last day of the year: farewell

THE SEAGULL

Jersey Arts Centre / Samares Players / November 2006

ANNIE

Jersey Arts Centre / JADC 75th / May 2014

Dear Gabrielle Robbe / Browning

i shall miss working with you...

seeing you in the EVITA chorus and wanting to know who you were; then coming back and finding out; then casting you as Irina in THE SEAGULL; loving your Maria Von Trapp, your 'hairspray' and your Lady M (amongst many); and watching you dance on those Liberation Days...

watching you take such great care of the kids in ANNIE; laughing together in rehearsal; eating sweets (too many sweets) with you; meeting up for just 20 minutes to plan rehearsals in lunch breaks; the improvisations and the kids telling us they didn't know they had it in them; your Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang-T-Towel-Dance; you telling me: "you should have done that more often" when I threw a wobbly about insecurity of text at a Dress Rehearsal; and always, always being positive amidst the stupid and crazy ideas; watching you be on stage, in the wings, and in row J almost all at the same time to check shapes (i loved that!)...

your bloody brilliantly inspired and dynamic Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang-T-Towel-Dance in ANNIE...

talking with you about water and dancing and theatre...

going with the flow...

i can think of nothing that will do you justice as a dancer, choreographer, performer, actor and maker...

but who will choreograph for me now...

you are loved and missed by many who have known you so much longer than i...

i am sure i will work with Finleigh and Guy again... 

it was lovely seeing you and talking with you so much these past 18 months...

we shall miss you kid

love

D A N I E L

illusion vs reality

the critic & the director

Holger Syme: "... But moment-to-moment, in details, they were differently nuanced every night; and in their sum, those nuances amounted to a very differently shaded picture every evening. The length of a hug, the length of a silence, the quality of a gaze, the speed of a cross, the placement of a hand on a knee, the loudness of a shout, the exact distance between two bodies, the intensity of a smile: worlds and worlds of difference..."

Click: Directing / Criticism

'56: high society

peace

today.alice.wonderland

Bajirao Mastani

150th

bonvoyageedinburgh: day 15 (m.c.escher)

SCENE

a small theatre space / place / "bloody" room / it is the end of a show / the audience has applauded / there is an older man / probably c.65 years / he is getting up from his seat / he has been sat in the front row

PERFORMER (politely / serious / earnest / advisedly / not loud):

"You are going to have to learn not to snore, Sir, if you are going to come to the theatre to sleep..."

everyone hears / there is a momentary silence / the man is confused / i am sad / momentarily / we hear the shuffling sounds of the remaining audience as they leave

The funniest, hardest, most painful, ungenerous, absurdist, truthful, honest moment of the festival but then I couldn't stop laughing: just couldn't stop laughing - the festivals, eh...

thetwolastthingsfromday 14 - a wonder!

twopuppetsfromday 13

foreveryoungfromday 12

• the carousel
• the graveyard
• the tree
• the question
• the teenage self
• the diary
• sitting on the pavement
• the love-note
• the apple
• the one-arm bandits
• the garage
• the dope
• the booze
• the scooter
• the playing
• the selkies
• the conversations
• the writing on the arm
• the therapy
• the 14 second advice
• the Sweet Dreams: Annie L
• 1985 (30 bloody years ago!) 19

thethingfromday 11

thethingfromday 10

somethingfromday 9

somethingsfromday 8

thethingfromday 7

somethingsfromday 6

somethingfromday 5

somethingsfromday 4

somethingsfromday 3

somethingsfromday 2

somethingsfromday 1

a day at the barbican: mockingbird

swaling: richmond

• the river
• the jumpers
• lewis carroll
• england
• the countryside
• yorkshire
• the 18th century
• the train journey
• the buses
• the gorgeous theatre
• the old train station
• the loveliest of people
• the pub accommodation
• the presentation: a wonder
• clarification
• confidence
• 25+ years
• theatre
• a play: the swalers
• victoria crosses & conscientious objectors

almeida: oresteia

the hard problem

man and superman: fiennes and shaw

TANNER [seriously] I know it, Ramsden. Yet even I cannot wholly conquer shame. We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins. Good Lord, my dear Ramsden, we are ashamed to walk, ashamed to ride in an omnibus, ashamed to hire a hansom instead of keeping a carriage, ashamed of keeping one horse instead of two and a groom-gardener instead of a coachman and footman. The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is. Why, you're ashamed to buy my book, ashamed to read it: the only thing youre not ashamed of is to judge me for it without having read it; and even that only means that you're ashamed to have heterodox opinions. Look at the effect I produce because my fairy godmother withheld from me this gift of shame. I have every possible virtue that a man can have except—

George Bernard Shaw
MAN AND SUPERMAN (1903)
Act I - Tanner

• that script
• that actor
• that act III

a bear called ketch-up!

a passage to india vs indian summers

calm and analytical to the end

"I must remain calm and analytical to the end. I always wanted to snatch at life with twenty thousand hands. Was that wrong? Are they to say at the end of a year's trial I want to begin it again? I don't want that to be said..."

THE TRIAL
Adapted from Kafka by Berkoff
Act II - Cathedral - Voice

no lawyer, no council

"Pay no heed. He's a finished man. He has no lawyer, no counsel, nobody to represent his case or defend him, or love him, or care for him, or tease or worry about, or go on walks with on Saturday after the Bank closes, or sit by the river with, or make his bed, or change his sheets, or wash out those understains, or argue with, or soothe, or mollify in the dark hours, or squeeze his fingers under the table, or smooth his brow, or lighten heavy days when nothing's been achieved. When nothing seems certain and an intervention could only be made with the encouraging nudge of a friend, which might just put the case back on track. Nobody to make him a cake, or wait outside the Bank and be disturbed when he's late. Or take the stain out of his hat, or a grey thread from his hair, or brush the dust from his suit, or bite him on the ear or welcome the police in when they come to arrest you for crimes so vile they dare not be named."

THE TRIAL
Adapted from Kafka by Berkoff
Act II - Block - Voice

geschichte

    Photo: Robin Savage

Geschichte- und Englischunterricht in interaktiver Form

Die Schauspielgruppe der Kunstschule Jersey war zu Gast in der Realschule

Bad Wurzach sz 100 Jahre nach dem Beginn des Ersten Weltkriegs im vergangenen Jahr hat die Schauspielgruppe der Jersey Art School das englische Stück „The Great Warrior“ einstudiert, das kürzlich in der Realschule in Bad Wurzach aufgeführt worden ist.

Das Stück, das der Schauspiellehrer der Jersey Art School, Daniel Austin, geschrieben hat, thematisiert Krieg im Allgemeinen. Er habe nicht nur den Esten Weltkrieg im Blick gehabt, erklärte Austin. Deshalb habe er auch einen rein fiktiven Ort ausgewählt, auf dem das Stück spielt. Es könne jedes Land sein, betonte Austin. Das sei ihm besonders wichtig.

„Die Initiative für die Aufführung kam durch die Realschule und den Partnerschaftsverein“, erklärt Herburt Müller, Konrektor der Realschule. „Zunächst haben wir jedoch gar nicht gewusst, ob das Projekt überhaupt stattfinden kann, da Daniel Austin erst kurz vor Weihnachten die Zusage für die Zuschüsse bekommen hat.“ Es sei sehr toll, dass es noch geklappt hat.

Teile des Stücks wurden von den Schülerinnen und Schülern der Klassenstufe 9 am Morgen in 90-minütigen Workshops verarbeitet. Dabei sollten die Schülerinnen und Schüler zum Beispiel Standbilder Kriegsszenen darstellen oder auch ganze Szenen erarbeiten. So konnte schon einmal im Voraus mehr über den Inhalt des Stücks erfahren werden, da „das Niveau des englischen Stücks ganz schön hoch ist“, wie der Englischlehrer der Klasse 9c, Volker Jedelhauser, selber zugeben musste. „Aber viele Schüler sind nach dem Workshop auf mich zugekommen und haben gesagt, dass man das mal wieder machen könnte.“

Eine Aufführung für die Schüler, eine für die Öffentlichkeit

 Das Stück selber wurde am Mittag für die Klassenstufe 9 aufgeführt, die ganz begeistert dem Schauspiel folgten und so ganz unbewusst nicht nur ihre Englischkenntnisse, sondern auch ihr Wissen über die Kriegsgeschichte der Neuzeit ausbauten – in interaktiver Form. Das Stück beeindruckte dabei nicht nur mit dem schauspielerischen Talent der Akteure, von denen allerdings nur vier professionelle Schauspieler und der Rest Schülerinnen und Schüler der Schule in Jersey waren. Auch das gekonnte Einsetzen musikalischer Elemente von Gesang über Trommeln und Dudelsack bis hin zu optischen Lichteffekten ließ die Augen der Zuschauer erstrahlen.

Und was die Schülerinnen und Schüler der Realschule am Mittag zu sehen bekommen haben, das wurde am Abend noch einmal für die Öffentlichkeit aufgeführt.

Von Lea Schmid

Schwabische Zeitung
15 January 2015

the puppet theatre barge

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

 

the gingerbread man - 2001

Peter Pan 2009

    Photos: Joey Maylan

Designer: Victoria Spearing

Costume: Fiona Davies

Lighting: Alan Valentine

Director: Daniel Austin

Beauty and the Beast 2008

    Photos: Bruce Liron

Designer: Victoria Spearing

Costume: Fiona Davies

Lighting: Alan Valentine

Director: Daniel Austin

Aladdin 2007

    Photos: Bruce Liron

Designer: Victoria Spearing

Costume: Fiona Davies

Lighting: Alan Valentine

Director: Daniel Austin

rocket!

oliver jeffers: lost and found

happy easter