Author Archives: Shakespeare

Macbeth “storms” into Valparaiso

Posted on by
The Chapel of the Resurrection on the campus of Valparaiso University

The Chapel of the Resurrection on the campus of Valparaiso University

Sirrahs, maids etc. I write to you all on the last day of a week’s residence at Valparaiso University. We wondered if we were ever going to make it there at all. Having cooked ourselves under the Texan sun for a blissfully warm week we arrived at Houston airport convinced the plane wasn’t going to take off due to the weather reports from our destination, Chicago O’Hare. Everything seemed to suggest there was no point in even leaving our hotel, never mind catching a plane. But no, the website insisted that flight was on schedule. Instinct is something we don’t trust enough in this life. We were actually boarding the aircraft when the flight was cancelled. Of course it was. So the five of us spent that night in Houston.

"Toil and trouble" on the way back to Indiana

“Toil and trouble” on the way back to Indiana

The following night we landed and struck out into the snow and ice planes of Chicago. A lovely limo driver fought of a Chicago airport parking attendant (the most hideously rude man on the planet) and drove us to Valparaiso. Due to having already compromised a day and a half of the Valparaiso schedule we met the Faculty members, professors, etc. at 8am the following day.

The classes we all taught were extremely eventful. Deep subjects, searching questions and adventurous premises. Many of the classes were twice the size due to the doubling up of numbers to make up for lost time. Highlights were Michael and his students exploring The Vagina Monologues; Jo’s and my lovely two hours with the University’s community outreach project where we were so impressed and moved by the talent and warmth of local company Chicago Street Theatre, several extremely inventive and original students from Valparaiso University itself and Dexter, a brilliant improviser and, as we discovered, a former 5th in the world BMX champion.

The Macbeth cast with Haiying Sun on the Valparaiso stage

The Macbeth cast with Haiying Sun on the Valparaiso stage

We also had the small matter of three back-to-back performances of Macbeth. So good to finally get the chance to properly explore this production of ours in front of an audience. I am personally very proud of our ambition and of what I like to think is becoming an original, fresh, risk-taking and highly eccentric take on a classic. And thank you, Alan, Mary and Haiying Sun for looking after us so wonderfully.

After another exploration of the southern side of Lake Michigan, we bundled up for our residency back at our US home of Notre Dame.

See you next week!

The weekend took us to another shore of Lake Michigan where Charlie and Annie touched the void...and Jo auditioned for South Park.

The weekend took us to another shore of Lake Michigan where Charlie and Annie touched the void…and Jo auditioned for South Park.

 

Spring ’15: The Scottish Blog

Posted on by

Welcome friends to the ‘Actors from The London Stage’ blog for this 2015 tour of…Macbeth. There, I’ve said it. Let the curses rain down. Although, at the time of writing this, we are, in fact, six weeks in. That time frame begins on December 17th, our first day of rehearsals in Brixton, London. We met as five actors who had never worked together (at least in theatre, TV, yes once) and were plunged into one of the most intense and demanding creative processes your writer has ever known. And so we all descended into this huge, beautiful, and (as we discovered) very funny play. Every moment was spent solving creative challenges – the battles, the settings, the huge number of characters (there are five of us, remember!) and of course, the supernatural. The ghosts, the visions, the prophecies, and the Weird Sisters. Our set is nothing more than a chalk circle, two chairs, some sticks and some rolls of brown paper (more on that later). The only way to succeed is to be open to the very lovely fact that Shakespeare is the actor’s friend. He was one himself, of course. And he will look after you.

Macbeth cast arrives to Notre Dame

Something British this way comes!

On January 17th we travelled for a straight 20 hours, landing a little stunned at Chicago O’Hare. Rehearsals began a few hours later at Notre Dame. The run of the show the following day by five jet-lagged, frazzled lunatics was a thing to behold. Next morning we went into the University to be set up for our American life.

We look a little bedraggled, no? However, the colour is returning to our cheeks at this very elegant dinner with Scott, Aaron, Grant and the wonderful Debs.

Dinner at Notre Dame

The Macbeth cast enjoys a welcome dinner with the staff of Shakespeare at Notre Dame

And here is a little film for you taken on our day off. We drove to Lake Michigan not expecting to find this extraordinary Arctic Sea.

LINK: http://vimeo.com/118317351

A week later we flew to Houston, Texas. This sky saw us through the three-hour car journey to A&M University.

Everything is bigger in Texas. The sky opens up on the way to Texas A&M.

Everything is bigger in Texas. The sky opens up on the way to Texas A&M.

The first performance (no, we still hadn’t opened the show at this stage) loomed. In the days running up we all taught some delightful classes. A challenge for those of us as yet un-blooded as ‘teachers’ and yet a privilege. Highlights included:

Maryam’s students (at Notre Dame), Elinor’s three packed lecture halls. the gorgeous young ladies and gentlemen at Rudder High School, a wonderfully open, funny, and very innovatively nurtured group at Bryan High School, and many exceptionally talented young theatre makers at Texas A&M who were a pleasure to meet and work with. They illuminated the text of Macbeth with hugely natural and utterly unique interpretations which none of us had ever dreamt of.

Charlie Armstrong

Charlie Armstrong contemplates opening night at Texas A&M

And finally, here is a picture of Charlie on the afternoon before our opening. He could at least pretend to be looking forward to it!

And yet, a standing ovation.

Next stop Valparaiso!

– Ben Warwick

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s the cast of MACBETH!

Posted on by

Over the next 24 hours, via trains, planes, and automobiles, our five “Actors From The London Stage” are making their way from England to their US home at the University of Notre Dame. After a final few days of tweaks and tech, they’ll set out to campuses across the country to tour their AFTLS production of Shakespeare’s MACBETH. But, before they begin to bring you their notes from the road, we’d like to make some introductions. With “much ado,” Shakespeare at Notre Dame presents the Spring 2015 touring cast of Actors From The London Stage:

Annie AldingtonANNIE ALDINGTON (Donalbain/Ross/Menteth/Fleance/Lady Macbeth/Third Witch) studied drama at the University of Northumbria and works as an actor and voiceover artist. Recent theatre credits include: Mistress Quickly, Henry V (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Nurse, Romeo and Juliet (Globe Education); Eileen, Regarding X (Hot August Comedy Fringe); and Julie, A Certain Minor Light (Wimbledon Theatre). Annie is also a sonneteer at Shakespeare’s Globe and was a 2012 cast member in ‘Pop up Shakespeare,’ a project set up by Mark Rylance and directed by Jonathan Moore. This was a 50 strong cast taking Shakespeare out onto the streets of London. Annie’s recent film credits include: Sandra, Flinch (Iblade Films); and Dr. Adele Smith, English Wine (FFP Media, Germany). Annie has also recorded around 300 audio books and is the voice of many London based authors, including Martina Cole and Roberta Kray. Annie founded ‘Actup’ Theatre school in 2007 for children aged 7-12 years and also tours and workshops a play about Queen Victoria, called Victoria And Me to schools in London.

Charles ArmstrongCHARLES ARMSTRONG (Duncan – King Of Scotland/Macduff/Angus/Second Witch/Murderer) is an AFTLS veteran who trained at the Drama Studio London after studying French and Philosophy at Oxford University. Theatre credits include: Witness for the Prosecution and Engaging Shaw (Vienna’s English Theatre), Stop Messing About (Leicester Square Theatre and Number 1 Tour), Round The Horne Revisited (West End and Number 1 Tour), Wake Up and Smell The Coffee (New End), The Two Gentlemen Of Verona (Royal Shakespeare Company), Trelawny Of The Wells and The Soldiers (National Theatre), Of Mice and Men (Harrogate Theatre), The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall (Salisbury Playhouse), Wait Until Dark (Royal Theatre, Northampton), Bless The Bride (King’s Head), Twelfth Night (Liverpool Playhouse), Peter Pan (Northcott, Exeter), Rebecca (Number 1 Tour), Hay Fever (Jersey Opera House), The Provok’d Wife and The Provok’d Husband (New End), Henry V (Union Theatre), Othello (Cochrane Theatre & Tour), and How He Lied To Her Husband (Orange Tree). Film credits include: The King’s Speech, The Spell, The Pharmacist, The Navigators, The Ultimate Truth, and On The Other Hand. Television credits include: Call The Midwife, Doctors, Holby City, Scoop, Round The Horne Revisited, Head Over Heels, EastEnders, Poirot, The Hello Girls, Futurecast, and Strictly Chuckle. Radio credits include Changeable and Twice Ken Is Plenty (Radio 4). Charles was on the BBC’s Radio Repertory Company and has recorded numerous voiceovers. Charles has taught Acting Workshops for Act Up and directed theatre productions for Theatre Clwyd and the London Sitcom Trials.

Joanna BendingJOANNA BENDING (Bloody Soldier/Old Man/Malcolm/Cathness/Lady Macduff/First Witch/Murderer/Gentlewoman) trained at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In theatre she has most recently appeared as Eleanor Hopkirk alongside Alan Cox in Kingmaker, which transferred to the St. James Theatre in London after its sell out Edinburgh run this summer. Earlier in the year, she played Connie in Under the Mulberry Tree (Festival Theatre Edinburgh) and Emily, an Alzheimer’s sufferer, in Hand Over Fist (Seabright Productions and the Comedians’ Theatre Company) for which she was nominated as Best Solo Performer by The Stage in 2012. Other career highlights include spending a year at the National Theatre in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, appearing at the Royal Court in Pinter’s Mountain Language, at Regents Park in Two Women for One Ghost, and Carl Djerassi’s play, Phallacy, at the Kings Head. Joanna also enjoyed a summer season of weekly rep at Frinton playing Ruth in Blithe Spirit and all the female characters in Intimate Exchanges. For television, she has appeared in Doctors (many times in different guises), Holby City, Eastenders, Coronation Street, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Love Soup, The Bill, Angel of Death: the Beverley Allitt Story, and PMTV for the Paramount Comedy Channel. Films include this year’s Second Coming, the first feature from acclaimed playwright Debbie Tucker-Green, (Hillbilly Films); and Tick Tock Lullaby (Valiant Doll), which won Best Feature Award at the Britspotting British & Irish Film Festival.

Michael PalmerMICHAEL PALMER (Macbeth/English Doctor/Murderer) teaches Drama at the Sylvia Young Theatre School, London. His theatre credits include: All Creatures Great and Small (UK tour, Bill Kenwright Ltd); The Butterfly Lion (UK tour, BKL); The Merchant of Venice playing Shylock and Twelfth Night playing Malvolio and Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Actors From The London Stage); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (one man show, Creation TC, Oxford UK); Friend or Foe by Michael Murpogo (UK tour); A Doll’s House (Cambridge, UK); the title role in Volpone (Wilton’s Music Hall, London); The Country Wife at the Bridewell; Hamlet, King Lear, and The Merchant of Venice for Compass Theatre Company; Gamblers at Battersea Arts Centre; Descent: The Diary of a Madman (one man show, Edinburgh festival); The Mysteries at the Orange Tree in Richmond; Breaking the Code, As You Like It, and The Real Thing in Basingstoke. He also has recorded numerous Shakespeare plays on CD. Musicals include tours of Footloose; The Wedding Singer; Sing-along-a-Abba; Company at Westcliffe, UK; and the title role in Did You, Dr Crippen? at the Trafalgar Studios, London. On television Michael has appeared in Bear Behaving Badly, How Not to Live Your Life, Waking the Dead, Casualty, and Wish Me Luck.

Ben WarwickBEN WARWICK (Banquo/Lennox/Seyward/Son Of Macduff/Scottish Doctor/Porter/Hecate) trained in acting at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama having previously studied English Literature at The University of Glasgow. He has worked in British theatre, film, and television for 14 years. Notable theatre credits on London’s West End include Hamlet, the British premier of Athol Fugard’s The Captain’s Tiger, Pentecost, Look Back In Anger, Great Expectations, Miss Julie and The Deep Blue Sea. He played the lead in the highly acclaimed The Trench with Les Enfants Terribles theatre company (Edinburgh Festival and national tour). He has toured Russia as Constantin in The Seagull, Sweden as the lead in Cock by Mike Bartlett, and Italy as the lead in a radical adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Other theatre includes seasons at Theatre Royal York, Royal Northampton, The Orange Tree, and Watford Palace. Ben has also been co-artistic director of Farnham Repertory Theatre for the last nine years. In 2008, he created and directed the online TV series Five Years that went on to be a finalist in its category at the prestigious Vimeo Awards in New York. TV credits include Mary Queen of Scots (BBC) and feature film work including Blood Moon and Canakkale Yolun Sonu. Ben will also be the tour’s blogger.

Welcome to Annie, Charles, Joanna, Michael, and Ben. As Southie Shakespeare might say, “something wicked awesome this way comes!”

Much Ado Actors Blog: Halloween in Denton

Posted on by

From Austin Texas, it is a long windy drive northwards to Denton. Early in the morning the five of us crawled stinking into a rented minivan and began to fight our way up. By the time we got to Waco it made perfect sense to stop for a Burger King, by which you can all imagine the sort of state we were in. But Denton was a long way and eventually we had consumed enough water to be vaguely human again, if a little sloshy and greasy. Mark Packer met us at the hotel. Mark is very enthusiastic and playful. He likes to talk. The five of us had been communicating monosyllabically over the course of the journey so his stream of consciousness as he drove us to campus was a new energy. His personality was gentle and amusing though, the exact opposite of his driving. By the time we got out of his van we were unsure whether to laugh or vomit, so did a little bit of both. To give you a sense of Mark, by the time we had left Denton he had burst into one of our classes dressed as a serial killer, he had expressed delight at driving us “off-road” on his golf buggy at 15mph, and he had become thoroughly overexcited at being given his first ever chai latte, which he was still clutching an hour later. He kept us laughing with his total abandonment. The man has two daughters. They must adore him. We did.

The English department, who were at the heart of the residency, were extremely helpful and generous throughout the time we were there. Sadly the theatre department were less involved with the project, and the theatre we were placed in featured a gargantuan unmovable organ between us and the audience. The stage was very high, but sight lines were still tricky over the organ. It’s very much a recital hall, or large lecture theatre, and lacks adequate lighting. So to compensate for that, they had brought in some floodlights and mounted them on the balcony. The effect of all these things together meant that we were totally blinded, vertiginous, and partially blocked from the distant audience. An attempt was made to win the space a little bit; “ah, the prince and Monsieur love, I will hide me behind the organ.” But playing the pit had to be limited as it is a long way down from the stage, and not lit. For the people that came, I feel we told the story as well as we could have done in the circumstances. But it was a shame, particularly after Winedale, to have such an enforced disconnect at the end of the US run. And doubly so when we taught one of our classes in a theatre that would have been perfect for our purposes, but sadly was being used for a student production those nights.

We did have time to kick back, and on Halloween some of us went to Dallas and inspected Dealey Plaza, where they have an X taped to the road where JFK was shot. And then we all dressed up and went out for a small town American Halloween. Here we all are.

image

We ended up at a house party right out of Superbad, with a crate of beer and a thumping sound system, surrounded by screaming jumping drunk American students dressed up as radios and kings and devils and princesses, dancing like maniacs and punching each other by mistake. When we finally left we all felt a little older than we did when we arrived, and entertained ourselves singing catches and old spirituals on a half an hour walk home through the arctic. Winter has caught up with us it seems, even in Texas.

The classes were a joy. The kids were bold and often outspoken, not seeking to get it “right”. The college’s request to always have multiple actors in class proved a lovely thing as we shared the burden and learnt from each other even as we taught. Having started this job concerned that I might dislike the whole teaching aspect, I have finished it surprised that I found it less tricky and more interesting than I could have imagined. Bernard Shaw has a lot to answer for in his famous encapsulation of the teaching stigma, (the whole ‘do’ ‘can’t do’ ‘teach’ thing that gets trotted out every five minutes) and as a practitioner I felt a twofold pressure. “I am not a teacher,” “I have nothing to teach.” Both of these things were wrong. Because I am so obsessive about my craft in practise, I always had ways to impart my understanding of it to young academics in a way they could process. And it helped that my own personal journey was to unlearn the academic understanding I had of text in order to approach the human.

This company is almost as old as I am, and over the years it must have been responsible for giving so much agency to so many actors. I will miss the work, and the little community we formed within that work. We have one more show in London, a celebration of our time together and the work we did. Coming on the back of Denton I expect we will all be hungering for a crowd of people that we know, people that we can actually see. The RADA Studios (The Drill Hall) at 7.30pm on 12th November. There’s your chance. Come!

Much Ado Actor Blog: Austin Power

Posted on by

The campus at UT Austin is pretty vast so we were assigned volunteers to help us get around. They were wonderfully helpful, to the extent that it felt disingenuous to be independent. I ended up one morning going in to town to buy cowboy boots, and a Stetson, supervised by a relative stranger. Thankfully I think her taste was good, and I now have a full on cowboy disguise. With flames on the boots. Until I open my mouth I am mistaken for being Texan. I expect I’ll be wearing them a lot when I get back to London.

By now we have found confidence with the teaching aspect of the job, helping them gain understanding and confidence and challenging them within that. Perhaps the most heartening thing is that the show itself still feels very much alive. Still, most nights, something new is offered in the moment which makes sense. That the five of us, who have been living in each other’s pockets for such a long time now, can still surprise each other and positively play with each other is a wonderful thing. Much as the small community can cause tempers to fray, we have really had a chance to get to know one another, and learn how to serve one another best in the context of the show.

A vindication of that took place on Saturday night, when we drove to Winedale to put the show on right there, in the barn. Since the seventies there have been young Americans spending their summers doing Shakespeare in a lovely little converted barn in the middle of the Texan countryside. Shakespeare has seeped into the wood. There is a community of alumni that stretches through the generations, and they meet and make lifelong friends over nine hot weeks of hard bard in a warm barn. For us it was a totally different space, with stairs and multiple entrances, with the audience right on top of us, and no time to think about it. And it was lovely. Because we know each other.

Now we are approaching the end of the tour, I’m more aware of how intensive it has been, being in such a small and diverse community for such a length of time, and working so openly and hard with one another. The fact that we still seek each other’s company in the downtime is testament to the fact that, even though we are really different, we are connected by our passion for the work we do. We have just arrived in Denton, and for the first time since Notre Dame we all taught a class together. And it was fun, and not restricted. Here’s to a great last week in North Texas.