Poetry Intensive
15 July 2008
Four newly graduated students from drama schools around the UK have been chosen to work with the RSC's voice, movement and text practitioners before getting the chance to perform a poetry programme on stage at The Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon for two performances in August.
The four actors in the Poetry Intensive project, led by Senior Voice coach Alison Bomber, will participate in two weeks of workshops with RSC Director of Text and Voice Cicely Berry and Head of Text and Voice Lyn Darnley, as well as doing movement sessions. They will spend time with poems drawn from over eight hundred years of poetry, exploring sound, rhythm, structure and language. The project culminates in a third week of recitals of a programme – The Seven Ages of Poetry – to be performed on the stage of The Courtyard Theatre as well as at local hospices, and in the theatre foyer for audiences waiting to see Hamlet.
Lyn Darnley said “To take four young actors and allow them the luxury of time to submerge themselves in language and poetry, then to rehearse and present a programme of exciting and demanding verse in front of an audience will enhance their skills and prepare them for any future theatre work, whether it be classic or contemporary. Poetry is an ideal way to get to grips with language as well as training the voice – all essential skills for any actor. The RSC is committed to being a learning organisation as well as a theatre company, so any chance to extend the skills base of future performers is an important investment for us.”
The four participants, from Rose Bruford College, Guildford School of Acting, Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts and East 15 Acting School, were first involved when the RSC held two days of workshops run for sixty-six students between December 2007 and March 2008. They were then chosen from a shortlist of ten students who the RSC felt had the best feel for language and would benefit from further immersion in the work on text for which the RSC is renowned.
Poetry Intensive runs from Monday 28 July – Friday 15 August 2008 with the two public performances at The Courtyard Theatre on Tuesday 12 August and Thursday 14 August, 5pm – 6pm.
Further informaton
For more information, please contact Philippa Harland, RSC Head of Press on 020 7845 0512 or philippa.harland@rsc.org.uk
Notes to Editors
Poetry Intensive is part of the RSC's ongoing Artist Development Programme which is generously supported by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and the Kovner Foundation.
15 July 2008
