Author name: NancyKrebs

Just back from my trip to the States, I managed to sleep from 8 pm till 3.30 am, so here I am…

And I am inspired!  So much rich inspiration at the VASTA Conference in New York, catching up with the work of Kristen Linklater, Catherine Fitzmaurice and Patsy Rodenburg,(in workshops) and Arthur Lessac (4 weeks short of his 100th birthday) gave a totally wonderful, political and joyous Keynote speech. He actually danced down the aisle to receive his Lifetime Honorary Member plaque!

I collected my copy of the latest Voice and Speech Review, dedicated to “The Moving Voice”, and an article by Marya Lowry has reminded me just how far our voices will take us, inwards and outwardly, if we allow them the space and size of our imaginations. So –

Not only will be working on our Archetypal qualities, physical and vocal, but they will be HUGE. We will be playing with some of the lamentation work I did with Marya six years ago, Frankie Armstrong’s Voices of the Archetypes and the Roy Hart work I have done with many wonderful teachers and performers over the years.  There will be much laughter, and many adventurous explorations.

And in a day or two I will report on the performance of The Fall of June Bloom which I gave at the conference with my amazing co-actors, John Graham and Micha Espinosa.  Suffice it to say, for now, that it was very well received…

See you Sunday week!

watching Shakespeare in the Parking Lot

David Edgar, the English playwright (http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsE/edgar-david.html) has a new book out, “How Plays Work” published by Nick Hern.  You can read a section here http://tinyurl.com/lo7ygc in the form of an article in the Guardian newspaper.  You can also listen to Edgar being interviewed about the book, and about his attitude to teaching playwrighting here http://tinyurl.com/ltqeqt.

As actors, we can be too precious about what we need to know about how plays are written, how they are structured (or not), and why. I do think it is important to understand how plays work, as long as we recognise that the craft of writing a play involves acquiring certain skills and techniques while the craft of performing in a play requires a different set of skills and techniques.  That said, I believe that playwrights and actors – in fact, all those involved in creating performance – benefit from the ability to analyse a play in a variety of ways.