Drumcat performing Dream of Cat at Fringe Sunday during the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
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Fringe Sunday – Drumcat: Dream of Cat
Monday, August 25th, 2008
Fringe Sunday – Soweta Gospel Choir
Monday, August 25th, 2008
Soweta Gospel Choir Performing at Fringe Sunday during the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
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10 Questions: An Interview with Katya Kopotun
Thursday, August 21st, 2008
Today we extend a warm welcome to Katya Kopotun who is the Assistant Director of the Arkhangelsk Youth Theatre Group from northern Russia. Not knowing where Arkhangelsk is, I found that the town and port of Arkhangelsk lies 1133 Kms north of Moscow on the banks of the Northern Dvina River as it extends into the White Sea.
This delightful musical theatre group were recently at the Avignon Festival & Cies le OFF performing in the beautiful plaza outside the Hotel Mercure, Pont d’Avignon. They were with The Garage International who introduce international non-French artists to the Avignon Festival. So let’s speak with Katya to learn more about her and this exciting new Russian Youth Theatre Group which we hope to see lots more of…
1. What inspired you to pursue a career in directing?
I’m an Assistant to the Art Director of the Russian Arkhangelsk Youth Theatre and it’s a real pleasure to work in the arts environment. You are always at the center of all art events in the city and you communicate with some very interesting people. I am so happy to be working with the Russian Arkhangelsk Youth Theatre.
2. What is your show about and what should the Public expect from your show?
We have many different performances, it’s mostly drama but I think that the public expects from our performances good emotions, discovering Russian art and Russian direction of the performances.
3. What is your favorite Festival or Fringe and why?
I have not not worked at many festivals, so it’s difficult for me to answer this question with any authority. I know many artists from Russia and around the world who think the Avignon Festival is the best.
4. What’s your best advice for aspiring artists and performers on the Festival and Fringe circuit?
Performing and directing at Festivals outside your own country is a wonderful experience and each artist should try it at least once in his or her life.
5. What is your funniest and also, your worst experience assisting in the production of your show?
Working in a group and in a new countries provides many funny experiences.
6. As you travel performing at different Festivals, where is your favorite place to vacation and why?
France and Poland, because the Russian Arkhangelsk Youth Theatre have a lot of friends there. The weather is also fine during the summer so it’s a good place to vacation. We have lots of marvelous memories of these two countries as this was the first time the Russian Arkhangelsk Youth Theatre visited Poland and France.
7. Who is the person you most admire and why?
I can’t answer this question.
8. What is the best tip you have ever been given?
The best tip ever been given..well..about 100 Euros!
9. What is the best book you have read and why do you like it?
“Master and Marguerite” by Mikhail Bulgakov. You should read it at least twice (much better if 3-4 times) and you will understand a lot and you will like it very much!
10. If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?
If I can change something in the world, I think I will change something in the mind of parents that they have never ides to leave their own children.
———
Check out more information about the Avignon Festival and The Garage International at:
Around Avignon with The Garage International
10 Questions: An Interview with Sam Wyer
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
Today we interview the immensely talented designer and illustrator, Sam Wyer from the most successful show at this year’s 2008 Edinburgh Fringe, ‘The Terrible Infants’. A show based on a series of twisted children’s stories full of imaginative puppetry, live music, storytelling and physical theatre. I finally managed to get along to see The Terrible Infants, and indeed what a show! Sam’s creations are utterly charming and the characters are so alive in themselves!
They are on from the 7th to 25th August at 2.20 pm daily at the Underbelly Pasture in Bristo Square. So let’s chat with Sam…
1. What inspired you to become a designer?
I’m fascinated by the art of storytelling; to lift things into the physical, beyond the spoken word, off the page, without eliminating the opportunity for imagination to flourish – this is a real challenge, but one which really pulls my strings.
2. What is your show about and what should the public expect from your show at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe?
The Terrible Infants is a deliciously dark cabaret style show, composed of a collection of morality tales created by Oliver Lansley and myself about a variety of vice-ridden children and their various comeuppances. It’s mad, macabre and musical, but it’s fun, fun, fun. This year’s audiences can expect new costumes puppets and a very special new character, delectably voiced by the gorgeously honey-throated Dame Judi Dench!
3. What are your funniest and worst experiences performing in front of an audience?
It would probably be the night a show I had designed was performed at the National Theatre in London. At the curtain call all fifteen young actors tore out from the wings, delirious with elation and starry eyed, raced up and over a platform which collapsed under the collective weight shattering two on-set televisions hurtling them across the stage and launching an actor into the orchestra pit. Still, it was the National!
4. What was the last Fringe or Festival you performed at and what was it like?
The Flow Festival in Stourport on Severn – it was bedlam with a budget. Three hundred performers, two languages, a canal basin for a stage, giant fish, dancing in the streets, and a ship that transmogrifies into the devil.
5. What’s your best advice for aspiring designers in your theatrical medium?
Create… opportunities, constraints, problems, solutions, friends, enemies. Just keep creating!
6. What is the best advice you have ever been given? And did you follow it?
My Grandpa once told me ‘You can’t steer a stationary ship.’ I think it was a metaphor, but it’s true in practice, I tried!
7. Are there any dreams or goals that you have yet to fulfill?
To have a Drama and Llama farm in Aguilar del Rio de Alhama.
8. What are the best books you have read and why do you like them?
Louis De Bernieres’ South American trilogy, The War of Don Emmanuels Netherparts, Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman. They are sprawling, unsuccinct, brutal, beautiful and wrench you from hardship to hilarity page by page.
I also read an incredible short story recently called Light Is Like Water by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I suppose I like theatre for the same reasons, its magical realism, the world from a different perspective.
9. Who do you most admire and why?
My family, in the order of things their unique brand of anarchy seems sane and wonderful!
10. If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?
That we as a society give more than a passing shit about people around us, especially those we don’t yet know. Pull our heads out of the sand, or our free papers, look one another in the face, and listen.
—————–
You can check out more interviews from The Terrible Infants:
Oliver Lansley talks about Promoting The Terrible Infants
10 Questions: An Interview with Chloe Faine
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
Today we interview the actress, Chloe Fain who plays the passionate Princess Eboli, the Lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth de Valois (who becomes Queen of Spain). This is a one of the more meaty roles in Schiller’s intriguing romantic tragedy set in 16th Century Spain.
It is said that Don Carlos is one of those memorable plays one should see in one’s lifetime, so nows your chance! It is on at C Cubed from Sunday 17th August to Saturday 23rd August at 5.55pm in the early evening. So let’s chat with Chloe Faine and learn lots more….
1. What inspired you to become an actress?
I avoided becoming an actor for years and years – it was a bit like being in the closet. Inappropriate bits of dramatic behaviour would pop out when I wasn’t concentrating on pretending to be normal. I got to my late twenties and thought ‘Oh Feck it – I’ll have a go and if I don’t like it I can always stop.” I liked it.
2. What is your show about and what should the public expect from your show?
Don Carlos is a weird play – it’s an exploration of a fictional ’situation’ between King Phillip of Spain and his son, Carlos and Carlos’ friend Rodrigo who is fighting to free Flanders from the carnage of the Inquisition. I think ultimately it’s a polemic on freedom of speech dressed up as a thriller and a love story by turns to keep it accessible to Schiller’s audiences. The constraints of working in the festival have meant that a lot of the polemic is omitted leaving you with the thriller and a lot of snogging. Nick, who plays Rodrigo, has to get across a lot of politics in a few relatively short scenes but I think we manage to stay true to Schiller’s original intentions.
3. What is your favourite festival or fringe?
To date it’s always been Edinburgh – my first job when I left college (except from one I got sacked from for refusing to pole-dance in the interval) was in a play up here.
4. What’s your best advice for aspiring performers on the festival circuit?
Muck about with the audience – they’re really close to you and probably on your side so take advantage of that and see what works and what doesn’t.
5. What is your funniest experience and also your worst experience performing or attending a festival?
Funniest was this play I was in where there was an announcement that the world was ending. We’d spend 45 odd minutes building to this huge emotional climax, then there was a radio announcement and then a long silence as we all took it in – it was meant to be very poignant, thought provoking etc. Unfortunately, one actor who was on all fours when the announcement came, got about 20 seconds into the silence before letting rip with the loudest fart I have ever heard. The four cast members spent the rest of the play with tears rolling down our faces, completely incapable of getting another line out for laughing.
6. As you travel performing, where is your favourite place to vacation/chill out and why?
I can chill out just about anywhere – benefit of spending a year travelling Ireland in a transit van.
7. Who is the person you most admire and why?
I admire anyone ugly who makes it as an actor. The uglier the better – we need to see people from all the spectrum but if you’re a bit wonky looking it can be very hard to get going…
8. What is the best tip you have ever been given?
Never ever work with a director you don’t like. I haven’t always abided by that as a rule and I’ve always, always wished I had.
9. What is the best book you have read and why do you like it?
Lords of Misrule by Charlie Fisher – it’s this mental caper involving humans and deities. I want to play one of the leads when they make it into a film.
10. If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?
I would have people recognise just how amazingly lucky we all are.
Fringe Sunday – Drumcat: Dream of Cat
Monday, August 25th, 2008Fringe Sunday – Soweta Gospel Choir
Monday, August 25th, 2008Soweta Gospel Choir Performing at Fringe Sunday during the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
10 Questions: An Interview with Katya Kopotun
Thursday, August 21st, 2008Today we extend a warm welcome to Katya Kopotun who is the Assistant Director of the Arkhangelsk Youth Theatre Group from northern Russia. Not knowing where Arkhangelsk is, I found that the town and port of Arkhangelsk lies 1133 Kms north of Moscow on the banks of the Northern Dvina River as it extends into the White Sea.
This delightful musical theatre group were recently at the Avignon Festival & Cies le OFF performing in the beautiful plaza outside the Hotel Mercure, Pont d’Avignon. They were with The Garage International who introduce international non-French artists to the Avignon Festival. So let’s speak with Katya to learn more about her and this exciting new Russian Youth Theatre Group which we hope to see lots more of…
1. What inspired you to pursue a career in directing?
I’m an Assistant to the Art Director of the Russian Arkhangelsk Youth Theatre and it’s a real pleasure to work in the arts environment. You are always at the center of all art events in the city and you communicate with some very interesting people. I am so happy to be working with the Russian Arkhangelsk Youth Theatre.
2. What is your show about and what should the Public expect from your show?
We have many different performances, it’s mostly drama but I think that the public expects from our performances good emotions, discovering Russian art and Russian direction of the performances.
3. What is your favorite Festival or Fringe and why?
I have not not worked at many festivals, so it’s difficult for me to answer this question with any authority. I know many artists from Russia and around the world who think the Avignon Festival is the best.
4. What’s your best advice for aspiring artists and performers on the Festival and Fringe circuit?
Performing and directing at Festivals outside your own country is a wonderful experience and each artist should try it at least once in his or her life.
5. What is your funniest and also, your worst experience assisting in the production of your show?
Working in a group and in a new countries provides many funny experiences.
6. As you travel performing at different Festivals, where is your favorite place to vacation and why?
France and Poland, because the Russian Arkhangelsk Youth Theatre have a lot of friends there. The weather is also fine during the summer so it’s a good place to vacation. We have lots of marvelous memories of these two countries as this was the first time the Russian Arkhangelsk Youth Theatre visited Poland and France.
7. Who is the person you most admire and why?
I can’t answer this question.
8. What is the best tip you have ever been given?
The best tip ever been given..well..about 100 Euros!
9. What is the best book you have read and why do you like it?
“Master and Marguerite” by Mikhail Bulgakov. You should read it at least twice (much better if 3-4 times) and you will understand a lot and you will like it very much!
10. If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?
If I can change something in the world, I think I will change something in the mind of parents that they have never ides to leave their own children.
———
Check out more information about the Avignon Festival and The Garage International at:
Around Avignon with The Garage International
10 Questions: An Interview with Sam Wyer
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008Today we interview the immensely talented designer and illustrator, Sam Wyer from the most successful show at this year’s 2008 Edinburgh Fringe, ‘The Terrible Infants’. A show based on a series of twisted children’s stories full of imaginative puppetry, live music, storytelling and physical theatre. I finally managed to get along to see The Terrible Infants, and indeed what a show! Sam’s creations are utterly charming and the characters are so alive in themselves!
They are on from the 7th to 25th August at 2.20 pm daily at the Underbelly Pasture in Bristo Square. So let’s chat with Sam…
1. What inspired you to become a designer?
I’m fascinated by the art of storytelling; to lift things into the physical, beyond the spoken word, off the page, without eliminating the opportunity for imagination to flourish – this is a real challenge, but one which really pulls my strings.
2. What is your show about and what should the public expect from your show at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe?
The Terrible Infants is a deliciously dark cabaret style show, composed of a collection of morality tales created by Oliver Lansley and myself about a variety of vice-ridden children and their various comeuppances. It’s mad, macabre and musical, but it’s fun, fun, fun. This year’s audiences can expect new costumes puppets and a very special new character, delectably voiced by the gorgeously honey-throated Dame Judi Dench!
3. What are your funniest and worst experiences performing in front of an audience?
It would probably be the night a show I had designed was performed at the National Theatre in London. At the curtain call all fifteen young actors tore out from the wings, delirious with elation and starry eyed, raced up and over a platform which collapsed under the collective weight shattering two on-set televisions hurtling them across the stage and launching an actor into the orchestra pit. Still, it was the National!
4. What was the last Fringe or Festival you performed at and what was it like?
The Flow Festival in Stourport on Severn – it was bedlam with a budget. Three hundred performers, two languages, a canal basin for a stage, giant fish, dancing in the streets, and a ship that transmogrifies into the devil.
5. What’s your best advice for aspiring designers in your theatrical medium?
Create… opportunities, constraints, problems, solutions, friends, enemies. Just keep creating!
6. What is the best advice you have ever been given? And did you follow it?
My Grandpa once told me ‘You can’t steer a stationary ship.’ I think it was a metaphor, but it’s true in practice, I tried!
7. Are there any dreams or goals that you have yet to fulfill?
To have a Drama and Llama farm in Aguilar del Rio de Alhama.
8. What are the best books you have read and why do you like them?
Louis De Bernieres’ South American trilogy, The War of Don Emmanuels Netherparts, Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman. They are sprawling, unsuccinct, brutal, beautiful and wrench you from hardship to hilarity page by page.
I also read an incredible short story recently called Light Is Like Water by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I suppose I like theatre for the same reasons, its magical realism, the world from a different perspective.
9. Who do you most admire and why?
My family, in the order of things their unique brand of anarchy seems sane and wonderful!
10. If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?
That we as a society give more than a passing shit about people around us, especially those we don’t yet know. Pull our heads out of the sand, or our free papers, look one another in the face, and listen.
—————–
You can check out more interviews from The Terrible Infants:
Oliver Lansley talks about Promoting The Terrible Infants
10 Questions: An Interview with Chloe Faine
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008Today we interview the actress, Chloe Fain who plays the passionate Princess Eboli, the Lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth de Valois (who becomes Queen of Spain). This is a one of the more meaty roles in Schiller’s intriguing romantic tragedy set in 16th Century Spain.
It is said that Don Carlos is one of those memorable plays one should see in one’s lifetime, so nows your chance! It is on at C Cubed from Sunday 17th August to Saturday 23rd August at 5.55pm in the early evening. So let’s chat with Chloe Faine and learn lots more….
1. What inspired you to become an actress?
I avoided becoming an actor for years and years – it was a bit like being in the closet. Inappropriate bits of dramatic behaviour would pop out when I wasn’t concentrating on pretending to be normal. I got to my late twenties and thought ‘Oh Feck it – I’ll have a go and if I don’t like it I can always stop.” I liked it.
2. What is your show about and what should the public expect from your show?
Don Carlos is a weird play – it’s an exploration of a fictional ’situation’ between King Phillip of Spain and his son, Carlos and Carlos’ friend Rodrigo who is fighting to free Flanders from the carnage of the Inquisition. I think ultimately it’s a polemic on freedom of speech dressed up as a thriller and a love story by turns to keep it accessible to Schiller’s audiences. The constraints of working in the festival have meant that a lot of the polemic is omitted leaving you with the thriller and a lot of snogging. Nick, who plays Rodrigo, has to get across a lot of politics in a few relatively short scenes but I think we manage to stay true to Schiller’s original intentions.
3. What is your favourite festival or fringe?
To date it’s always been Edinburgh – my first job when I left college (except from one I got sacked from for refusing to pole-dance in the interval) was in a play up here.
4. What’s your best advice for aspiring performers on the festival circuit?
Muck about with the audience – they’re really close to you and probably on your side so take advantage of that and see what works and what doesn’t.
5. What is your funniest experience and also your worst experience performing or attending a festival?
Funniest was this play I was in where there was an announcement that the world was ending. We’d spend 45 odd minutes building to this huge emotional climax, then there was a radio announcement and then a long silence as we all took it in – it was meant to be very poignant, thought provoking etc. Unfortunately, one actor who was on all fours when the announcement came, got about 20 seconds into the silence before letting rip with the loudest fart I have ever heard. The four cast members spent the rest of the play with tears rolling down our faces, completely incapable of getting another line out for laughing.
6. As you travel performing, where is your favourite place to vacation/chill out and why?
I can chill out just about anywhere – benefit of spending a year travelling Ireland in a transit van.
7. Who is the person you most admire and why?
I admire anyone ugly who makes it as an actor. The uglier the better – we need to see people from all the spectrum but if you’re a bit wonky looking it can be very hard to get going…
8. What is the best tip you have ever been given?
Never ever work with a director you don’t like. I haven’t always abided by that as a rule and I’ve always, always wished I had.
9. What is the best book you have read and why do you like it?
Lords of Misrule by Charlie Fisher – it’s this mental caper involving humans and deities. I want to play one of the leads when they make it into a film.
10. If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?
I would have people recognise just how amazingly lucky we all are.