April 2010 Archives

Shakespeare really does seem to be the flavour of the year amongst publishers. First there was a spate of books about who really wrote the plays if it wasn’t a glover’s son from Stratford — all of which I wrote about earlier in the year and got ticked off roundly for the heresy that actually I don’t care much who wrote them. I’m just thankful that someone did.

Now we get news of Double Falsehood which may, at least in part, be by Shakespeare - whoever he was. Discussions have been ongoing since the early 18th century when it popped up in Drury Lane.

Well, Methuen Drama take it seriously enough to have issued a fat new edition as part of its Arden Third Series along with the rest of the canon which is gradually being republished. Brian Hammond of Nottingham University, who has edited and annotated it very thoroughly, argues that the play — whose alternative name is The Distressed Lovers — is definitely not simply a lost play by Shakespeare.

It could be by James Shirley, Philip Massinger or John Fletcher, he says. At best it is a collaborative play by Fletcher and Shakespeare. The eighteenth century impresario Lewis Theobald certainly had a big hand in it. All very intriguing, especially given the rumours coming out of Stratford that Gregory Doran is working on it with a view to staging it - what an education that will/would be.

Also new in the Arden Shakespeare series is a fat revised edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, edited by Katherine Duncan Jones. All drama students - indeed anyone remotely interested in the spoken word - should be deeply familiar with these remarkable poems and this edition provides nice clean text with accessible, useful explanatory notes opposite. I once set myself a project of reading and studying one Shakespeare sonnet a day for five months until I’d worked through them all. This book will probably inspire me to repeat it.

Also on my pile - the best things go in threes - is a ‘new’ biography, Shakespeare: an ungentle life. Actually it was published in 2001 but has now been re-issued in a new edition with additional material. Katherine Duncan Jones (learly a busy woman) may well be Shakespeare’s first female biographer. She is very good at bringing to life - and exploring the historical context - of a figure whose life is notoriously difficult to document because so many facts are missing.

• Double Falsehood, ed by Brian Hammond, Methuen Drama, 2010, £16.99

• Shakespeare’s Sonnets, ed by Katherine Duncan-Jones, Methuen Drama, £9.99

• Shakespeare: An Ungentle Life by Katherine Duncan-Jones, Methuen Drama, £9.99

A few weeks ago I wrote an Insight piece for the print edition of The Stage about the teaching of Shakespeare in schools and how it has developed and changed. One or two people - especially those running the organisations mentioned therein - said kind and or grateful things but generally the silence was loud. That’s how it is in the business. You don’t get much feedback from readers unless you annoy them.

Well I evidently annoyed Suzie Hardie from whom a formal, old-fashioned letter (yes, there are still people who write them) arrived last week. Ms Hardie was, she tells me ‘completely taken aback’ by my piece.

My alleged offence was a sin of omission. I had mentioned that well known Shakespeare guru, the late Rex Gibson, along with RSC, NT, Globe, Open Air Theatre and Shakespeare 4 Kidz. But George Murcell was missing. And I stand accused by Ms Hardie of being ‘unaware that it was George Murcell who opened his Shakespearean Theatre in Tufnell Park in 1976.’ He was, she says, ‘the real pioneer in bringing Shakespeare alive to young people through his performances and workshops.’

Well actually Ms Hardie is quite wrong about me. I am well aware of George Murcell’s work and the lovely St George’s which closed in 1989.

I taught English in Kent comprehensive schools from 1977 to 1993 during which time I took many groups to St George’s. The circular converted church had similar dimensions to The Globe and at that time - long before Shakespeare’s Globe on Bankside was built - it was the best possible way of showing students how it would have been in Shakespeare’s time. I must have attended at least seven or eight performances and workshops there and well recall the sterling work of education officer Cathy Griffin (one of the first to be appointed to a theatre) and her team.

I’ve no doubt some of the students I took there, and who learned such a lot, have clear memories of it too. Ms Hardie, who worked with George Murcell for the whole of the thirteen years, tells me that between 1976 and 1989 around 250,000 students attended the theatre from all over the country.

So why didn’t I mention it my piece? Well partly because it has been closed (it ran out of funding) for 21 years and partly because you cannot cover a topic as large as this exhaustively in a 1,100 word newspaper article. As any journalist will tell you, selection and difficult decisions are almost always the order of the day.

Perhaps someone should write a book about the history of teaching Shakespeare in this country. Then all the movers and shakers could have their due.

‘Tis the season to… see a lot of showcases. This week alone I’ve been to three and have so far seen quite a few this year. The Stage tries to review all showcases mounted by Conference of Drama School members to which it is invited. But we showcase reviewers are only a small (rather select, in fact!) team and inevitably the occasional event slips through the net if none of us is available to attend.

Reviewing showcases is a strange business. Unlike most of the audience, which consists of agents and casting directors along with proud parents and other supporters, we are there not to select, or gun for, individuals. Our job is to watch very critically and attentively and say something fair about as many students as possible.

It is probably one of the most difficult tasks a reviewer could undertake, too, because you see an enormous number of very short performances shoe-horned into a great deal less than ‘the two hours traffic of our stage’. It’s very different from reviewing a whole show, even one with a big cast. At the Rose Bruford Acting and Acting Musician Showcase on Tuesday, for example, we were offered 42 students in 40 items in just 100 minutes. It isn’t easy even to keep track of who everyone is as you frantically make notes and aide memoires on things such as clothing and hair. And that’s all useless if the students are using costumes of course as sometimes, quite reasonably, they do.

Then there are strange directorial decisions which give a reviewer pause for thought, Why does Student A appear three times and Student B only once? If you blink you miss Student B altogether.

Then there’s all that well covered but evident tension afterwards when the students mingle with the guests, usually over refreshments. Some students are targeted immediately by several people - often agents competing with each other to sign up someone exceptionally promising. Others, and my heart always goes out to them, stand a bit awkwardly on the sidelines because, it appears, that this time at least no one is interested in their talents.

I feel awkward under these circumstances too because I have nothing to offer. If I speak to a ‘lonely’ student I watch the eyes brighten and then fade again when I explain that I am ‘just a journalist’ although it’s a good opportunity to discuss The Stage and why they should be reading it avidly every week if they are not already doing so.

I have already seen a great deal of very promising talent in 2010 showcases - and the season is not over yet. Although ours is a booming industry it can be dispiriting at the outset - and sometimes later too - as we all know. I wish every 2010 beginner, and not just the ones I’ve seen in action recently, the best of luck. Hang in there. Most of you have got what it takes.

I think I’ve discovered a hitherto unnoticed training need in this industry. I dislike the patronising, dismissive term “luvvie” and understand completely why so many actors and other professionals loathe it and very rarely use it.

But sometimes people are so petulant and precious in their attitudes and behaviour that it’s hard to think of a more apt word.

Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance (the last four words are new to its name) is evidently going places under principal Michael Earley who started there last September. As Earley says himself, alluding to the recently completed RBCTP season at Unicorn Theatre, it’s time to emerge from the ‘middle earth of Sidcup.’

This week RBCTP is holding its 10th annual Come Together Festival. I think I might have avoided that, presumably unintentional, double-entendre title, but there it is. It is actually a week-long, intensely busy symposium designed to celebrate and highlight work, research and partnerships at the college. RBCTP’s Director of Research, Professor Nesta Jones, produces it.

Following a welcome by Earley there was a high profile address by Sir Richard Eyre on Monday to launch it all. Many students will have read Eyre’s books such as National Service and Talking Theatre and/or be familiar with his distinguished work as a director (Iris, Notes on a Scandal, Carmen at the Met and Private Lives in the West End to name but a few items from his long CV).

What strikes me looking through the week’s programme is what an astonishingly full week it is with workshop and demonstrations going on all day. Also on Monday, for instance, there was a workshop about adapting The House of Usher for the stage led by Watermill Theatre, a demonstration of a new, low carbon lighting product and a ‘journey’ thought the issues raised by celebrity in our culture led by Apocryphal Theatre - and 17 other options and events. And that level of activity continues all week. I wish, for example, that I could get to this afternoon’s session with The Shakespeare Band which explicitly explores the relationship between music and Shakespeare’s verse - fascinating.

The week ends with a community day billed as a ‘local day for the whole family’ with activities and performances on Saturday including The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, a puppetry workshop, Sambarriba, Rock Choir and Herons.

The Come Together Festival is sub-titled Tradition - Innovation - Change which it clearly lives up to. And there’s a welcome whiff of freshness about all this. Good news for its students and others Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance works with.

It all started with Michelle Obama. Having tried to take up hula hooping for health and fitness several years ago with a hoop bought in a toy/sports shop, I found - to much mortification - that, although I could have hooped for England at age 10, I could no longer get the beast to stay up at all. I concluded that it must be something you simply can’t do when you’re grown up.

Then I saw a newspaper photograph of Mrs Obama cheerfully demonstrating her hooping prowess on the lawn at the White House.”If she can do it why can’t I…?” I thought.

Secondary schools have been widely criticised — often by me — for failing to provide competent careers advice for young people wanting performing arts careers. “Oh no, you don’t want to do that, because actors are usually out of work. So let’s talk about careers in pharmacy” simply will not do. Of course there are jobs in the performing arts, especially backstage, in more capacities than most teachers can dream of, because this is a trend-bucking, booming industry.

So where should these ignorant, but determined, potential performers and creators of performance turn for advice? Well, not, it would seem, to students in (some) accredited drama schools. Recent Facebook postings have dismissed as ‘pillocks’ students who go to a lot of trouble to find suitable audition songs, for example. The same unhelpful, less than articulate, first year student and self appointed ‘adviser’ then suggested that it is ‘simply a case of finding a song that they liked and could sing well’ to the horror of the drama student recruiter who drew my attention to this. She was also astonished that another student from a different accredited college then went on to list some ‘completely inappropriate and overdone songs.’

A recent article in The Drama Student magazine, by a graduate of an accredited school, advised students not to search for a suitable song, or indeed to learn a new song for a forthcoming audition. Instead they should simply dish up something they already know. Such laziness is leading some professionals conducting auditions into what my source called ‘pits of despair.’

Enter a sensible and refreshing new book called So You Want to Go to Drama School? by Helen Freeman (Nick Hern Books, RRP £9.99) which provides precisely the information and advice aspirant actors and others need. Freeman knows what she is talking about, having had a career as an actress which evolved to include teaching. She has extensive experience of the audition process as an audition panellist, student-performance assessor and teacher at Guildford School of Acting. Her own son is just completing his actor training.

Freeman specifically advises against, for instance, choosing tired old audition pieces such as extracts from A level set texts or using compilation books because the panel will have heard them many times before.

She is also very strong on the detailed research which every applicant needs to do before deciding which schools to apply for. She stresses, for instance, that every drama school has its own ethos and that no two are the same. What suits one student will not suit another. So applicants need to arm themselves with information, eliminate schools which are not for them and make shortlists. Prospectuses, websites and word of mouth are all vital.

She ends with extensive lists of useful contacts and organisations, some of which relate to funding. There is also a book list, a breakdown on theatre genres and a helpful glossary of technical terms such as ‘parody,’ ‘ad lib,’ and ‘dramatic irony.’

So, if you are a potential drama student, or the parent of one, and you are not getting constructive careers advice at or through school or college then buy this book - which should also, of course, be in school libraries. Listen to students who are already, in training, of course, but exercise caution and don’t rely on Facebook for careers advice.

And if you’ve been the victim of misinformation about the drama school admission process I’d love to hear from you. Just as I would if you found out everything you needed to know smoothly, easily and accurately.

Even if you have no personal experience of autism - and given its growing prevalence there can’t be many of us in that position - you have probably read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Or go and see the marvellous London Eye Mystery currently running at Unicorn Theatre.

Give three cheers for Young, Autistic and Stagestruck, a collaborative project between the Lyric Hammersmith and the television production company Love Productions, due to be broadcast in four programmes on Channel 4 this month starting on 12 April. It is the result of what must surely be one of the most ambitious and uplifting projects ever undertaken by a group of autistic children and their parents.

Potentially there’s a lot more to visiting Disneyland Paris than a just a jolly jaunt. Take the Disney Magic Music Days programme. It offers performance opportunities to amateur groups, “with the aim of giving participants a glimpse into Disney’s professional world of entertainment, by offering them the unique, once in a lifetime experience of becoming a ‘Disney’ performer for the day.”

Four main group types are eligible to apply: Instrumental, Choral, Dance and Marching Bands - but it’s got to be secular so no hymns for your brass band or Hallejujah chorus numbers for your choir. Note the word ‘apply’ too. You have to audition by sending DVD recordings of your work so that they can weed out the wheat from the chaff - as it were. A ‘group’ must have at least 20 participants with a minimum of 10 performers, none of whom may be under 5.

It certainly results in some varied events. Last month a Disney Magic Music Day in Paris included groups from around the UK and Europe, amongst which were a school choir, a samba college and an orchestra.

Another Disney project which amounts to a bit of toe-in-the-water youth training is its Disney Performing Arts Workshops programme. This aims, rather ungrammatically, to ‘nurture young talent and initiate them into the thrills and challenges of performance.’

Current workshops include Dance, Vocal and Musical Theatre. The workshops are split into age groups, with a maximum group size of 25. The workshops do not involve a live performance.

Each session is facilitated by a ‘Disney’ professional and lasts approximately 90 minutes with an opportunity for a Q&A at the end.

Disney Dance workshops are adapted to three age groups: Junior Dance for age 6-10, Intermediate Dance for 11-16 years old and Advanced Dance for over 16s.

There are two levels - intermediate (age 11-16) and Advanced (16 plus) - for Disney Vocal workshops and a similar split for Musical Theatre workshops. All workshops boldly claim to develop:

• Performance skills
• Effective preparation techniques
• Professionalism
• Self-confidence
• Diversity of styles
• Teamwork
• Audition skills (reserved for 16 years old and above)
• Disney Magic

…and might just be a way for your child or teenager to try out this sort of tuition during a stay at Disneyland Paris to find out whether of not he or she would like more performing arts training.

There is a lot more about both these programmes on the website, and on the accompanying application form (PDF).