You know how I said I was going to do another round of the preparation for directing workshop I did in the fall?
Once again, the workshop is limited to a dozen people.
The workshop dates are weekly on Mondays from March 12, 19 & 26, April 2, 9 & 16. These will take place at KWLT, 9 Princess St. East in Waterloo. Start time is 7pm.
I had a lot of fun with the first group and I learned things as well. I’m really hoping people can make it out for this second round.
Hopefully you remember our first production, The Taming of the Shrew. Mat Kelly, our set painter extraordinaire, is also a playwright with a number of scripts under his belt.
He approached me last fall with a proposal. He has a new script that he’d love to get some feedback on & was hoping we could do some good at the same time. Would TBT be interested in staging a reading of his new play for an audience in a pay-what-you-can set up with the funds raised going to a good charity and give him a chance to get feedback from the audience, actors & director (yours truly) after the reading.
Always being one for an interesting idea, I said it sounded like fun.
I’ve had a chance to look over the script (The Waffle King Murders) and I have to say, I’m really looking forward to this. It’s a really fun script and has a very classic detective story a la the 1940′s to it. I’m talking to some of the talented actors from the area and we’re getting together during the day on the 25th and going over the script as a group in preparation for the evening’s reading.
I really hope you can come out to have fun & help support the good folks at KW’s Out of the Cold program. You can let us know you’re coming by signing up here. And thank you to the awesome folks at KWLT for providing the space for this!
Thanks all!
So we had our first formal production meeting for Shadowlands last week. It was interesting getting to sit back in the “pure producer” position and listen to the director & her technical crew discuss the issues & possible solutions & to hammer out details of the budget.
One of the things that came up in the discussion was that for the set, we were going to need a number of “old looking books” – they’ll be set dressing, which makes sense, since one of the sets is CS Lewis’ home. I have a small number of appropriate books at home and there was general noise from various people about how they could contribute some.
Well, a day or so after that meeting, I get a lovely email from a fan of the company who asks me if we can use a big stack of old books – a friend is getting rid of them and wants them to have a good & useful home.
A quick “yes please!!” email later (cc’d to our props mistress) and later this week, I’ll take possession of the books.
It amazes me on a regular basis just how, sometimes, the universe gives you just what you need.
(BTW, universe? I have a small list (or more specifically, I suspect the technical director does) that would be awesome to have taken care of – can’t hurt to ask, right?
So I finished the directing workshop last week & I’ve been thinking ever since.
I really enjoyed doing the workshop & I’m excited about doing it again in the spring (if you have any preferences for dates, comment, please!)
Then I started talking to my husband who is involved with developing a workshop on stage management for KWLT. We were talking about target audiences and what kind of exercises you’d want to see if you were going to a workshop for stage management and I started thinking.
I know – dangerous.
I liked working with the group we had for the director’s workshop. I really enjoyed it when I started hearing some of the ideas they had for their shows, working with the group through some of the problem children issues and finding out lots of cool new ideas (and who has solutions to problems that I wasn’t even aware of! yay new skills to squirrel away).
As I said, I’m going to do the workshop again in the spring – just a matter of figuring out the dates right now.
What I’m toying with is looking at some of the other parts of the equation – I firmly believe that if there were more people in the local theatre community who were comfortable with the idea of stage management or production or technical direction, we wouldn’t be using the same folks over and over and burning them out.
What would you like to see?
I was talking to a friend tonight about theatre – specifically about the directing workshop that’s coming up in a month.
I was explaining the general format and that I would be showing the work the attendees would be doing using the next show I want to direct (Cyrano) as the example.
We were talking about the idea of figuring out what makes it your play and the concept of the elevator pitch, as well as how you bring those ideas out to give the overall flavour & theme.
Then I had one of the “bolt from the blue” moments that are what I love as a director.
“Love isn’t what it looks like,” I said to her, with this giant smile on my face. “That’s what Cyrano is – it’s three people who all think they know what love will be and what it must be – and they aren’t quite what they’ve been portrayed as.”
Love isn’t what it looks like – that’s where this is going.
I suspect that this doesn’t make a lot of sense to anyone else yet, but I promise, it will.
If you haven’t emailed Karen about a place in the acting workshop, you’ll want to do that ASAP. As of her email this afternoon, there are less than a half-dozen spots left for the workshop.
KWLT‘s Karen Grierson and Obsidian Theatre‘s Philip Akin present,
Bridges 1: Actors/Directors Skills Workshop
Philip Akin, award-winning Artistic Director and General Manager of Toronto’s Obsidian Theatre, is leading this one-day workshop for amateur actors and directors. Having worked with KWLT’s Karen Grierson as a polisher for 2007′s “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead” and 2011′s “Frankenstein”, Philip recognized an opportunity to help amateur theatre raise its performance bar by sharing with us the same feedback, and developing some of the same skills, as he develops with professional actors and directors. His interest in building bridges between professional and amateur theatre comes at a time when cultural and financial support for big-ticket theatre is waning, but many people still seek live entertainment on smaller, local scales. KWLT and 10BT have an exclusive opportunity to learn from Philip’s considerable experience on stage and screen as both an actor and a director himself.
This workshop will focus on fundamentals of character development for actors and directors, using basics of breathwork, vocalization, and body movement to develop and manipulate character depth and themes. Attendees are advised to wear comfortable clothing and shoes, and if you have or can borrow a yoga mat, please bring that as well.
Attendance is limited to 25 people.
Registration closes Monday September 12. Please email Karen at kb.grierson@gmail.com to register.
Workshop fee: $25/person (lunch is not being provided) [Shadowlands cast discount: $15]
Saturday September 17, 9:30am to 5:30pm
Location: UW Campus (exact location TBD)
There may be an informal dinner outing with Philip after the workshop for those who wish to join us.
Please join us for this rare opportunity to learn from a well-respected international acting professional, and help KWLT and TenBareToes raise the calibre of amateur theatre offerings in Waterloo Region.
To my somewhat stunned amazement, the workshop is full. It’s been…2 days… since we announced it and there’s been wonderful response. I’m really excited & looking forward to the workshop and working with the attendees on developing their ideas for their plays.
The folks at KWLT are happy as well and the Executive Producer and I have already started discussions about running round 2 of the directing workshop again in the spring.
Thank you to everyone for your interest in the workshop. I’m just blown away.
TenBareToes Entertainment and Kitchener Waterloo Little Theatre are proud to present a Directing workshop this fall. Focusing on preparing a production, the workshop will run six weeks. Led by Anita Kilgour, the founder of TenBareToes and a several times directing alumna of KWLT, participants will work through the pre-audition work of preparing a play of their choosing. Participants will finish the course with confidence in both their own vision and the feasibility of their planning.
Anita will lead participants through the process of developing both a vision for the play and character profiles, and working out plans for sets, costumes, props, and more. The workshop will be part lecture, part participation. The order of the workshops is:
Participants should expect to:
The workshop dates are weekly on Tuesdays from September 27th to November 1st. All dates (September 27, October 4, 11, 18, 25, and November 1st) will take place at KWLT, 9 Princess St. East
The cost for the workshops is $30 per participant, payable on the first night. The course is limited to 12 participants. To reserve a spot, please sign up.
So I got an email today. If nothing else, it’s a start to being more visible as a theatre company – I got asked to pass on to my actors a lead for a paying gig in town. I’d love to take advantage of this myself, but the real world doesn’t permit me this time.
I don’t have a lot of details, so here we go.
Hello, we require several actors for a corporate team building event on June 2nd. The call is 8:00am, ending at noon, in downtown Waterloo, its a very easy gig as a character in a scavenger hunt. The pay $100. We generally bring actors form Toronto but I prefer to work with locals whenever possible.
Please pass this along to actor from your theatre, have them send me a headshot and CV and reference TenBareToes.
Thank you very much,
Randy Sabourin
416 560 2810
www.thegogame.ca
www.anderson-sabourin.com
I make the usual warnings – I haven’t worked with these people, so as they used to say on a tv show years ago, let’s be careful out there. I’m presuming they are good people, but being sensible isn’t a bad idea either.
