Old and New in A Couple of Poor English-Speaking Poles

A Couple  of Poor English-Speaking Poles opens Monday 1st March.

Progress Blog popped into the technical rehearsal last weekend and met one of our new members and one of the older ones (longer standing!) .

Lucy Daly plays a shop assistant, police woman and four angry citizens. She joined Progress earlier this season when she was cast in Much Ado About Nothing. She played the barmaid - if you saw it you will remember the wig! After leaving Portsmouth university Lucy moved back to Reading a couple of years ago. She decided she'd like to have a go at acting and last year enrolled on a beginners acting course with the City Academy in London. She is now putting it into action on the Progress stage.

Playing the part of the driver is Chris Bertrand who joined Progress in 1972 when he started running the youth group. His first production was The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams in 1975 where he played the gentleman caller. Chris also mentioned the beer crates. Anyone who has been involved with productions at Progress will know about the store of wooden beer crates that have been used in many shows as props and part of scenery. Audience members may not be so aware of them as they are often disguised and used in ingenious ways - but keep a look out. These crates were already in use when Chris joined the theatre nearly 40 years ago.  It just shows that new technology in the theatre is great but you can't beat a simple box and imagination.

If you are interested in what goes on at Progress Theatre then sign up to this blog. Enter your email in the box under ‘about us’ and click on subscribe. New postings are made weekly so you won’t be swamped with emails.

Coming up ….

A couple of poor English-speaking Poles by Dorota Maslowska runs from 1 - 6 March 2010.

Progress Youth Theatre present The Importance Of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde Mon 22nd & Weds 24th March 7.45 pm and Travesties by Tom Stoppard Tues 23rd & Fri 26th March 7.45 pm

Intimate Exchanges by Alan Ayckbourn 14 - 24 April 2010

See www.progresstheatre.co.uk for more details of all our productions and auditions.

Progressing with a Couple of Poor English Speaking Poles

On a rainy Thursday evening the Progress stage was buzzing with various electric tools. Director Joanna Rogowska has designed a set with a 2-d stylised look inspired by some paintings done by a friend. Part of the set is a semi-circle, which will be painted with different scenes on the inside and outside. This will allow the stage management crew to (quietly!)  set a scene inside the concave part while the convex side is facing the audience.

Jakes Coetzee - Joanna's other half - thought he was signing up for sound but has found himself managing construction of the imaginative set as well. At least he gets to see more of Joanna during the rehearsal period. 

Also hard at work was Scotty Downes. A carpenter by trade and foster son of long-standing members Chris and Jacqui Bertrand, Scotty has found his skills called on by Progress many times over the last sixteen years. He built the sets for I, Bertolt Brecht last season and The Taming of the Shrew in the Abbey ruins in 2008. He also remembers making a complete kitchen on stage once.

The final member of the set building team was Aidan Moran who designed and built the set for Going Postal.

If you are interested in what goes on at Progress Theatre then sign up to this blog. Enter your email in the box under ‘about us’ and click on subscribe. New postings are made weekly so you won’t be swamped with emails.

Coming up ….

The next production is A couple of poor English-speaking Poles by Dorota Maslowska 1 - 6 March 2010.

Progress Youth Theatre present The Importance Of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde Mon 22nd & Weds 24th March 7.45 pm and Travesties by Tom Stoppard Tues 23rd & Fri 26th March 7.45 pm

Intimate Exchanges by Alan Ayckbourn 14 - 24 April 2010

See www.progresstheatre.co.uk for more details of all our productions and auditions.

From Going Postal to going Polish

The next production at Progress is A couple of poor English-speaking Poles by Dorota Maslowska 1 - 6 March 2010.

Christine Moran who has just finished directing the very successful run of Going Postal is going to be on the stage for A couple of poor English-speaking Poles. As well as being an experienced director Chris is also a trained actor. She appeared most recently in A Right Mouthful by Liz Carroll which was shown at Progress and at the Camden Theatre Festival.

In this production she plays a drunk woman so if you've seen her in the bar she was just researching her character! Her role is fairly small, she is at the very beginning and end and in one other scene so she was able to combine rehearsals with directing Going Postal. The most difficult thing has been finding a time to learn her lines when she wasn't too tired to retain them.

The cast is a mixture of old and new faces at Progress, including another survivor from Going Postal, Matt Drury, who played Igor and Devious Collabone. The play is very episodic, rather like a road movie, so there are large sections of it that Chris hasn't seen yet. She is looking forward to rehearsing a full run of the play so that she can see what everyone else has been up to. Mainly she is just relieved to only have to think about one character rather than thirty seven.

If you are interested in what goes on at Progress Theatre then sign up to this blog. Enter your email in the box under ‘about us’ and click on subscribe. New postings are made weekly so you won’t be swamped with emails.

Coming up ….

The next production is A couple of poor English-speaking Poles by Dorota Maslowska 1 - 6 March 2010.

Intimate Exchanges by Alan Ayckbourn 14 - 24 April 2010

See www.progresstheatre.co.uk for more details of all our productions and auditions.

Auditions For The Pillowman – Two Heads Are Better Than One

Auditions for The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh are being held at Progress Theatre on Sunday 7 Feb 2.30pm and Wednesday 10 Feb 7.30pm.

The Pillowman is a dark but funny play about a writer in a totalitarian state who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a number of child-murders. There are four substantial parts for men aged roughly between 30 and 60 and this is an excellent opportunity to get your teeth into a meaty role. Co-director John Goodman is half hoping that there won't be enough people at the auditions so that he has to take one of the parts himself.

The play is being collaboratively directed by Steph Weller and John Goodman. They last worked together directing Taming of the Shrew in the Abbey Ruins in 2008. Individually Steph has directed Life Support, The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband and My Voice(s) at the Edinburgh Festival. John credits include The Crucible and The Tamer Tamed. They are also both experienced actors with Steph appearing most recently in Much Ado About Nothing as Beatrice. 

I asked them what they enjoyed about working together. Steph replied that they tend to interpret things in a similar way, but have enough different ideas to keep it interesting and fresh.  John is good at visualising how things will look and she enjoys working on the characters, drawing out their subtleties and presenting a coherent picture. There is plenty of scope for this sort of work in The Pillowman,  encouraging the actors to explore the dark and violent aspects of their characters without tipping over into melodrama.  John said he likes the fact that Steph brings supplies of Krispy Kremes to rehearsals. 

There is more information about the play at www.progresstheatre.co.uk and at   http://abitabout.com/The+Pillowman.

 

If you are interested in what goes on at Progress Theatre then sign up to this blog. Enter your email in the box under ‘about us’ and click on subscribe. New postings are made weekly so you won’t be swamped with emails.

Coming up ….

Auditions for The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh, Sunday 7 February 2010  and Wednesday 10 February 2010 at Progress Theatre.

The next production is A couple of poor English-speaking Poles by Dorota Maslowska 1 - 6 March 2010. 
 
See www.progresstheatre.co.uk for more details of all our productions and auditions.