We’re at the business end of the academic year and that
means most days for both students and staff are pretty full on!
For our third year students the week starts with group
tutorials at 9am and a chance to plan through the week ahead and discuss the
dissertations which are due in next month. Most of the cohort are close to
completion and eager that staff should read through the revisions and redrafts completed
over the weekend.
At 10am the tutorials come to an end and the third years
move off for the first practical sessions of the week.
The Applied Theatre students meet up with Keith Palmer, the
CEO of The Comedy School, who have a ten year track record of using
stand up comedy as a rehabilitative tool. The group are organising a conference
after Easter exploring the uses of Drama in helping ex-offenders back into work
and spend the morning devising the workshops that they’ll offer to the
delegates. It’s a busy time for these students, ten days after the conference
they’re flying out to Durban to work with trainee teachers in looking at the
ways in which Drama can be used to in sex education with a particular focus on
gender assertiveness and HIV/AIDS prevention.
Matthew Hahn, who leads the trip, has a growing reputation
in South Africa based partly on his play The Robben Island Bible, which tells
the fascinating story of the influence Shakespeare’s plays had on Nelson
Mandela and the other political prisoners during their captivity.
After South Africa Matt will jet off to Washington DC to
direct an American version of the play. This morning he’s on the phone in his
office talking through the casting with the producer. The work began as
rehearsed reading with the great South African actor John Kani on stage at the
Richmond Theatre and co-produced by Drama St Mary’s. It’s very exciting to
watch its evolution.
Meanwhile the Theatre Arts students, under the watchful eye
of Trevor Walker, have a morning working with a professional photographer
sorting out their head shots in preparation for their fast approaching showcase
event at the Soho Theatre in May. Duologues are rehearsed in the corners of the
room as each young actor waits their turn.
Next door Kasia Zaremba Byrne, our director of Physical
Theatre, leads her students through a warm up, before a first full run through
of their short self-devised shows which open at Jackson’s Lane Theatre in
Highgate next Monday. It’s a critical
moment as the students know that Kasia won’t be slow to point out any problems
with the pieces; but there’s great excitement as well a sense that the work is
nearly there.
Elsewhere in the building things are just as hectic. I start
my teaching week with a lecture to the first years on Shakespeare’s The
Tempest. We look at the contextual history of the work as well as
considering how different directors have chosen to depict Prospero, Caliban and
Ariel and end up in a fascinating discussion about the play’s apparent lack of
plot. Although the aim of our degree
programmes is to train young actors for the profession, all of us on the staff
believe that the practical work students undertake needs underpinning with a
sound knowledge of theatre theory and history.
It’s vital our students know how to read and understand plays.
For the second years this semester has been all about
working on shows. Theatre Arts are currently in our main theatre, fitting up
for a production of Lorca’s Yerma, directed by Katie Henry. Our vocal coach Patsy Burn leads a singing
call to get the week started, whilst backstage in the workshop the technical
crew begin the final stages of the set build, which will transfer into the
space later in the week.
In Studio 2 Applied Theatre are working on a site-specific
piece, which is going to be performed on an island in the Thames towards the
end of April. Chris Baldwin, who’s leading the project, works mostly abroad in
Poland and Spain. He’s been away for a fortnight co-ordinating a festival of
culture in Wroclaw and is eager to see what progress has been made on his
return. Tina Bicat, our senior technician, sits in to make sure the new
material can work logistically. The main problem is to do with rowing an
audience of potentially over a hundred out safely?
Physical Theatre too are working hard, on a production of
Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector, which will follow Yerma
into the theatre. They still have a couple of weeks before they come
off book so this morning director Anna Healey runs a focused session on
ensemble playing.
At lunch the students pile into the refectory, full of
stories form the morning’s rehearsals and keen to find out how the other
companies are getting on. The box office, run by the third year students, opens
up.
The Yerma posters have come back from
reprographics so the company finish their lunch early and spread out across
campus to pin them to the noticeboards.
I have a brief catch up with our production manager Alistair
Milne who tells me that he’s had an email from third year Tim, currently on
placement at the opulent Burgtheatr in Vienna.
Al tells me that Tim’s first job on arrival was to mic up the Austrian
President when he came to give a lecture at the venue last week. Not a bad
first gig!
In the afternoon the students return to rehearsals and I have
some time looking at schedules for next year with our administrators Jess and
Lou. We try and plan at least a year ahead and anticipate changes early. Today, though, we finalise the technical
schedule for the MA festival of devised and directed work, which will play for
two weeks at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden this summer. From the studio below we can hear the first
years running through their vocal exercises with Patsy. We focus a great deal
on technic here, especially with our first years. If we instil good practice
early then hopefully they’ll be equipped with the necessary skills to support
them through their three years here and , more crucially, beyond when they
begin to look for work.
We’ve got an interview day on Friday and so Lou takes Kasia
and I through the applicants. There’s a healthy competition to get onto our
courses and so it’s really important to try and learn as much as we can about
each student who applies.
By 5pm classes are over. Trevor pops his head round the door
to report back on the afternoon’s collaborative provision meeting. We’re hoping
to reach a franchise agreement with a Performing Arts academy in Hong Kong.
Among the several benefits the partnership would potentially enable our
students to access work placement opportunities in their growing culture
sector. The agreement is a little way off but Trevor seems upbeat about our
chances of making something happen.
Tonight we’re hosting the wonderful Cardboard Citizens who
are bringing their touring show, Glasshouse, written by wunderkind performance
poet Kate Tempest, to the theatre.
Al meets the van and aids the get in whilst Jess makes sure
the company have all that they need.
Cardboard Citizens are the country’s leading forum theatre
company and their work, inspired by the practice of Brazilian theatre director
Augusto Boal, offers the audience the opportunity to swap in for the
protagonist and change the course of the action.
Kate’s play, focusing on the troubled relationship between
an eighteen year old girl and her step father is brilliantly constructed and it
doesn’t take long for the students to take over, offering different ideas and
strategies for how a brighter future might exist for the family.
Afterwards the actors are persuaded over to the SU bar for a
quick pint, which gives the students a chance to quiz them about their
practice. These lively discussions push on towards closing time and are only
brought to an end when the stage manager reminds the company that they’ve still
got to get the set back to East London.
We cheerfully wave them off before making our own weary ways home.
But we’ll all be back bright and early to begin again
tomorrow.
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