– Ipigenia at Aulis –

Writing about web page http://www.warwickartscentre.co.uk/events/id/2626

Theatre from WUDS

You are invited to the army camp at Aulis, to meet the leader of the Greek coalition forces, Agamemnon, and catch a glimpse of the operations in preparation for the war against Troy. Achilles will be holding a press conference to discuss his involvement in the coalition and his status as a rising star among the Myrmidons, and leaked sources suggest rumours of a royal wedding – Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia may be the surprise guest.

This is a promenade production using the Studio in a new and exciting way to follow the action of the play.

The Publicity Campaign will hit campus as soon as term begins, follow the instructions on the invite you receive…

£7.50 (£5.50)

: 23 Dec 2005 17:08 |  Tags: Arts Centre Drama Theatre Wuds |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

What have we done?!

As you can see, you can now place your orders for The Vaughan Trilogy….but there are only just the one hundred available..

: 12 May 2005 08:53 |  Comments (6) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Results of the Actington Stanley Elections

Yes, elections that matter! On a raucous bus journey the votes were made and the results were released.. But for those who weren't on the bus of Flying Saucers, magic carpets, Andrea Bocelli and the arrival countdown. Or for those who didn't even come! here are the results…

in ascending order..

Jimmy Brown : 1 vote (his own vote in fact)
Jack Howson : 1 vote (he personally wasn't aware that he was even running for captaincy)
Gethin Jones: 3
Samuel William Brassington : 4

Due to the closeness of the result, Messers Jones and Brassington have decided to share responsibility Herr Brassington captaining on the pitch, and Jones off the pitch. llon.gyfarchion a hawddamor ag a

In other news I elected myself scribe secretary again, and by unanimous decision Miss Julia Maynard is elected Social Secretary with her first duty to be organising the Battered Dinner Dance.

: 23 Apr 2005 12:12 |  Comments (21) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Medea 7 –Spiderman has nothing on me and Owen

Okay so it's been a week since the performance, but it's still fresh in my head, honest! It was a great success, even mathematicians thought it was 'stunning and not at all pretentious' and that is not only shocking but something to be proud of. I think we re-established in some of the invited audience minds what theatre is about, and that I think is more than any of us were anticipating.

Thursday was the day of actually putting together the piece from the mini-groups and actually building the 'set'. Me and Owen played spiderman most of the day, me on the catwalk and him on a ladder, casting webs of string around the place to hold up the collage, booths and shadow boxes. Credit too to Holly who played with my nerves as she lay precariously half over the edge and fumbled with the collage string. Meanwhile the brickies were underneath building a wall. Later there was more work to be done in my lofty domain, I meddled in the lighting work James and Rhys were doing and then toyed with the projector and discovered how uncomfortable it is to stay in the same awkward position for ten minutes.
The Chorus (of whom I had the littlest inclination to what they were actually going to do….*pause, why am I writing like an English student?) Came out of what seemed to me like nowhere to deliver a great rendition of choral speaking, movement and tableaux not to mention creepy whispering. I'd been looking forward to seeing the chorus perform since I'd seen glimpses of the masks and facepaint, and I thought they were the perfect introduction to the acting parts of the production, linking the original myth and greek style to Jack and Zoe's far more colloquial argument. Speaking of which I had to supress my own giggles at their argument fortunately everyone in the audience was giggling too, so I got away with it. The silhouettes were a kind of bridging point between these two parts of the performance, whilst their subject was the traditional myth of child slaying, their form of course was far more modern and worked very well. (See the gallery for the dark side of Sophie).
Of course there were a couple of cock ups in the performance on Friday, and unsuprisingly they were in my sphere of influence. My American-friendly-fire style of projector cap bombing of the audience was not really my fault, the slow motion realisation of the cap slipping off was followed by another slow motion moment of me reaching across to grab it and subsequent missing and having to cover the lens. But as some people pointed out, my persecution of the girl below me was all linked with the themes of the installation. Hey at least it wasn't a knife hey Rothelite? It also took a while to move the film down onto the chorus and Jack and Zoe in the sheet since Owen had convinced me that we should chain the projector down for safety, we were perhaps over-zealous though and found the projector too secure to actually move, but it only took a few seconds to unclip the chains and the whole thing ended in success. Oh it was my friends who destroyed the wall too, women! Chuh!

So yes, I think it was Ian who said 'This is what I came to Warwick to do' and I couldn't agree more, definitely the most impressive thing we've done yet, and we've got two more years to go from strength to strength, which we will.

: 19 Mar 2005 13:56 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

You know when you're a theatre student when….

this is the conversation you have on the sidelines of a football match (meant to add this to the end of the AGM).

Sam: shouts Rothelite!! Stay on the gentleman in the fetching turquoise!

Ric: It's more of a sea blue to be honest.

Geth: I'd say sky blue

Ric: It's a nice colour.

Sam: We're not debating that it's a nice colour, but which colour is it?shouts Go to him Rothelite!!

: 09 Mar 2005 16:50 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Actington Stanley AGM 2005

Actington AGM 2005 Minutes

Present – Sam, Geth, Owen, Ricardo, Roth, Jack
NO APOLOGIES
MIA : Will, Rhys, Jimmy, Hugh

To be discussed
Assessments
Dinner Dance
Tom
Elections
Formation
Training
Any Other Business

Assessments

Collectively
Progressing, demoralisation an issue. Inside games or outside games Vote - 3 to each side, to be decided. From now on, the nicer Pitch to be booked whenever possible!

Owen
Bad performance today but very apologetic and humble. Salutes to him as the rock of our team over the last two terms. He's concerned about defense issues, would prefer more constant subs, a good 5 minutes is better than a poor 10.

Geth
Wet t-shirt competition. Improved fitness, dramatic personal improvement! Makes the point that we can't tackle, calls for more maleable passing. Today was best game of his season.

Roth
Square formation is way of the future. Pass the ball more often, not always rushing up. Going in to space. Capable of defense. Needs to be more decisive. Finds shouting from the sidelines helpful.

Will
Good goal scorer, good runner, but underachieving? Some fine goals, excellent up front but needs to be more defensively minded. Needs to come in deep so defenders can pass to hiim.

Jack
Solid, THE defense, good on the volley, good on the vision. MALEABLE, apologises for todays negativity.

Rhys
Fitness issues - quit the ol' smokes? hesitates on the ball. Positioning and tactical awareness excellent, never let's his height get him down, a great addition.

Sam
Soluble, available, playmaker, communicator, heart of the team, god. More shooting though, more freedom to be the king, whatever wherever.

Ricardo
NEEDS SHOES WITH GRIPS, falls on his arse to many times and slides around. Need a return to the aggression of the early season, needs more confidence and meeting the ball. Positive, maleable,good passing when actually has the ball, fouls well.

Roth
Powers of analysis excellent, needs to be more switched on. Indecision however a magnificent comeback from his retirement in Summer 2001, first game in years.Good passing and willingness to learn.

Jimmy
Ball control an issue, but enthusiastic, needs more pace and confidence. Needs to stay awake in lectures, we need him next season too!

Election Speeches
Speeches made for the election of next years Captaincy, still accepting speeches. Votes to be made secretly to Ricardo via MSN.

Gethins Election Speech – Notes
More organised

got up the most - commitment
taken extra responsibilities

Return of the Rota
Rothelite exempt from rota debate, claims (justified) ignorance

Gethins Innovations : Socials - too much tension at end of games
Fitness - don't turn into a pie

Sams Election Speech – Notes
Warming, Growing, captaining, changing, supporting, encouraging, delegationing, talking, texting, training, socialising, democracying, Jugging and Jestering, Varsitying, Making a Difference..........Football.
_Question : Does missing lectures have an adverse effect on play?
Answer : Cheltenham is detrimental to Actington. EXPERIENCE._

Tom
Offered Tom a contract, Jules acting as ambassador to Tom. Votes for Tom and his skills to join the team overwhelmingly in favour.

DINNER DANCE
Thursday 8:00 – Drink in Rootes social, bit of pool, bit of table football. Then company picnic outside battered, possible Rotheliting to follow. Dress Code : hats (and clothes). Hugh to be emailed, ALL WELCOME, esp. supporters.

Formation and Training
Tobe decided following captaincy vote.

Special Mentions
To Julia, who is constantly in support, excellent chanting and dancing and moral support, thankyou!!

To Hugh director of football, who is always with us in spirit.

Other business
BUTTER WORTH HALL BOOKED FOR THE NEXT AGM

RAFFLE – signed actington ball, do it for the kids.

ARE SAM AND GETH IN LOVE? – platonically probably, overwhelming vote in favour of the motion. Sam 'wouldn;t call it love as such'.

IS WILL A LIBERAL DEMOCRAT?

edit (for Jack)..................MSN ELECTIONS

: 08 Mar 2005 18:35 |  Comments (10) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Medea 6– A hard days all–night'...Rothelite?'

So it comes to this, sat for my 8th consecutive hour in the editing suite, a can of Grolsh in my hand (dont tell Tim) many a bag of sweets in my stomach, company from Sam Smallman (2nd yr blokie) and Owen who paces the room nervously noting that we've been waiting for this rendering for about an hour now, and if this attempt fails 'like a poor quality piece of shit' like the last two attempts did, Owen will destroy one departmental camera an hour unless we are met immediately by someone who knows what they're doing. Our training was abismal, after spending half an hour working out that the computer we were using and the tape player we were using were not connected to each other by anything more than our good intentions, Nick (2nd yr) proposed the idea of moving on to another computer. This done it was a mere hour before we managed to familiarise ourselves with the controls and capture all the precious filming we've done. An hour on from this point having succesfully mastered the process of putting clips on the timeline, Rothelite entered to comment 'is that all you've done?'. Rothers was lucky to escape without a neutering.

However… apologies… Owen has just broken down in front of the computer as it fools him by starting another process, going from 100% to a brand new 0%. With his new sense of technological insecurity, Owen now claims he will eat a candle if the computer does not meet his demands. It's not the largest candle I've ever seen, but eating candles in general is something not to be taken lightly…..However, we eventually scraped the barrel of our clips, repeated a few and even considered running some in reverse, every clip was considered for slow motion, even the dialgogue, but there came a point when those with foresight to choose another element of the performance entered the room, they were met with gasps of glee (Owen's now chewing the end of the candle btw) because me and Owen had created something that could even be described as 'sexy' and has been, several times, accompanied by 'awws', and 'yeys' and by Roth's 'yes, Yes, YES!'.

That seems a very long time ago though, since then we managed to finish the film!! HURRAH HUZZAH! That is in the sense that we can play it end to end on the computer, how wrong we were to think it all over though. As the past 2 hours have involved missionary work to costcutters, an olympic sprint through arctic conditions to Whitefields for CD-Rs which are useless as the cd writer is playing up, not to mention candle eating, which is worrying me more and more.

On the plus side though, we made it to 4 minutes and Owen has resolved not to eat the wick. So by tomorrow, when we will stagger of the editing suite and straight to the seminar we should have our element of the installation, crisp and ready to go.

IF ANYONE FANCIES A BIT OF ROTHELITING OR ALL-NIGHTERING PLEASE COME AND JOIN US, WE'RE LONELY AND BY THE WAY THINGS ARE GOING, ALL THE ABOVE STATEMENTS ARE NOT A JOKE!

: 03 Mar 2005 19:58 |  Comments (8) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Medea 5– Riddles in the dark

Tuesday was all about the dialogue shots, we set up the studio with lights and shot segments of speech from the text being spoken by various members of our group, through the magic of editing we're going to put this into some coherent order with the effects from the maths department.

The shooting went very well, may even consider putting the blooper reel on dc++? Including such as classics as 'Haction!!' Don't want to give too much away though.

We'll be editing tomorrow and anymore shots we need doing

: 02 Mar 2005 21:35 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Medea 4– Flipchart Pictionary

Todays session started off with Jack showing us how he'd been playing around with Margaret Thatcher. Jack and Ian have put together a couple of fantastic tracks mixing voice over and some incidental music, I think this is the one they decided they wanted in the booths, but I'm not sure.

The Collage group have expanded into doing a collage and two shadow screen performances, which we've incorporated into the main layout hoping they'll be happy with it.

Today was mainly about getting the piece planned as a whole, and what we wanted the audience to experience. At the expense of some of the freedoms we wanted to give the audience I think we're now confident that we have a fully planned piece with few grey areas. The biggest change to the previous incarnations of the piece was the decision to split the audience at the door into Male and Female in order to clearly set the themes in concrete from the beginning, but more importantly to give the two genders a very different experience and personalise the issue to them. Admittedly this means that the freedoms of the audience has been limited. But I like to look at it that now the audience is no longer in control, they're lost and stuck in the middle of this world but they have the freedom to explore it.

may have put the chorus in teh wrong place there, not sure..
We also talked alot about the performance, which is now a little difficult to explain but involves the relationship between Jason and Medea, the kids, a bedsheet, and death. woo.

: 25 Feb 2005 23:32 |  Tags: Medea |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Medea 3– Professional film buffs (need a hat)

A lot of clarification of the style, subject and content of the film+performance has spontaneously occured over the past couple of days.

Yesterday (Wednesday) the Buffs (Me, Sophie, Zoe, Sarah, Joyo, the Rothelite and Rhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyssssssssssssssssssssssssssss) went on a trip to maths department (after discovering its film worthiness in our location scouting) with Owen's camera to basically shoot anything that looked good. Avoiding freezing in the cold me, Owen and Roth sat down and went over the shots we'd just taken and tried to make sense of it.
Here's the list, which unfortunately probably won't mean much to those who haven't been involved:

So I deleted it.

When we started today though, we realised we hadn't thought about the themes enough, so Hugh suggested that since there were three girls and three blokes that we all took some time to belittle the opposite sex. So for all you bloggers, me, James and Owen bring you some of our observations on the fairer sex. These are wildly accurate generalisations of course.

Don't you just hate it....

when they assume you can't understand anything they're going through just because you haven't got ovaries.

IRRATIONALITY

when they say that we should know what's wrong with them, and what to do, even though the rest of the time they say we can never understand.

Technological incompetancy

Having to explain films, especially at the most innapropriate times

Innapropriate over-giddiness

Moody, makes you assume it's your fault and then won't explain what's wrong.

Assume no man can be trusted, but all women can

Saying things that something didn't mean anything, when it clearly did.

Where as every woman is seen as a deep and meaningful person, men are always put into stereotypes.

Bitchiness with other women.

If a blokes in a mood he's an idiot, but if the woman is then the man has to adapt.

A man can move on from an argument after an hour, a woman still hasn't moved on after a week.

My personal favourite – They can't understand why explosions are cool.

Talking about the good things about their ex's.

This was all in good fun and of course the girls came up with more points about us, hopefully they'll blog them. So in time honoured tradition we let them believe that they'd won (of course we did really)

Filming
Yet to see how we'll use this in the performance, but with these ideas for the dialogue shots we decided since we'd booked the camera to go out and do the effects shots.

My personal Favourite is the 'In the midst yet misunderstood shot', it's an old trick but a goody. I stand perfectly still for ten minutes and have to suffer maths students who think they're comedians and French people further lowering my respect for their countrymen. Then we speed the shot up and it results in a minute of the world spinning around me. Everybody else going about their business except me and the camera, a bit Spice Girls 'Two become One' with less skirt and innuendo.

Hopefully we've now got pretty much all of the location shots and the work will now move in to the studio for the dialogue. Which at the moment seems like it's going to be a combination of lines from the play and the ideas we came up with after Hugh's suggestions. The structure we came up with on wednesday was a repeating 4 minute piece with mini-scenes of dialogue punctuated by effects shot sequences.

Me, Roth and Owen also invaded the editing suite and almost died of joy, in fact I wouldn't be suprised to find Owen huddled over the cameras gollum-style whispering 'my precious', that is, if I didn't know that his 'precious-to-be' kicks the ass of all the departmental cameras. Just add the phrase 'but my camera does it even better' to every statement you could make about the history of cinematography.

Very excited to find out about what the other mini-groups have come up with in the full group session tomorrow, especially after seeing the Homebase team banging away at their masterpiece yesterday. We've been criticised by members of the other group for taking the 'easy road' by splitting in to smaller teams, but it's clear from talking to people that everything we're doing is being considered as part of the whole rather than seperate sideshows. This is the most excited I've been in any of the practical modules so far, I really think this presentation's going to be fantastic.

: 25 Feb 2005 10:24 |  Tags: Medea |  Comments (8) |  Close comments |  Report a problem