Living Pictures Productions have announced the details of their Directors'
Acting Courses. The company was was formed to "find new and engaging
ways to train for and perform theatre art and to encourage and develop
new work and new European translations." It is now in its third
year of presenting courses.
LILO BAUR - Le Jeu - Diorama
Date: June 5th to 9th | Price: £200 | Places: 12
Lilo is an actress, director and teacher. She has worked with such
directors as Peter Brook, Simon McBurney and Katie Mitchell. Most
people will know her for her work with Complicite including playing
the title role in The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol - for which
she won numerous awards. Her directing work includes The Winters
Tale, Une Puce A L’Oreille and The King Stag.
She has been movement director on Simon McBurney’s The Chairs
and The Causasian Chalk Circle, both at the RNT.
This workshop aims to find the playfulness in theatre. Children express
their emotions (anger, joy, sadness, love) openly and fully. When
you see children from different countries meeting for the first time,
you realise how they immediately create their own language, their
own code. They talk and play with each other through their new found
rules and through their physicality. Via games and improvisations
we will aim to re discover the child in us and the openness to dare
again. A teacher of mine once said: 'The physicality is like the body
of a king and the text is his crown'. We will be looking at some short
stories and find new ways of telling them.
BELLA MERLIN - Active analysis and the art of play - Diorama
Date: June 12th to 16th | Price: £175 | Places: 12 (Maximum)
Bella Merlin is an actor, writer, director and lecturer in Drama
at Exeter University. Theatre includes David Hare's The Permanent
Way, She Stoops to Conquer and A Laughing Matter,
all for Max Stafford-Clark's Out of Joint Theatre Company and the
National Theatre. Her Publications include Beyond Stantislavsky
(2001), Konstantin Stantislavsky (2004), With the Rogue's
Company: Henry IV at the National Theatre (2005) and she is currently
writing The Complete Stantislavsky Toolkit.
In the first half of this week-long workshop, Bella Merlin introduces
directors to psycho-physical aspects of acting processes drawn from
Stanislavski, Michael Chekhov and Jerzy Grotowski to build a strong
ensemble and a sense of play. The latter half of the week takes various
dialogues to explore Stanislavski’s rehearsal practice of Active
Analysis. This practice is improvisation-based, and aims to produce
interaction between actors which is vibrant and honest. This is a
challenging, but playful approach to text and performance.
KATE MARAVAN - The Meisner Method - Actors Centre
Date: June 17th to 21st | Price: £150 | Places: 12 (Maximum)
Kate Maravan is an actress, director and teacher. She has worked
extensively in TV, radio and theatre and has written scripts for the
BBC and Channel 4. She has worked closely with Scott Williams exploring
and developing the Meisner Technique. She is a co-founder of White
Box, a resident company at the Actors Centre producing and devising
their own work including Angel Filth which she co-created and
wrote.
Sanford Meisner’s method uses key exercises to get to the core
definition of acting: ‘acting is living truthfully in an imaginary
set of circumstances’. It develops and encourages the actor’s
impulsivity, spontaneity and ability to work in the moment. An introductory
two days of the Meisner Technique will be followed by an exploration
of the technique as it is applied to text.
ROBERT BOWMAN - The Actor’s Perspective - Actors Centre
Date: June 22nd to 26th | Price: £125 | Places: 12 (Maximum)
Robert is Joint Artistic Director of Living Pictures and in 2007
Artistic Associate at the Bristol Old Vic. He is an Actor and Director,
his influences include Stanislavski, NLP and Constellation work. His
approach enables directors to get a deeper understanding of the actor’s
perspective of rehearsal and performance.
The workshop will cover Research, Objectives, Actions, Obstacles,
Events, Relationships, Sense Data and Pictures amongst other areas
to be considered when directing. The week will culminate with participants
getting an opportunity to try out some of the techniques and receive
feedback. He will be working from Brecht’s Fear and Misery
in the Third Reich.
John Wright - Evolving the text - RSC Clapham Rehearsal Rooms
Date: July 3rd to 7th | Price: £200 | Places: 12 (Maximum)
John co-founded Trestle Theatre Company and directed most of their
work until 1992, when he co-founded Told by an Idiot. His many productions
include Aladdin, Don't Laugh It’s My Life, On
the Verge of Exploding and Hamlet, Richard III and
The Changeling (Third Party Productions). His awards include
Hong Kong International Festival Best New work award for Shooting
Sons, Time Out Award for The Edge and the Guardian and
Sunday Times Awards for She'll be Coming Around the Mountain.
The weeks' work will encompass: Approaching the Text - exploring
the text before learning i, and Evolving a Text - exploring ways of
making a play and evolving that text. You will learn and practice
techniques that John uses in his work, look at approaches to a modern
text, to a Shakespeare text and devising new work.
Mike Alfreds - Meet the world of the play - RSC Clapham Rehearsal
Rooms
Date: July 10th to 14th | Price: £150 | Places: 12 (Maximum)
Mike is the Founder of Shared Experience Theatre Company and Method
and Madness Theatre Company. He is an award winning director with
seasons at the RSC, RNT and Globe Theatre amongst many others.
Mike will take directors through a process that aims to (a) encourage
the actors to meet the world of the play experientially and (b) to
allow them the greatest possible creative freedom within it. The work
will be shared through physical exercises and analytical work using
one of Chekhov’s plays.
Katie Mitchell - 2 Week Intensive - Oval House - Places Filled
- Waiting List Only
Date: July 17th to 28th | Price: £500 for the two weeks | Places:
12 (Maximum)
Katie is currently an Associate Director of the National Theatre.
Her training has been in classical theatre and The Stanislavski System.
The two weeks will concentrate on textual analysis, research and the
preparation of practical exercises for rehearsals using a chosen text.
Initially participants will be learning Katie’s method as actors.
Following this participants will have an opportunity to try out the
work as directors and will be asked to direct a piece of text/exercise
which Katie will observe and give feedback on.
Please send a CV along with a deposit cheque of £50 to book your
place. The company will be operating on a first come first serve basis
and if unsuccessful your deposit will be returned immediately. The remainder
fee will be due three weeks prior to the start of the workshop. (Cheques
made payable to Living Pictures Productions)
There is a 10% Discount if you are a member of the Young Vic Genesis
Directors Forum or have attended a previous Directors Acting Workshop.
Living Pictures Productions would like to thank the RSC for their support
on this project.
To help meet the cost of the workshop LLP have been advised you can
apply to ACE.
