Blogs dated March 2011

Prologues and epilogues

March 31, 2011

In rehearsal we laugh at what sort of a prologue and epilogue we would write today, but in a crowded tube train on the Victoria Line on the way home, I find myself pondering the opportunity...

by Greg Doran  |  1 comment  |  Read this entry

Middle Temple Hall

March 30, 2011
King Edwards boys thumbnail

We have to have made sufficient investment in each character to allow the audience to await the unravelling with eager anticipation. We have to make the audience experience, however unlikely the circumstances, a balance between the fantastic and the plausible - what Coleridge called 'the willing suspension of disbelief'. And we must do that by infusing these 'shadows of imagination' with genuine life-blood.

by Greg Doran  |  1 comment  |  Read this entry

Aoife's Blog: Charlie Ratchford Centre 3

March 29, 2011
Aoife

Here's another piece inspired by the older people at the Charlie Ratchford Centre, just off Adelaide Road. It's a real eye opener talking to people who experienced the reality of being evacuated as children during the war. It's made me realise that we have a rather sentimental, almost nostalgic, attitude to 'the spirit of the Blitz'. As one survivor put it to me, it was very much the luck of the draw.

by Aoife Mannix  |  No comments yet  |  Read this entry

Workshop 7: Chalk Farm Library

March 29, 2011
Adelaide Road Participants

On March 14th, I led a creative writing workshop at Chalk Farm library on the theme of betrayal. Participants were asked to write questions such as if betrayal was a type of weather what would it be?. If anger was an animal what would it be? If revenge was a season of the year what would it be? They also wrote letters and wedding invitations for consideration for inclusion in the Adelaide Road show.

by Adelaide Road Participants  |  1 comment  |  Read this entry

Can't see the wood for the trees

March 25, 2011
Henrik's print thumbnail

The answer, of course, had been hanging on my studio wall for months...

by Henrik Potter  |  No comments yet  |  Read this entry

Exposing the images

March 22, 2011
Exposure thumbnail image

My first encounter with Shakespeare was at 14 when I read Macbeth. To date it is still one of my favourites. I was fascinated by the notion of appearance versus reality, what is hidden and what is revealed and the gradual transformation of one element into another.

by Evguenia Jokhova  |  No comments yet  |  Read this entry

Ash Wednesday

March 21, 2011
John Barton thumbnail

Last Thursday morning, the full company had a session together. I asked John Barton to join me for this time, and we worked on a chorus from Henry V and individual sonnets.

by Greg Doran  |  No comments yet  |  Read this entry

Lace and rhetoric

March 18, 2011
Pippa Alex rehearsal thumbnail

Outside of the fiesta (see previous post), rehearsals continue at a more sober, steady pace. In one of the fitting rooms, Dorotea (Pippa Nixon), is being taught lace making, by local expert, Marion Stubbings. In Cervantes' novel, Dorotea spends her free time lace-making and playing on the harp.

by Greg Doran  |  1 comment  |  Read this entry

Pancake Tuesday

March 18, 2011
fiesta rehearsal thumbnail

We had a good session on the fiesta last week. Cervantes says that in order to win Dorotea's affection Fernando bribed the servants, and paid for music and dancing in the village every night, so we are staging this in the production.

by Greg Doran  |  No comments yet  |  Read this entry

Stage shepherds can be hard to do

March 18, 2011
shepherds thumbnail

We try and imagine what these shepherds might look and sound like. I can hear the sheep bells, I can imagine the dogs barking, and the shepherds' cries echoing in the mountains, but what about their song?

by Greg Doran  |  No comments yet  |  Read this entry

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