This week's news from the Coliseum...

As part of our out and about season Coliseum productions being performed all over the place this week. Last night The Hound of the Baskervilles opened in Harrogate - the sixth venue on the tour. I went along to opening night and the show still looks stunning. Either myself or David Martin (Executive Director) make sure we attend the opening night at each venue on the tour as it’s important to support the production during the two month tour. I get regular updates from the production team about how the show is going. This could include technical aspects, what it’s been like to work at other venues and also news on the morale of the cast – making sure they’re still happy.

It’s also important to make sure the production that opens at Harrogate Theatre is the same production that audiences saw at Lawrence Batley Theatre back in March. Over time productions have a tendency to take on a life of their own in response to the audience’s reaction. I want to make sure that any changes to the production fit in with what we originally set out to achieve during the rehearsal process. The work we did during that rehearsal period is really key to how the production looked on opening night and that work still needs to be there right up until the last night. Incidentally the last leg of the tour is at Buxton Opera House so if you missed it while it was in Huddersfield you can still catch it there.

There’s another Coliseum production opening at Earl Mill Arts Centre tomorrow evening. This is a brand new location for the Coliseum to use and the youth performance of Tunnel Visions will be taking place there over the weekend. This is a really exciting production – the audience will move round a disused mill space in a train carriage travelling through time. The team behind the show have been working on it since the beginning of the year and I’m really looking forward to see all their ideas come together.

And over at the Grange Arts Centre Bill Naughton’s Alfie is still charming audiences at our fantastic temporary home. Saturday night is the last performance so if you haven’t yet had a chance to see it don’t miss out.

Brassed Off 2005

A little bit of exciting news to end this week’s column; I am happy to confirm that Steve Huison will be playing Barry in Dumb Show – which opens at the Grange in June. He’s probably best known for his role in The Full Monty and as Eddie Windass in Coronation Street. Steve is no stranger to the Coliseum, he played Phil in the 2005 production of Brassed Off and also appeared in Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay in 2008. He’ll be working alongside Kate Coogan (Stepping Out) and Leigh Symonds (The Hound of the Baskervilles) - I’m really looking forward to starting rehearsals.

See you out and about.

Kevin Shaw
Artistic Director

This week's news from the Coliseum...

We’re approaching the half-way point of the refurbishment of the theatre. The contractors have been keeping us updated about how it’s all going and all is on schedule for our return in September. When we were first planning how the company could operate around the refurbishment works it became clear fairly quickly that we simply would not have been able to present plays in the Fairbottom Street venue while the building work took place.

We could have skipped a season and not produced any plays while the refurbishment took place but we decided against that. We were determined to continue to programme shows for our audience and it also gave us the unique opportunity to try out new things and experiment.

For example; The Hound of the Baskervilles has been our largest national tour to date – something we’ve not done before – and the use of imitating the dog’s breath taking video projections in the production was also a first for us. We’ve also been able to programme productions that are specific to in-the-round staging which is the configuration at the Grange Arts Centre where we are performing a majority of our spring/summer season. Anyone who came to see Taking Steps will understand why that play benefits from having the audience on all four sides of the stage.

One of the most exciting projects of the season will be our open-air production in Alexandra Park where we’ll be staging a brand new adaptation of Romeo and Juliet - Star-Cross’d - in the summer as a finale to our time out of the building. Producing an open-air play has been a personal aspiration of mine for years and while we were looking for new venues the park was mentioned and it seemed like the ideal opportunity to finally realise the idea.

The refurbishment has also given the Coliseum the chance to create new partnerships with organisations across the borough, especially with Oldham Theatre Workshop, the Oldham Library and Gallery and Oldham Council’s Arts and Events team.

Working on split sites across Oldham has taken a bit of getting used to. It’s a bit odd not to have the rehearsal room just down stairs from my office or the auditorium and box office in the same building. But this is a very minor thing in what is turning out to be a very exciting season. We took a calculated risk when we decided to programme a season while the building was being refurbished but so far everything we have experimented with has been a success and will influence the way we do things in the future.

See you out and about.

Kevin Shaw
Artistic Director

Refurbishment Blog #03: Where have all the walls gone?

I’ve just been round to a meeting with the main contractors for the Coliseum refurbishment and they’ve shown me some extraordinary pictures.  Neither they nor we are actually allowed into most of the building now, as the asbestos removal is now well underway and access is severely restricted.  The asbestos removers have taken many photographs, some of which are reproduced here.

The auditorium now has far fewer walls than it had a week or so ago and the bulk of the main ceiling is slowly being removed, revealing the original tongue and groove structure that dates from 1887.  Some extraordinary features are being discovered and the whole exercise is becoming quite archaeological.  We’ve found a second, higher ceiling in the upstairs bar although we have no idea why or when this was covered up and there appears to be a far more shallowly raked structure underneath the current floor in the Circle.

Work has started on the front of the building – scaffolding has gone up and the areas of damaged rendering are slowly being chipped away to reveal the brickwork underneath.  The re-rendering of this façade will greatly improve the look of the theatre and also keep out the rain.

We are rapidly moving towards what we’ve started to call the “Asbestos Bridge”.  This is the time, at the end of May, when all the demolition work is completed, the building is declared safe and we finally get access to all of those areas that have previously been hidden by asbestos.  It is then, and then only that we will fully understand the nature of the entire project and know precisely the extent of the rebuild that will lead to the reopening in October.  I’m looking forward to crossing the Asbestos Bridge in comparative safety!

After we’ve crossed this bridge, we’ll be allowed back in the building to see how it’s all going.  This should be in about eight to ten weeks’ time.  I suspect that the Coliseum will be looking at its most forlorn by then as we reach the end of the most destructive phase of the works.  This is when we turn the corner and begin the re-construction.  The actual rebuilding should be well under way in time for the theatre’s 125th birthday on June 20th.  Nearly time to get the colour charts out and plan the re-decoration!

David Martin
Executive Director

This week's news from the Coliseum...

I am currently working on the casting for Dumb Show, the next production on at the Grange Arts Centre in June. The play is about Barry – ‘Mr Saturday Night’ – who is propositioned by two bankers offering him the five star treatment he thinks he deserves but all is not what it seems… This black comedy is a fierce satire on the ethics of celebrity culture and I’m looking forward to start working on it.

I’ll be holding auditions soon for the three characters and this process can be a nerve wracking situation for actors as it’s their job interview. They will be performing to a couple of people in a rehearsal studio which is of course not what they’ll actually do if they get the job which can make it all even more stressful. In fact some people can be great in the audition but never quite as good when they get on stage. I must point out that I try and get the best performance out of every auditionee, it’s certainly not like X-Factor or Britain’s Got Talent.

In the audition the actors have to demonstrate a real understanding the character that they are hoping to play. A lot of people think that the hardest thing an actor has to do is learn their lines but that is not the case. It’s like saying that the hardest thing a plumber has to do is know how to use a spanner. The learning of lines is the absolute basic; it’s everything else that makes someone a professional actor and perfect for the part.

Actors must tap into the internal life of the character and understand what their emotional state is for each scene (especially the one they are acting out for the audition). They must also understand the character’s place or status in the play and their relationship with the other people on stage. One of the signs of a great actor is their ability to listen while on stage. Understanding that the scene is not about them and their place in the grand scheme of the play’s narrative is key. It’s about understanding where the audience should be focusing their attention and not interrupting that.

All of this is made even harder when a production has actors playing a variety of roles. Jim Cartwright’s Two is a great example of this where two actors play a total of 14 characters. It’s not just a case of putting on a hat/fake moustache/wig etc. The actors must employ the different mannerisms, physicality, rhythm, tempo and the accent and tone of that particular character.

Overall the portrayal of any character must be believable to the audience within the reality of the play. If they don’t believe what an actor is trying to portray then the whole play falls down. This principle applies to all types of theatre from panto to Shakespeare, farce to drama. So when actors prepare for their audition they have an awful lot more to do than learn some lines.

See you out and about.

Kevin Shaw
Artistic Director