Never let Mark live the dream again!

Saturday Carolina, Mark, Vandu and myself made our way up to Scotland. We drove up the west coast through the Lake District where we stopped for lunch and then to Carlisle where we out our bets on for the Grand National. Myself and Mark (the English) are long running fans of the Grand National and so we had to make the right decision about what horse we picked. I chose Comply or Die and Mark took aproimately 4 hours to choose his horse which I cannot remember the name of but fell within the first few minutes. Carolina and Vandu (the Portugese) picked the horse which to me clearly was never going to win. They sat through race having a chat and mulling over the tour guides of Great Britain and Scotland (their hearts were just not in it) and then with minutes to spare Mon Mome sped into first place and won the race with odds of 100/1. As a wonderful result Carolina won £125! This all happened in a small pub across the border in Gretna Green everyone in there was as gobsmacked and Mark and I.

After Carolina's win we carried on up the coast and wondered across SweetHeart Abbey which was founded by Lady of Galloway in memory of her late husband. As an act of love she wore his embalmed heart around her neck; as much as this sound disgusting I think I would love a man to wear my heart around his neck.

We carried on driving and came across a small town in the middle of no where on the coast. We decided to pitch up here and we went for typical fish and chips and then the pub for a game of pool and a beer. I was particularly excited since the pub had a few arcade games like air hockey and even Pac Man. So whilst I am not very good at pool my Pac Man skills have been greatly improved.

We were up early Sunday morning to take down our tent and make our way to Culzean Castle in Ayr. We walked around the grounds which have an incredible view over the sea and then we paid £13 to get into the castle itself. Mark and Carolina were luckier enough not to have to pay as they had brought their National Trust volunteer cards which I had stupidly forgotten. However for a mere £13 I now have a years membership to the National Trust and this would have been a lot more if I had been in England.

I think I slept a lot on Sunday since I don't really remember much of the day apart from eating in a pub in Ayr and trying to persuade everyone not to camp again. But camping we did! We stayed on Loch Lomond which was absolutly beautiful. We had a quick pint in the pub where Vandu played the piano and Mark fell asleep.

Monday was an exceptional day. Mark had a dream. A dream that in my mind was a bit crazy but a dream he had a dream he needed to fulfill. So we drove John o' Groats, the northerly most north part of Great Britain. I would love to say that the drive was worth it and that we got to see incredible landscapes and the sun was out and were able to see the Northen Lights. But I can't. The clouds covered the sky, the wind tried to blow us over, the landscape was nothing to shout about and there wasn't even a pub insight. But we did it and now we all have a warm fuzzy feeling inside that only comes when you go so far north. However on the drive up we visited Nessie the Loch Ness Monster, we had coffee in Fort William which is a lovely town and we got to drive past Ben Nevis the highest mountain in Britian.

Tuesday we visted Edinburgh where we walked the mile and went to see where JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series. I even got a little burnt because the sun was out. Then we head to Rosalind Chapel which although beautiful was covered with scaffolding. But the history of the building and the architecure was very cool! (read Mark Griffin's blog for more info)

Then it was off to let Mark live the dream again. We went to see Oxford United play in York. They lost.

BUT York I love. I really love it. I walked around on Wednesday with the biggest smile on my face ever. We went to the Minster, we had coffee in the Evil Eye shop, we argued about education and we walked the city walls. And we went on the Viking Experience or what I would like to rename How not to do Drama in the Community. The actors were bad, the story was boring, the whole thing needed a boost of energy and a new way to teach young people about the history of York. We also had coffee in the Theatre Royal and as much as I love the National Theatre, this theatre was a new thing entirely. I loved the way they worked and how they involved the whole community and welcomed everyone into the space. If I were to run a theatre it would be like this; unpretentcious and just wonderful!

Now home in London I can't wait to leave again and move to York once I graduate.

Knee High presents...Brief Encounter

Richmond Theatre kindly gave the drama in the community team some free tickets for Noel Coward's Brief Encounter last night. From the moment I walked into the theatre I was brought back to the 1930s and I truly believed and accepted the whole experience. This is the first production I have seen by Knee High and I will be going to see a lot more. Reading their 'About Us' section I found I really like their ethos. They create work for the whole community and this is something I truly believe in.

The play itself uses a combination of the play text Still Life and the screenplay Brief Encounter. Emma Rice (the director) has done a brilliant job in creating an ensemble who work together in a way that I personally have never experienced before. Every move, every gesture has been thought about in detail. However, the front of house team who fit into the play as part of the action are very open with their audience and have fun with us. I think this is a key element to our drama in the community peformance. The actors must and need play outragously with the audience and be open to them as well. They need to be ready for any changes that might occur during the performance because of the audience.

Casting

Yesterday myself and Emma audtioned the actors in our project for the final show. It was as new to us as to some of the actors who had never auditoned before. We began the audtion with a few games; bang splat, zip zap boing and the chicken and the chair game. We then put chair in a line and put a piece of paper on each chair which had a description of a character for example an evil pixie, a depressed businessman. These were characters that had some relation to the characters in the play. The actors then had to stand on a chair and act out each character for 30 seconds. They did this at the same time and would rotate until they had done them all. After these warm ups we asked them to find groups of three and read through and rehearse a short scene from the show which we had given them. They then had to improvise the scene to relay the story. This exercise is similar to something I had done in the Chekhov lecture. Instead of them reading from the script it forces them to perform the story and really work as an ensemble. We then gave them a choice of three short monologues which they then had to read for the class.

Before the casting myself and Emma had many conversations looking at who we saw as each character. However after the casting we had both changed our minds on many of the characters. Last night we decided not to talk a lot about the casting, instead we came together today and discussed our ideas and came to a final decision. Suprisingly it did not take very long as we had both had similar thoughts.

We have posted the casting list and rehearsal schedule on facebook so take a look!

We have a story FINALLY

On Wedenesday the Creative team finally completed the story for the big show in May. We have been researching stories and structures for the last couple of months and this preperation helped us hugely when we had to write our own stories. We started by each picking a Greek/Egytian myth, I chose Perseus and Medusa, Maria chose an Egytian myth about a man whose death has already been prophesised although you never find out the ending. Emma, like me chose a Greek myth. As a group our favourite story was Maria's because of the ending as well as the srructure which had two places involved and some magic!

We used these stories as a springboard and sat down and discussed together what we thought our story should be. The story seemed to come a from a vortex of ideas although we kept everything we had learnt and researched in mind. After writing down a simple structure we began discussing the detail of the story and then wrote this down in a story format. However, myself and Emma began talking and we felt that the story did not have enough depth to it, it seemed very two dimensional. We discussed this with the rest of the team and they agreed so we added depth to it by introducing a sub-plot between Hapu and Ebonee. Once we start writing the script and start rehearsals I think we will begin to see different dynamics between the characters and I hope this will add some more meat to the story so that the actors and audience can really get their teeth into it.

A very emotional last workshop

On Friday we had our last workshop with th university group at AJS. We have worked with this class for 5 weeks now and it has been amazing. The workshops have been focused around creating a world and writing stories for this world which they then perform. The stories they have created have all been incredibly creative and I have learnt that you can imagine anything and it does not have to be censored. At the end of the workshop yesterday, we asked the students for thier feedback, all of their feedback was very positive with many commenting on the team building skills they had learnt. A lot of the children had loved the performance side of the workshops and had enjoyed being able to stand up and use the whole space. One boy said 'I'm speechless' and another boy explained that before these workshops he had 'not really been into drama, but now he loves it'. I think we could not have asked for better feedback, although negative feedback would have been good so we could see what went wrong. Sometimes I think it is difficult for children to give adults their honest feedback so we did explain to them that negative comments were just as good as positive comments. Clearly we were just brilliant and no negative feedback was necessary!

The Robben Island Bible

Yesterday Matthew Hahn one of my drama lecturers gave the first public read through of his new play The Robben Island Bible at Richmond Theatre. All I can say is WOW it was fantastic particularly when you have such a humble and gracious man reading; Jon Kani. Kani is the man that brought us Sizwe Bansi is Dead with Arthol Furgard which I saw at the National a couple of years ago. His presence on stage is so empowering, you feel you can do anything. Speaking to Matt today he said he was nervous about doing the read through himself but was so glad he did it. The play is a verbatim play and takes the Shakespeare quotes which the Robben Island prisoners had highlighted and dated as well as one on one interviews which Matt had had. I really loved the relationship between Matt and John. John was the esteemed actor and had a natural presence and ease with the space. At one point in the read through he stood up and went and had a conversation with Matt. This was brilliant and one of those rare moments in theatre where you know what you are seeing is the total truth.

A bit of a crazy one...

Today I have nearly finished fillind out the London Education Partnership Award application which is seemingly difficult task. The questions they ask are particularly difficult to fully understand and as a result the whole procedure turns into a guessing game. Though once you start writing it does start to make more sense, even if what your writing is incorrect. I gave the award scheme a call and left a nice message but they haven't got back to me so I just carried on without their help.

This weeks meeting we finalised the scheldule for the show. I am happy to say that myself and Emma C. will be working together as the directors. I am aprahensive about this job but excited too! I am going to be working as assisstant director on The Visit which Kieren is directing with the first years acting. Hopefully this will give me more confidence and I will learn how to work with a large ensemble.

This week the creative team have really pegged it up a gear. We have set a deadline for when the story needs to be written and I think we can do it. What I find most difficult is where do you get a story from? I am not a particularly creative person but I really wanted to get my creative juices flowing this year and that is why I chose to be a part of this team. We have made a desicion to find a Greek or Egyptian myth to use as a springboard and have began t brainstorm what we want the structure to look like and what themes we want to incorporate. All we have to do now is create a story that will be loved by EVERYONE!