Thursday, 31 May 2012

Preparing for a play: Ski lessons, falconry and Elvis impersonators…

Last week a reporter from Oldham Chronicle came to interview the cast of Dumb Show for a feature in the paper. However, we all ended up interviewing her. For those of you that don’t know, Dumb Show is about the relationship between tabloids and celebrities. With that in mind the cast and I had a fair few questions to throw at the reporter about press ethics, how journalists get hold of a story and where that fine line is before breaking the law.

So far I have been researching entrapment law, legality issues and the Press Complaints Commission but being able to talk to Helen from the Chronicle is even more valuable as we got an understanding of what motivates journalists and where they draw the line.

Researching for each production has changed over the years, when I first started work at the Coliseum I spent a lot of my time down at the reference library reading up about the background of playwrights and productions. Now I mainly research on the internet but there’s still a lot of other ways to get more keyed into the atmosphere and feel of a play.

For example, for The Road to Nab End, Philip (writer), Alison (designer) and I took a Nab End tour of Blackburn (where the play was set) by historian Simon Entwistle, taking in many of the places described in the book from which the play is adapted.

For Kes a falconer spent a day with the actor playing Billy and a kestrel teaching him how to handle the bird. Although we didn’t have a real bird on stage this really helped understand how the bird would move and react.


The cast of On The Piste took regular skiing lessons over at Rossendale ski slope ready for when they skied down the fully functioning ski slope on the main stage; Nick who played the Elvis impersonator in Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis actually met a professional Elvis impersonator; the cast of Brassed Off all visited the local bands in their band hall where they practiced and last summer’s production A Fine Bright Day Today was set in a fictional northern coastal town so the writer and I went to Fleetwood to get a feel for that type of location and community.

All of these things – which are unique to each production – help get a real sense of the various different aspects the play (such as the characters, their occupations and where they live) The web is a great resource but you simply can’t beat the knowledge and experience from meeting a professional and visiting real locations. All of this is essential to help bring the world of the play to life. 
See you out and about.

Kevin Shaw
Artistic Director

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