice to have P G Wodehouse’s approval of the show. Not a plot by Andrew and me, I hasten to add, but a plot by some managerial whizz-kids.
Perhaps the most controversial ‘play’ on the West End stage at the moment is the provocatively titled Vagina Monologues. The title alone has ensured that it received an inordinate amount of publicity.
I wrote Casablanket (as mentioned, a sendup of Casablanca) mainly as a vehicle to include any of our members who wanted to strut the stage. As you would know, experienced actors get all the roles while lesser mortals are doomed forever to backstage, prompting, etc. Without stage experience they can never learn, so knowing our members as I do I had a fair idea of what sort of role they could handle and wrote accordingly.
These pages spotlight some of the brightest stars of the Amateur Theatre in the area, both in front and behind the footlights.
The Brownsea Open Air Theatre productions on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour are a showcase for the cream of the local talent and the cast of this year’s play, Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night, were shining examples. Elaine played the part of Olivia, the Countess who Malvolio believes is love with him and as Linda Kirkman wrote in her review of the production she was “a sparkling jewel in a highly polished crown.” Her performance won for her a well deserved award for Best Actress in a Comedy at this years Daily Echo Curtain Call Awards.
These pages spotlight some of the brightest stars of the Amateur Theatre in the area, both in front and behind the footlights. LIN DENNING has distinguished herself both as an actress and as a director, and the following article is her 'potted' Amateur Theatre autobiography.
My theatrical career began in my first year of infants’ school, when I was cast as Miss Muffet in a series of nursery rhyme enactments. I had come home! In fact, with such enthusiasm did I throw myself (and my dish of curds and whey) into preparation for the part, that a tin plate had to be introduced to curb the flow of breakages.
Anthony Sher played Richard III in 1985, for which he won a number of awards. He tells this account of an encounter with Michael Gambon in the BBC Canteen, which gives a remarkable insight into an actor's humble beginnings. It also shows the humour behind Michael's professional facade.
“I was having my lunch when I heard a familiar hoarse shout, ‘Oy – Tony!’ I whip round to see Michael Gambon in the lunch queue…He had crunched forward and given himself a hump and was reciting – Now is the winter of our discontent…
Stanislavski says "Analyse first, block later", and most directors tend to follow his principles. The problem as Jeremy sees it however, is that the character you read may be very different from the character you meet once you get on your feet. Jeremy Whelan has therefore devised a method which he calls 'The Whelan Tape Technique'. To begin using this method you start by getting your actors round a table to read a scene from the script. While they are reading they must absorb facts about the characters, such as one may be neurotic, another suffer from gout, or have a German accent. Once they have got the sense of the script, then a tape recorder is introduced and they read the script again, this time audiotaping the reading. When this is finished the actors immediately get on their feet and act out the scene to the playback of the tape, without speaking or even moving their lips. Experiencing as they do this, all the emotional, physical and intellectual facets of the character and the script.
The dogsbodies of Rep?
It is a well-known fact that Assistant Stage Managers are at the bottom of the pile in the theatre and particularly in rep. In her entertaining book about rep called “Exit through the fireplace”, Kate Dunn has gathered together a multitude of anecdotes by famous actors who were introduced to the profession in this humblest of capacities.
Being asked to write the Rules of Farce is akin to being asked to describe the Rules of Life – where do you start and what do you leave out? Also, it implies that farce, or any other kind of theatrical endeavour, can be learnt by studying some kind of manual. However, having written in this particular genre for over thirty years, a certain amount of introspection is inevitable, so I will attempt (for the very first time!) to unravel what goes into my work – and why.
A Summary of Techniques.
While this article contains many of the techniques that an actor may use, it is by no means the whole sum of what an actor does with speech. I am sure that you can think of many more examples, as all acting must be thought of as a piece and not a series of processes which you apply one after another.
and how to overcome them
Opening Night is a very special occasion. Even if your final dress rehearsal was played before an invited audience, this is the big test. This is the real thing!
People ask me, “What is the most important attribute of a successful actor”, so frequently that I have been obliged to think more deeply than it costs to make the quick reply, “Talent, of course.” I would now say that there is an equal trinity of contributing qualities.
Eating on Stage
Eating meals on stage is invariably a hazard as anyone who has taken part in Alan Ayckbourn’s “How the other half loves” will testify, particularly the character who plays ‘Bob’, who finishes up with the contents one of the dishes all over him. In one production I was involved in this was a kind of soup (or casserole?), while in another it was a form of spaghetti. Of the two I prefer spaghetti, it’s not so fluid and it looks particularly effective when draped over Bob’s face! In the course of the scene two meals are served and the remaining characters have to ensure that they are not caught with their mouths full.
A glimpse of the Director/Playwright in conversation with Ian Watson.
Ian: You said about ‘Absent Friends’ that once a play has been less than successful in London, it sort of dies, because the reps are not that keen to pick it up. Okay. ‘Absent Friends’ seems to be beginning to pick up again.
Peter Barkworth, in his book “About Acting”, says that this little snippet of technique was given to him by Evelyn Varden, an American actress who died some years ago, but was a big hit in Lesley Storm’s play, “Roar like a dove”, that enjoyed a three year run at the Phoenix Theatre.
A two-way telephone conversation on stage, such as those in “How the other half loves”, are a doddle. The harder ones are those when you are on your own. Come to think of it, there are one or two of those in the same play. In fact hardly a play goes by these days without at least one of those ‘one-way’ telephone conversations.
There are a few gifted individuals whose ears are so attuned that they appear to be able to assume an accent quicker than a prompt at a festival.
In Barry Levinson’s “Diner”, Shieve confronts his girlfriend, Beth, about playing his record collection. His line is – “You’ve been playing my records again” – as he has found them out of order. (He’s a fussy fellow!)
When Peter Brook, the most revered theatre director in the world, brings his acclaimed new production of Hamlet from Paris to London next month, it will be playing at the Young Vic.
A list of the Drama and Musical presentations made at the Curtain Call Awards 2000/1.
A list of the Drama and Musical presentations made at the Curtain Call Awards 2001/2.
A list of the Drama and Musical presentations made at the Curtain Call Awards 2002/3.
A list of the Drama and Musical presentations made at the Curtain Call Awards 2003/4.