With mulled wine and mince pies in the foyer and the studio decked out in colourful silken drapes it was quite an event. As the actors tumbled in, wearing bright, gold trimmed and bejewelled costumes, I was amazed – the line seemed to go on and on! The group, comprising people from all over the world – one of whom had arrived in the UK only two days before – had brought friends and family along, filling the studio with languages including Kurdish, Hungarian, Iranian, Egyptian, Croatian, Chinese, a range of African languages. An apt audience for a collection of stories that range around the world from Baghdad to Istanbul to China to Cairo.
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The Managing Director and I are the Joint Chief Executive and split the workload between us, with me leading on what I regard as all the fun stuff (the art) and him leading on all the organisational and financial side. However he’s been off sick for some weeks and looks set to be off till after Christmas, so I’ve been covering what I can of his workload as well as my own. It’s an interesting experience. I’m developing new relationships with staff through working with them in a different way; exploring the deep waters of financial management (I know so much more about VAT now than I ever wanted to know); doing more in the way of planning and budgeting than I normally do and therefore finding new ways to approach them. It’s been a steep learning curve, which is satisfying in many ways – it’s always exciting to learn new things – but it’s also leaving me keen to get back to my more normal workload.
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Guest Blog: Member of the New Vic Youth Theatre, Becky King, age 15.
During half term, Crossing Boundaries took place at the Kingswood Centre in Wolverhampton. Over 40 people from youth theatres around the country took part and I was lucky enough to be involved. Throughout the week, we devised and rehearsed a piece of Berechtian style theatre whilst making new friends and gaining fresh ideas.
On the first day, I was very nervous and excited as to who I would meet and what we would do. After arriving on the coach, we were split off into dormitory groups and settled in. To begin with, it was slightly awkward talking to people we had never met, but after about ten minutes, everyone was laughing and joking. Once we’d unpacked, we all began the first session. We started with a warm-up that included a dance. This was embarrassing to start off with, however, it ended up as a fun and enjoyable routine. The afternoon included games and getting to know one another working as a group. We also began to understand skills and think about how we may use them such as unison, ripple and echo. We did not know yet what style of theatre we would be devising so it made us think about the piece. Our next task was to produce stereotypes of people by thinking about invisible pieces of string pulling on different parts of our bodies. This was funny and we had good fun exaggerating the different stereotypes.
Tuesday was one of my favourite days. Using our stereotypes of the previous day, we created small scenes and re-wrote lyrics to a well-known song that could put with our scenes. This was fun and made every laugh at each others lyrics. We were then introduced to the style of theatre and after the warm-up, we began using the stereotypes to create 50s scenes that were fun and over the top. We were told to only show what was needed and this was hard as we wanted to show lots. After cutting down lots of lines, it looked much better but was harder to actually think about our characters. We rehearsed these scenes and also made a new futuristic one that was to show communication in the near future. This day seemed to go on forever and by the end, everyone was so tired but couldn’t wait for the next day.
The next day, we were asked to meet at the hall early and we discovered that we were going for a walk. This didn’t appeal to most people as it was cold and we were all very tired, but it turned out to be fun and became a laugh. After warming up with our now traditional dancing, we rehearsed our 50s scenes and introduced other scenes such as the Que sera sera song. This was an over exaggerated mime to the song and to begin with, I was embarrassed about going too far and over the top. This was the hardest part for me, as I wasn’t sure which actions to make up.
Over the next few days, we added different scenes including futuristic, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s scenes which were interesting and good fun to include.
As the week drew on, everyone made so many new friends and we all had so much fun. On Thursday, we had a party. This was one of the highlights of my week as everyone was having so much fun and it was such a great atmosphere.
But on the last day, we all realised it was coming to an end and as last rehearsals took place. We were all so pleased with the piece and it felt like so much longer than a week. After swapping phones numbers and taking countless photos, it was time to go home.
The next day, was the performance. Run-throughs began and didn’t go perfectly. New things were introduced like projecting onto a screen and bits of costume. The performance, however, went really well. We were so pleased with it and as the audience piled in, I was excited like everyone else. As soon as the lights went down afterwards, we were buzzing and everyone was so proud of what we had created in under a week.
However, we had to say goodbye. The after-party was tearful and although we were all happy from after the performance, we all knew there would be some people we might never see again. We grew so close to people and I feel like it had been an experience of a lifetime. It was so much fun and also gave me new ideas, I would definitely encourage anyone that enjoys drama, meeting new people and having some great laughs to take up this brilliant opportunity.
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A ferociously busy month at the New Vic, finishing the run of The Weir; welcoming in Northern Broadsides’ hoot of a production of Accidental Death of An Anarchist; starting rehearsals for The Knotty; getting The Arabian Nights up and running; casting A Voyage Round My Father; designing The Price and Honeymoon Suite. As with everyone, Christmas is a busy time here, but this one’s been especially hectic for every department.
And, quite apart from all this, a fantastic Christmas present is about to be opened. Our new WorkSpace got underway in the spring, with its foundations being dug. Now it stands, splendid and nearly finished, waiting for acoustic doors and the final finishing touches. Fingers crossed all goes well and it will be handed over to us just before Christmas, ready for us to start moving in come the new year.
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Upstairs, coloured scarves are flying and shoulders snaking as choreographer Shobna Gulati leads a dance session with the Arabian Nights’ young company. “Now I need you to get a bit more Persian for me”, she tells the girls as they pull together a wedding dance. Downstairs, puppeteers Blind Summit are introducing the cast to puppet Sinbad, exploring how he enters, moves on stage and exits. “What’s he thinking?” Blind Summit asks one of the cast, who very honestly admits she doesn’t know. “I could tell,” comes the reply. This afternoon we’ll be in an English country garden as we discuss the set proposal for A Voyage Round My Father, and as the day goes on we’ll find ourselves in the honeyed warmth of a rural Irish bar for this evening’s performance of The Weir. A trip round the world and back all in a day’s work.
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