TheatreCenter

To accommodate the various school half term dates our half term falls on Saturday 28th May and Saturday 4th June. We hope you have a lovely break and look forward to seeing you all again on Saturday 11th June, when Pip will be your supervisor. She can be contacted on the day on her mobile: 07957 641 210

We were delighted to welcome back Phil Bint to theatrecenter last week. Phil is a multi-talented  artist and designer and works a great deal with shadow puppets. He introduced both groups to the art of shadow puppetry, drawing their attention to many multi-cultural examples. The Junior group created simple puppets with one manipulation, and scenery to go with it. We used recycled card, split pins and tracing paper and created dogs, faces, suns, clouds and special effects. They each invented a short scene which was filmed. The Seniors created more complex puppets with several manipulations, and an assortment of fantastical scenery and characters and devised short stories within small groups which were also filmed. We look forward to displaying these on the website soon.

…Oh, and it was Charlie’s Birthday! Happy Birthday to you Charlie!

Jo Chappell is back as your supervisor this week. She can be contacted on her mobile (07979) 222 140.

Jo Chappell was delighted to be back in teaching role and bringing some new exciting games to the theatrecenter table. With the Juniors we looked at Maurice Sendak’s “Where The Wild Things Are” and created in our minds the worlds of the characters. We had some very interesting interviews with Max, his Mum and his dog! The Joint session saw some more fabulous Random Word Theatre. The Seniors were introduced to some monologue pieces, asked to choose their scene and we spent their session looking in detail at their characters, who theye are, where they are, why they are there, where are they going, what are they doing… This served as a foundation for work we will continue in future sessions.

Pip will be your superviser again this week! You can contact her on the day on her mobile : 07957 641 210

Melody Roche was back with us again this week and helped us to start really putting the Meisner Technique into practise. The Juniors worked on their observation skills by doing an exercise called ‘Alien Eyes’; where everyday objects have to be described to someone who knows nothing about our world (telephones are quite tricky!!) and then went on to create a story from a picture and a prop! The Seniors kicked off their session with a round or 2 of The Freeze Game but this time they had to include props (a towel and a whisk) and then went on to create a scene as the Juniors had done but with the additional task of having to perform their pieces whilst doing something else at the same time (playing a card or board game). This exercise really helps to make a scene flow naturally as the performers are having to think about 2 things at once and therefore are more likely to deliver their lines as if they are really thinking about what to say rather than just ‘reciting’ lines! We had 4 different scenes, some of which were truly moving. It was Random Word & Prop Theatre this week and we all worked as one big group to devise a piece created around the words ‘Remember’ and ‘Contact’ and incorporating a football, a book of fairy stories and a pair of binoculars! The resulting piece (‘Strangers On A Train’) saw 5 groups of individuals (with their own relationships) emabarking on independent journeys but discovering at the end that they were all bizarrely linked together…

This week, Pip will be wearing the theatrecenter supervisers hat! She will be on site from approximately 12.30 and can be contacted on her mobile : 07957 641 210

We had a double whammy of excellence for the first day back at theatrecenter! Melody Roche & James Pegg took time out of their very busy schedule (they are both currently working on a very exciting production of  ’Get Carter’; a Brighton Fringe premiere, directed by our very own James Weisz!) to share some of their wealth of theatrical knowledge with us! It was an amazingly productive afternoon…!! The Juniors created a physical museum of ‘Random Art’ and then took it in turns to speak as an ‘expert’;  describing an exhibit (What is it? Why is it in this museum? What makes it so valuable?) and taking questions from the floor! They also tackled ‘being the arms on someone else’s body’! Two people are having a conversation; their arms are behind their backs. Their partners stand behind them and puts their arms forward, thereby becoming the arms for their partner!!!  The Seniors worked on ‘Broken Conversations’; where the audience only hears parts of the dialogue for a variety of reasons (a loud vehicle passes by, they go out through a door, then come back etc): and ‘And Another Thing…’; Eavesdropping  on an argument and charting the rise &  fall and dynamics that occurs in those situations. They then went on to devise 2 pieces: ‘Charlie’s Party’ (where the cast had to create a scene around random instructions given by James) and ‘House Of Cards’ (using a picture to create an account of a moment; spoken whilst building a house of cards! Drawing on all their new found experience of  Melody’s excellent Meisner sessions!). Both groups also managed to find time to create  pieces of ‘Double Random Word Theatre’! The Juniors with ‘House/New’ and the Seniors with ‘Insanity/Flight’ – PHEW!!!!