Ealing Drama Conference September 2018 Notes

Simon Callow
Opened by being very supportive of amateur theatre as many people start there – it’s a fertile breeding ground for all actors.  One of the key elements to success is to love the theatre and acting.  He praised the professionalism of many amateurs which he stressed should not be confused the “amateurism”.  He also stressed the respect for the text and for new writing in amateur theatre – the use of language and understanding it.  Overall, he said it was not enough to want to act – you must need to act.  If you go on to act professionally you must expect rejection, excoriation and poverty!  But still you will feel that you must act.  In the amateur theatre all you need is love and some talent but do it for love.

Oliver Ford Davis.  On acting Shakespeare

• Content is important in Shakespeare – he was a great story teller.
• Very easy to identify with his characters
• He uses folk tales, history stories, Greek myths and legends
• There’s always conflict – youth and age, rich and poor, powerful and powerless.  Drama needs conflict.
• He was also aware of the politics and religion of late 16th C and used them very carefully - unlike Marlow and Kidd who had been murdered, it is believed, by the state
• That’s why his power plays were set in the past and he allowed the audience to draw its own parallels with the present – which we can still do today
• Listen to his language to understand the characters – think like the character is thinking
• Language is important too.  Rhythm, its all about rhythm in Shakespeare.  Find the rhythm and it will tell you the meaning. At some point verse will become prose and prose verse.
• Iambic pentameters (a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable, for example Two households, both alike in dignity).  Shakespeare thinks in Iambic pentameters! Helps the audience understand the sense of the speech
• Beware the English tendency to trail off at the end of sentences so the last few words are lost – often the last few words are the most important.  This is true in all texts and plays – keep the last few words clear – they must be heard
• Cesura, (a break in a verse where one phrase ends and the following phrase begins, considered a breath, a caesura in music represents a similar break or pause). Look for the cesura as it helps you to launch into the second part of the line or speech.  It helps to propel to the end of the line
• Energy.  Acting requires energy, it how you control that energy that enable you to give a good performance.  Getting the rhythm of the lines right will help with the energy
• Thinking and feeling the characters ideas, you want to speak, you need to speak!
• Character.  To gain understanding of character read, read and read again.  Its what the character doesn’t say as much as it does.  Anthony Hopkins reads his lines 150 times, over and over, to understand character.
• Listen to the actors lines, then you will reply to them
• Aim for the sense of the whole sentence, you will find you innate sense of rhythm.
• As an example of changing sense try “That was the unkindest cut of all” stressing a different word each time.  Which works most clearly
• Shakespeare CAN BE CUT, - cutting is OK - typically The Globe ran from 2 til 5pm but Hamlet (in full) is 4.5 hours – put together after his death – he would never have seen the Folio edition versions

​Mike Bartlet - playwright
He has also written screenplays for film and TV series. His 2015 series, Doctor Foster, starring Suranne Jones, won the New Drama award from National Television Awards.  Plays include Charles III, Wild, Earthquakes in London and Cock
He noted that directors need two brains going at the same time.  First managing what’s going on in the room and second being creative with the text.  He said that good writers NEED to write and need to be in theatre.  For him writing is like improvisation - characters take on a life if their own.  He plans a scene and then populates it with characters.  Often creativity is borne out of constraints like deadlines and budgets.  Playwrite problems solves.  His plays express the way we can choose to be animals or human beings.

Amanda Wittington – playwrite
 - Be My Baby, Lady’s Day, Satin and Steel, The Thrill of Love.  A woman writing for women. The Thrill of Love her favourite – Hull Truck/John Godber (Happy Families etc) commissioned.  Interested in writing as a political act – by its nature it reveals situations and tells a story.  Thrill of Love – Ruth Ellis, why she did what she did – explores gap in our knowledge after Dance with a Stranger.  She likes people adapting scripts to bring them up to date and make them relevant. Laughter is vital – it gets people to care about the characters.
Her plays, though written for women, are for men to.  She makes the point though that, for hetro couples, women tend to book theatre tickets.  Taboo area for writing is the right-wing playwrite…asks where the right-wing plays are…

Marketing for theatre, James Seabright
The Producer should be heavily involved in marketing and creativity for the show.  There should be a great deal of collusion between the Director and Producer (Production Manager) to create synergy and exploit the shows potential. Role of Producer includes: (1) Budget is important obs! Setting a budget and allocation of it.  (2) Administration – licensing, H&S, Risk Assessments (3) Technical - understanding the needs of the show, sets, lights, sound, Get In schedules, cast time calling, theatre access, overall problem solving and pooling resources.  (4) Promotion- marketing, Box Office budgeting – what’s needed to make it work financially, PR – not necessarily under control but marketing is.  Social Media is key today – more than ever and is very effective but must be managed.  Social media gets the message out, brings it to the attention of audiences, Facebook features are very useful.  Instagram and snap chat – get cast to make a speech at the end of the show to encourage interaction with social media.  Generate engagement at the theatre – provide photo opportunities which can be posted on FB. Time the marketing to get the offer right.
See producerbook.co.uk – website with information
Understand who your audience is, who will fill your seats and how will you find them.  NO longer worth taking print advertising “newspapers are dead”.  Flyers still have a role, but digital marketing is key, as is pricing – low cost tickets to encourage younger audiences.
Very useful to have focus group – what do you want to see, research your audience.

Jezz Butterworth – playwrite
– The Ferryman, Jerusalem, Mojo, A River etc.  He suggests that writers need to be attached to a theatre and part of the process – can’t write in isolation.  His first play, Mojo, was at the Royal Court, he was aged 25.  Incredible success.  Writes for small and large casts, A River has three, The Ferryman 20.  The River is his favourite play, “I still don’t know what’s going on in that play”.  Plays are entrances and exits, births and deaths – these are the strongest moments in a play.

Drama Games
Begin all drama games by breathing in and out to capacity several times, centring yourself in the room, loosening up - shaking arms, legs and head.  Rolling you eyes and circling your jaw.
1.  Walk around the room pointing and objects and naming them loudly
2.  Walk around the room pointing at objects but as you point name the thing you saw previously.
3.  In Fours – one sitting, three around the chair, in turn give - two numbers to multiply, then a sign to identify, then a fact true or false, person sittings answers each as quickly as possible. Swap round every third question.
4.  In a group circle copy very subtly what a person across the circle is doing (how  they are standing, their hand position, facial expression etc)
5.  Pretend to behave like a Mercedes, a Mini Cooper, or a camper van.  Walk around the room like one of these cars and eventually group with other people who look like they are the same kind of car.
6.  Sit on the floor and begin a story with one word – go around the room, each person developing the story but with just one word each.
7.  In a circle again – one word from each person but the next associating that word with another word
8.  In a circle again – one word from each person but the next gives a word totally disassociated from the one that went before.

Author

Tim Toghill
​Sebpember 2018