In July the Colchester troupe performed our own quirky adaptation of Alice in Wonderland around a beautiful garden in Kelvedon! We used the outdoor swimming pool for the pool of tears- with some characters diving in! And the Mad Hatter's tea party took place in a boat on the lake- naturally. It was a magical day and the sun shone brightly! Happy happy memories.
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We can't believe it but it's not long before we start devising again for our yearly performance at The Chelsea Theatre. The RA group have been reflecting on our last piece, Outside The Box, which explored LABELS as a concept. Some reflections from Russell Actors students:
''Creating Outside the Box was a really enjoyable process. There’s something satisfying about working in an effective and efficient ensemble. The process started by exploring what ‘Identity ‘ meant to the group. Many ideas were brought up from this discussion! Members of the cast felt such things as their race, sexuality and class would identify them; stereotype them. By this stage in the process we had something tangible to make theatre from. Experiencing what it’s like to make theatre from the ground up in this way was a learning curve; it’s nice to be able to work in an environment where this is possible. Challenging stereotypes, explored earlier in the process, became a large part of rehearsal. We devised scenes each week that would fit into the play named ‘Outside the Box’. Being a part of a theatre company, exploring ideas and staging them, discussing them was an enlightening experience and I was really proud of what we made together. I observed how an ensemble works together to devise theatre by discussing themes, sharing ideas ect. I found it really rewarding,'' -Jack, RA Seniors ''Outside the Box has to be one of the most fun pieces we've devised since I started at Russell Actors. The creative process behind outside the box was amazing. Very early on we decided we didn't want it to be a linear story; that gave a lot of freedom to us as actors to create the stories which we felt needed to be heard - the stories we felt closest too. There was definitely some struggle at points during devising where we wanted to create very light-hearted pieces but the topics were quite tragic; I do think that we successfully created quite a funny performance which left people questioning their environment and their own attitudes at the end.'' -Louise, RA Seniors Yesterday Sarah lead a session inspired by the physical comedian Trygve (pronounced Trig-vee) Wakenshaw. It was all about silliness, clowning, the grotesque and mime. As the improvisation festival gets nearer, Sarah wanted to encourage the juniors and the seniors to sometimes try work that has little or few words. We had such a giggle. Watch an improvised scene titled 'The Unusual Surgeon' here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZmfTkuF8td/?taken-by=russell_actors Last Thursday was a great one for the Juniors who got stuck into some great improvisations which had Sarah and Sherina in stitches laughing. They also got a visit from Sherina's son Otis who was on great form! He was a bit shy at first but by the end of RA he had all the seniors playing hide and seek and was running around having a great time! We also got a visit from Denise and Rumbo the dog!
RA London threw ourselves back into term this Thursday evening with our first session back. Sherina and Sarah got the team up on their feet with classic improvisation exercises 'Yes Let's' and 'Yes and' - getting to grips with the basic principals of improv before the festival at The Lakeside Theatre at the end of term! We had a LOT of fun and the group had so much energy.
We then played a game of Freeze Tag in which Valerie and Kitty had everyone crying with laughter with a little improvised scene. Well done Kitty who was made a big first impression on her first day with the seniors after being with the juniors nearly 5 years! We ended with hugs and celebratory cake. It's so good to be back together again. |