The Acting Website, Diary & Blog: Theatre, Film & TV

Review: The Woman In Black

So you just finished watching that Fosters TV ad and realize there is nothing on that you want to watch, so you decide to go to the theatre, but what should you see? How about ‘The Woman in Black’.

The Woman In Black is a long running horror story at the Fortune Theater in London It is based on a novel by Susan Hill and adapted for theater by Stephen Mallatrat. It is a thrilling ghost story that anyone can go back to each running season even if it will make the audience jump out of seats in fright. Imagine the stage is not so big and the theater is a bit small and appears eerie, even going to the toilets alone will be a creepy experience.

The story is about a solicitor trying to tell his ghostly experiences as he tried to wind up the affairs of a recently deceased woman. The woman, however, has led a reclusive life in a remote and mysterious house which is accessible only during the day. This solicitor could not get the help of the locals who would not get near the house nor hear any mention of the woman’s name. They believed the house is cursed. The story begins as the solicitor recalls the frightening nights he spent at the house. There are bone-chilling run-ins with the black-cloaked woman, a mysterious cart and buggy, and a mysterious room. The high pitched screams send the audience into frenzy.

Robin Herford directed the original cast of The Woman In Black in 1987 when it started at the Stephen Joseph Theater in Scarborough, and has been directing the subsequent casts. Christopher Ravenscroft and Sebastian Harcombe, the latest casts, are the 23^rd combination of stars. This constant change in cast partly makes The Woman In Black a brilliant thriller that every theater goers must see. This play really has the right Project Packaging you need in a play, ticking all the right boxes of entertainment.

The Most Basic Improvisation Game you Need to Master

When learning drama improvisation, it is important to start at the very beginning. We need to free our voices to respond from our gut. Our inability to respond instinctively is part of a self editing process that begins with our parents calling us ’silly'or ’naughty'and continues through our education.The most basic game is a ’sound around’. The actors stand in a circle should to shoulder looking straight ahead. The first person starts, turns their head to the right, and makes a noise at the person next to them. As soon as that person ’receives the impulse'they turn their head to the next person and make a noise. Beginning actors who are nervous, will actually plan in their head what noise to make, and make coherent sounds like ’bark'’woof'’tweet’. The role of the moderator of this game is to work with the group to create a quicker and quicker pace which will circumvent this thinking process. As soon as a beginning actor learns what a true impulse feels like, this physical experience can be transferred into all of their other improvisation work. All too often, however, the authentic aims of early improvisation games are skimmed over, and the authentic physical experience of transmitting a true impulse never happens. This, in my opinion, is one of the reasons there are so many horrible improvisors! How the moderator works with the team of actors to release that innate impulse through improvisation games is a highly developed skill that comes from years of experience. Good teachers are like yogis, gurus, and midwives helping the actor give birth to the clown inside. Perhaps, they are also like a psychotherapist, helping to undue years of damage from the state education system.

Invite for Elodie and Carys

Dear Elodie and Carys,

Hi! I hope you are excited about the show this saturday - I know we are as it is our very last one! If you do find time to draw a picture for Lola, we will make sure that she gets it. And if you can make sure you so the following, maybe Lola can hang it in her bedroom for the show!

Please ensure that the picture:

• Is on a A3 piece of paper that is portrait, (as in with the longest side going vertically - like a poster!)
• That there are no written words on the paper at all

Great! Whether you have time to draw a picture or not, we look forward to meeting you both on Saturday after the show!

 - Sanjay, Lola the rest of the Charlie and Lola Team.

Big Hi To Brazil

Welcome to the Hidden Secret Page at the back end of this website!

Just wanted to say a big hello from all of us here in London.. Words can not describe… but hopefully a video can! Click Below:

CLICK HERE NOW TO WATCH THE VIDEO
(or right click and then click “save as” to save it to your computer)

Working with the proffessionals…

One of the things that I love about live theatre is its edgey “real” element. There are no double takes, no 2nd chances, no re runs. You have to do it right first time, and if you change anything or get anything wrong, then that audience get the performance that you deliver on that day, and they are stuck with it in their memories. In this way, it is as close to real life.

Of course sometimes things just go wrong and there is nothing that you can do about it but pick up the pieces afterwards… of try to! More

Why has everyone changed? I’m still the same.

I like it very much in the dressing room with my two new friends. This is because we have lots of fun together. We like to drink tea with biscuits and sweets as well as play games and laugh too. And yet something’s not right anymore. I visited my friends in the Bear Corner which was very nice. But after a while I could see that we didn’t like the same things anymore. I like tea and biscuits and sweets. But they don’t. I like it more in the dressing room now I think.

Acting skills at their best

As an actor I take great joy in the process of acting. I love not only the joy on the faces of the audience when we take them on whatever journey our story tells (from magical and uplifting to horrific and disturbing), but I also take immense pleasure in the process of creating the work in the first place. I love the exploration period, the moments of discovering that if I do this action in this way, it will bring a huge emotional response from the audience. Luckily for me that process never ends. Even when we are performing and the show is a month in, there is still space to find new ways of playing a scene, and there is still time to discover a new insight into why something is being played the way that it is.

I want to share a real moment of awe that happenned the other day not of my own creation, but of the actors I am working with. More

Invite for Ava Kitson from Charlie and Lola

Dear Ava,

Please watch the above video, and here at the charlie and lola show we are really looking forward to meeting you! If you do have time to make Lola a picture, if you could make sure that it is on a white piece of A3 size paper and does not have any words on it, that would be brilliant! Lola is very excited to seeing it when you finish it.

See you soon Ava!

Charlie and Lola.

Roman Stefanski

This will be Roman Stefanski’s page… just as soon as he either sends me something to put up here or he writes something here himself!

Ho Hum!

,                                                                                                                        This is Roman now wandering

around

on his page  . . . . !                         ?

.                                                                                ?

?

.                                                                                                                               ?

.                                                                                                                                                ?

??                                                                                 ?

yep!

looks pretty blank

.                                                                                                                                                    from here

I’d better come back

and write something

SOON!

Considering moving on…

After much thought, and a fantastic life so far at the Polka Theatre, I am thinking about starting anew. Perhaps traveling a little, seeing the world. I’m starting to get itchy paws.