February 7th, 2010 by Admin
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The past week has been very positive for us here at OSP. Gareth Wyn-Jones and myself have been working with the Audiology Department at Aston University to help their 1st and 2nd year students develop their patient skills. This is a collaboration which started last year and is proving very successful. We work with the students initially in pairs, using typical examples of types of patients they might come across; followed by constructive feedback.
We also saw the training video we filmed for the department last year. We are filming some more scenarios later in the month. More of that later.
January 15th, 2010 by Admin
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This week I have been storytelling at Birmingham Hippodrome, using their Panto, Sleeping Beauty as the starting point. I had a very enjoyable morning yesterday with a group of Early Childhood students from Solihull College joined in with great enthusiasm. There were a number of great storytellers amongst them and Jo their tutor was very supportive of the work.
Photos to follow shortly
January 11th, 2010 by Admin
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The company is busy planning its forthcoming projects for 2010. January includes outreach work for Birmingham Hippodrome and Role Play for Aston University’s Audiology Department. If your school or company are interested in our skills please get in touch on 0121 777 9086
January 4th, 2010 by Admin
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Saw this production on Sunday and was very disappointed. The book is magical and loved by children. They enjoy the rhythm and rhyme of the language and that they know the repetitions. It should be a fairly simple job to recreate this on stage and yet this production lacked so much. It had a great set which was hardly used, was full of rock-type songs and the script was littered with deconstruction moments which went completely over the head of the 3 and 4 year olds that were watching in the auditorium. I suspect these were in there to appeal to the 7 or 8 year olds who might come with the school but it was in the holidays and in actual fact the show was so ‘mid tour’ that the throw away lines were lost in the malaise of the on stage ‘business’. If the songs had rhymed and the script had rhymed, even if it developed the story, it would have kept more of the essence of the book but the ’snake’ commenting about his silly moustache and one of the actors telling the other that he was just the supporting artiste just didn’t work.
There were moments which I liked; the creation of the Gruffalo with the 3 actors before one became him was lovely (they were using the books words at this point and the children in the audience came to life and joined in) and the mouse was physically interesting to watch but I am afraid it was all too ’shouty’ and whilst it was only an hour it felt much much longer.
It was an opportunity missed and you felt that the adaptor and director were thinking more about performing in huge theatre spaces than in doing the book and the audience justice. (No programme at venue – lots of merchandising of course- not quite sure where light sabres fit into this story?! – so I don’t know anything about the company/ production team) Not recommended by me.
January 2nd, 2010 by Admin
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Well this is my first message in the new decade and I am optimistic for the future. 2010 will hopefully produce Don’t Blame it on the Wolf - The Tour in the Autumn/Winter and there are many other fingers in creative pies to explore.
Wishing you all a healthy, productive year.
Gillian (Artistic Director)
December 13th, 2009 by Admin
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A good week – both the projects went very well and the performances were great and appreciated by their respective audiences (year 3 children for the Food Net Project and families for the BRB project). Now its just the final admin ends to tidy up at Open Stage before breaking up for Christmas.
We wish you all a very Happy Christmas and Peaceful New Year.
December 4th, 2009 by Admin
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Over the past term I have been working on a number of exciting schools projects. The first was the continuation of a relationship with Devonshire Infant School, where i worked with Year 2 (who i had first worked with in Early Years – see Drama Ed page for details of that project). What has been lovely about this project is that I have got to know the children as individuals and we have built up a trusting relationship which has meant that both they and their teachers have been comfortable ’stepping out into the unknown’ and trying a new way of working. This project was part of the schools Creative Partnerships focus ’storytelling without the book’. In September I worked with all three classes using ‘have a go Joe’ as the character to link the stories to; whilst in November I worked with the gifted and talented and helped develop their storytelling techniques and language as an aid to improving their story writing.
I have also been working at Nonsuch School again with Year 2, using ‘Mantle of the Expert’ to explore the Great Fire of London and Fire Safety. The children were put in role as Experts from the WM Fire Service and were tasked with writing a booklet for the school explaining about the dangers of fire. As part of that research they went back in time, witnessed the Great Fire of London and gave Sir Christopher Wren some tips on re-building London!
Last night I was at the final workshop for a Birmingham Royal Ballet Outreach Project I am doing, which involves a small group of young people developing a piece of non verbal drama as a response to ‘Cyrano’.
Next week is performance week for two of my projects – the BRB ‘Cyrano’ project and another project I am assisting on (through The Play House) which is a Peer Ed project funded by Food Net. This involves 12 upper KS2 children performing a rehearsed piece to classes of Year 3’s from local schools in Kings Norton.
I have faith in both projects and look forward to seeing them reach their potential.
December 4th, 2009 by Admin
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Last week I saw a great production from a new theatre company directed by Lucy Poulson. Radio is a one man show which lasts for an hour and centres on one mans journey to adulthood during the 1950’s and 60’s in America.
I wont tell you any more than that but just to say to go and see it the next time it comes round. It was beautifully crafted and made me glad I had braved the weather to go.
November 20th, 2009 by Admin
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November has been an interesting month for the company; we have seen the best of people’s integrity and unfortunately the shadier side of business. The most shocking part of this is that we have been ripped off by another drama education company; I think I have been naive (or perhaps just lucky) to think that Arts people (especially those who work in community settings) are trustworthy and fair minded. My interactions with so many different people during the Wolf were wholly positive and the Midlands has a good community of artists and companies who support each other and have an ethical code of conduct.
Thankfully my recent experience is with a company not based in the Midlands (although they are looking to corner the market in their specific area as they open franchises across the country).
The positives from this whole sorry affair have been the unanimous support of other arts practitioners and business people and the absolute integrity of the other drama specialist who has been put in an invidious position by this company.
We at Open Stage Productions has learned this month that there are Jelly fish just under the surface of the water….The Jelly Fish have yet to learn that once they sting a few swimmers the rest of the potential swimmers find another beach.
October 18th, 2009 by Admin
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Hello – and welcome to the website of a successful production of ‘Don’t Blame it on the Wolf”. We researched and developed this piece even up to the day of the first performance and after this initial production we are all unanimous in the feeling that this show has huge potential to develop further. We will go back and look at act one again and tighten a few things up but as a family show it stands up.
We had some really helpful feedback both verbally and written. I haven’t read the written forms yet but from the verbal feedback we would take off the 6+ age guidance as our morning show had lots of children aged 3-5 who loved it and were focused throughout. In fact they were listening so much that when the Humpties were mentioned one lone voice was heard reciting the whole rhyme in the audience! The video sections work really well (the children particularly were drawn in by them – its a cultural thing – 21st century children respond to new media and deconstruct it in a way we as adults don’t).
The songs, the musicality of the performers, the suspense of the story with a twist, the masks and the set were all highlights for the show.
We had good audiences – 60 children for the open dress rehearsal, 75 for the premiere (schools performance) approx 50 for the morning performance and about 120 for the afternoon show.
Today is a day of rest for all before Ash and I go to Allens Croft Primary to do a follow up workshop tomorrow.
