Various plays and bits and pieces
The last few weeks have seen me being involved with a number of really exciting, varied, projects. I'm very lucky to have such an exciting, diverse, job. Nothing beats doing what you love as a living!
I have been running some adult classes, through the Largs youth theatre, in my home town. I decided to focus on acting techniques - basically an introduction to Stanislavsky - and then another 4 week course that was an introduction to Shakespeare. I worked with my friend, actress Lucy Hollis, with a great group of adults looking to further their acting experience - from 25 year olds right up to 75 year olds! It was extremely inspiring seeing people from all walks of life engaging with Shakespeare in a way that, I think, surprised even them.
As this was going on I was also heavily involved in the first rehearsals for my musical 'Towards the Moon' which is being performed at this years fringe by a fantastic international cast of masters students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. The first few rehearsals were all about the music and the musical director, Lindsey Miller, and myself trying to work out what on earth I wanted the actors to sing! I find it very difficult to sing exactly the same thing twice and the way I wrote is very much for my voice, so we had a good few days work making sure that all the melodies were as I wanted them to be and that the keys were are all sitting in a good place for the actors (my voice is like a girls so I always pitch too high!). I'm off on holiday next week and am really looking forward to seeing how the show progresses while I'm away. I can only see a few more rehearsals due to my schedule and it's going to be very exciting to come back and see what they have done with it.
Next Saturday my youth group in Greenock shall be taking part in the Festival of the Guild - an exciting festival that signals the last few months of the Arts Guild Theatre as we all prepare to move to the new Beacon Arts Centre. We have decided to do a promenade piece based on a girls school in 1948 (the criteria to take part was to do something based in post-war Britain, when the Arts Guild was built). Again this has been an incredibly inspiring process with all our young people really putting everything they have into this play. We've only had a very short time to work on it but it's not been time wasted - the show is on next Saturday (30th) at 2.30.
I also found out this week that my application for Arches Live has been accepted. I shall be creating a new show called 'Roses are Dead' with Lucy and the director Debbie Hannan. What's slightly worrying about this show is that I'll be taking part in it... pretty scary stuff. I haven't performed for a long time, but the whole point in Arches Live is to push yourself. And push myself I certainly shall!
And to round off what has been a very busy time, I headed to Largs last Friday to see my production of 'Cracks on the Beach' performed by Pint Size Productions. This was a great set-up where people got a two course meal followed by two comedy plays in the swanky surroundings of the Lounge restaurant. The three nights were sold out and, going by the performances I saw, I can see why. A great sense of fun, community and high spirits (both figuratively and in actuality) were at the centre of the night. Various stalwarts of the local amateur scene put on ridiculously over the top performances that were as hilarious as they were rude and dripping with innuendo. It made me think how, at times, the Glasgow/Scottish professional scene can be a tad self-important. This was theatre in its purest form. Entertainment for everyone and it worked brilliantly. I was glad my play went down well, on seeing it in production I would have probably rewritten sections and cut others but it was fantastic to get rounds of applause for some jokes - usually the ones to do with local references. It was nice to get a commission to write for such a group, hopefully
I'll have a chance to do the same kind of thing again soon.
Coming up is a show for young people at the Lyceum and a trip to Croatia to teach Shakespeare, all sounds pretty e exciting to me.
I have been running some adult classes, through the Largs youth theatre, in my home town. I decided to focus on acting techniques - basically an introduction to Stanislavsky - and then another 4 week course that was an introduction to Shakespeare. I worked with my friend, actress Lucy Hollis, with a great group of adults looking to further their acting experience - from 25 year olds right up to 75 year olds! It was extremely inspiring seeing people from all walks of life engaging with Shakespeare in a way that, I think, surprised even them.
 |
| Adult classes |
As this was going on I was also heavily involved in the first rehearsals for my musical 'Towards the Moon' which is being performed at this years fringe by a fantastic international cast of masters students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. The first few rehearsals were all about the music and the musical director, Lindsey Miller, and myself trying to work out what on earth I wanted the actors to sing! I find it very difficult to sing exactly the same thing twice and the way I wrote is very much for my voice, so we had a good few days work making sure that all the melodies were as I wanted them to be and that the keys were are all sitting in a good place for the actors (my voice is like a girls so I always pitch too high!). I'm off on holiday next week and am really looking forward to seeing how the show progresses while I'm away. I can only see a few more rehearsals due to my schedule and it's going to be very exciting to come back and see what they have done with it.
 |
| Sophie, one of our seniors at BYT |
Next Saturday my youth group in Greenock shall be taking part in the Festival of the Guild - an exciting festival that signals the last few months of the Arts Guild Theatre as we all prepare to move to the new Beacon Arts Centre. We have decided to do a promenade piece based on a girls school in 1948 (the criteria to take part was to do something based in post-war Britain, when the Arts Guild was built). Again this has been an incredibly inspiring process with all our young people really putting everything they have into this play. We've only had a very short time to work on it but it's not been time wasted - the show is on next Saturday (30th) at 2.30.
I also found out this week that my application for Arches Live has been accepted. I shall be creating a new show called 'Roses are Dead' with Lucy and the director Debbie Hannan. What's slightly worrying about this show is that I'll be taking part in it... pretty scary stuff. I haven't performed for a long time, but the whole point in Arches Live is to push yourself. And push myself I certainly shall!
And to round off what has been a very busy time, I headed to Largs last Friday to see my production of 'Cracks on the Beach' performed by Pint Size Productions. This was a great set-up where people got a two course meal followed by two comedy plays in the swanky surroundings of the Lounge restaurant. The three nights were sold out and, going by the performances I saw, I can see why. A great sense of fun, community and high spirits (both figuratively and in actuality) were at the centre of the night. Various stalwarts of the local amateur scene put on ridiculously over the top performances that were as hilarious as they were rude and dripping with innuendo. It made me think how, at times, the Glasgow/Scottish professional scene can be a tad self-important. This was theatre in its purest form. Entertainment for everyone and it worked brilliantly. I was glad my play went down well, on seeing it in production I would have probably rewritten sections and cut others but it was fantastic to get rounds of applause for some jokes - usually the ones to do with local references. It was nice to get a commission to write for such a group, hopefully
I'll have a chance to do the same kind of thing again soon.
Coming up is a show for young people at the Lyceum and a trip to Croatia to teach Shakespeare, all sounds pretty e exciting to me.
Comments
Post a Comment