On Sunday night you saw...

Present : Tense / Thirteen

Sarah Solemani presents...
BIFURCATED
By Sarah Solemani and Ryan Ormonde
Directed by Adam Lenson
Starring Arrash Rizi, Elspeth Rae, Abigail Andjel, Tom Kanji

Box of Tricks Theatre Company presents...
SWABS
by Kenneth Emson
Directed by Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder and Adam Quayle
Movement Direction by Robin Guiver
Starring Matt Bloxham, Bronya Deutsch, Tunji Falana, Chameli Meir, Rhoda Offori-Attah, Michael Quartey, Jai Rajani, Natasha James, Abi Hood

Paul Jellis presents...
THE SPIT OF ME
By Adam Barnard
Directed by Melanie Hillyard
Music written and performed by Betty Steeles
Starring Paul Jellis, Christopher Harper, Hasan Dixon

Drywrite presents...
DRYCLEAN
Written and directed by Vicky Jones and Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Starring Cian Barry, Julia Sandiford, Hannah Scott, Lachlan Chapman, Caroline Kilpatrick

Present : Tense / Thirteen was produced by Emma Laugier for nabokov and stage managed by Martha Mamo.

We'd like to say a huge thanks to everyone at Southwark Playhouse for having us, to all the amazing artists we worked with who created such incredible work, and to everyone who came to watch. Cheers everyone.

The next Present : Tense will be at Southwark Playhouse sometime in February 2010. See you then!

less than 24 hrs...eek!

Just a quickie to let you know we had a great day today delving into characters, letting Betty strut her stuff and bringing it all together after working out staging yest.  great to have the whole team together and focusing on getting this bad boy play together! i've realised from writing on this blog i've a tendency to use loads of exclamation marks so gonna go before they keep appearing!! oops! and again....

Absent:Tense

I've always been told the beatles wrote their best songs in 3 minuets. There is something that really feeds creativity about working fast, that I absoloutly love!

In two short rehearsals - 2 hours and 2 and a half - I've been working with the fantastic performers Hannah and Adam have assembled and we have put it all togeather.

Its such a luxery to get to work with a chorus of 9 actors - on longer projects budgeting just makes it impossible. But its a great number. and makes for great shapes on the stage.

this choral work is a style of performance that I feel is particuarlly theatrical and I find it so exciting. The ensemble movment, choral images and particuarlly the dynamic betwen the protagonist (or in our case protagonists!) and the chorus all facilitate telling the story in a way I find faciniating!

But this is where I also must let go of the project and allow the process in my absence, as Kenny has already done with the scripts. I'm really looking forward to hearing how things went, and what people think.

Good luck to all the groups tomorrow, and if you're watching have a fantastic time!

Robin xxxx

P:T minus 1 day 3 hours and 20 minutes...

Excellent day today. Rehearsed at the FH Space in Forest Hill (highly recommended).

Had the full cast for the first time and we now have a piece! Hoorah! It's looking good and everyone's worked really hard. We're very excited about tomorrow and seeing the audience reaction. Also, the play now has an official title (always helpful!): "Swabs".

Looking forward to tomorrow!

See you then,

Adam x
Box of Tricks

Best of this week's theatre blogs is ... this one!

We're thrilled to see this blog get a mention in Whatsonstage.com's Best Of This Week's Theatre Blogs feature!

Kenny's post about his writing ritual particularly caught their eye. Nice one Kenny.

If you haven't already, make sure you book a ticket to see where Kenny's writing ritual got him as his work is performed as part of Present : Tense this Sunday night at Southwark Playhouse.

Present : Tense / Thirteen
Sunday 22 November 2009 // 8:00pm
Southwark Playhouse // Shipwright Yard (Corner Tooley St. & Bermondsey St.) // London // SE1 2TF
Tickets // £10 // 020 7407 0234 or www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk

twins, sci-fi and singing

hi...

so i've not blogged since monday and a lot has happened in that time for our group...

adam came up with a cracking script (phew!) which has now been edited and re-edited to include twins (played by 2 actors who amazingly look pretty similar - the audience will hopefully go with the identical idea!), another character called Tab, who I hauled Hasan Dixon in for at 12.30 am this morning - he has dedicated his time until the show so generously as has Paul and we got a reading in with the other actor Chris Harper at about 7pm tonight...has been a long day but feel like we've made a lot of progress at clearing up the narrative (making it work for Paul's character Dan this morning was a bit like solving a sci-fi thriller - from what I've heard!

Having Betty in rehearsals was just brilliant (could listen to her all day)...really wanted her to be free to try out things (as after seeing her in the gig last night was blown away by her voice and how natural on stage she is) and she's gone with that - experimenting with guitar, xylophone and she's bringing her mini keyboard tomo...brilliant!

Saw the stage at Southwark and think can really make use of that too and the layout of audience....it's another direct address (think works best) which I happen to keep working on and love.

Have bashed out objectives with Hasan and Paul so clear all the way through for them what they want and who talking to - always a toughie in monologues.

A lot of lines for them all to learn but written with quite a strong rhythm which actually should make it easier - I hope!

Am excited to go into rehearsals tomorrow and see what else we find with Betty underscoring and making sounds!

Looking forward to seeing the other pieces too...a cast of 9...wow that's ambitious but brilliant!

x

From the page to the stage...

Excellent rehearsal with the cast at the Actors' Centre this morning. Hannah and I are really pleased with progress so far.

The cast threw themselves into the process; generous and creative from the off. Our (as yet!) unnamed piece is taking shape and Robin is really bringing Kenny's words to life. Looking forward to bringing it all together and seeing the final product...

The full cast is: Matt Bloxham, Bronya Deutsch, Tunji Falana, Chameli Meir, Rhoda Offori-Attah, Michael Quartey, Jai Rajani, Natasha James, Abi Hood.

Meanwhile, our sound designer, Chris James, is playing around with some potential music. Interested to hear what he comes up with.

Next rehearsal is on Saturday, so actors have tomorrow to get off book. Loads of time!

Over and out for now,

Adam x
Box of Tricks

 

 

Thursday afternoon

Just back from visiting a rehearsal. Terrific.

New character Tab is a keeper in the hands of Hasan Dixon.

Fantastic to have Betty "noodling" (her word) with instruments while the actors worked on text - added whole new layers.

Slipped out leaving it in their capable hands...

Thursday Morning

So since last I post, the biscuits are gone, the cigarettes have been replenished, the ashtray emptied a few times and more importantly I managed to write something that resembles a script...

It's been really interesting trying to write for this piece knowing that Robin will be incorporating movement (and not just in the walk stage left sense) to the story. I ended up leaving the text unallocated, with choral sections intermixed with three linear narratives- sounds complicated - hopefully in my three day absence from rehearsals Hannah and Adam have solved this.

All very exciting, looking forward to rehearsal on Saturday where I will get to see what's been going on.

I take full blame for the cast of nine idea.

I also take up Mr Grieve's depressing music challenge and raise him Nick Drake - Riverman (see Monday Morning entry and comments if this makes no sense)

Hope all the other teams are getting on well.

I'm off to listen to Betty on Myspace.

Ken x

From the dead of night...

...a brief hello.

A breathless day. In which we decided to split twins Dan and Andy between two actors rather than Paul playing both. Welcome to the fold the wonderful (Paul Jellis-look-a-like) Chris Harper.

And in which new character Tab has dangled on a thread.

And which saw several stages of script revision culminating in a very impromptu read-thru that began shortly after 11pm in a mercifully quiet pub near King's Cross station.

After which, some more revisions, and now at nearly 3am I've emailed out the new, maybe-sort-of-final draft.

From tomorrow morning it's in rehearsal. I will stand on the shore and watch it sail away.

Apparently Betty's gig was great. Wish I'd been.

Night!

A x