The Ash Girl and the Glutton Toad

For this week's blog I interviewed Helen Bryant who plays the Glutton Toad, one of the seven deadly sins featured in The Ash Girl. Helen described her costume as "very pink and very fat". The deadly sins also wear masks representing their characters. The mask covers the top half of the face depriving the actor of the use of their eyes in showing emotions and thoughts. Helen has acted in masks before, once at school where she played the angel of death, and in a short play in WriteFest at Progress. In the WriteFest play, Home News she played a man and a woman where for the male character she used a mask and for the female one she didn't. This meant that not only did she have to remember her lines and who was supposed to be saying them she also had to think about whether she should be wearing the mask or not! 

An access officer at Reading Borough Council during the day, in her spare time Helen is an active member of Progress. Her favourite roles have been a gypsy fortune teller in Too Clever by Half (2004) and in Godspell (2005). Her most recent role was as a fish wife in The Tamer Tamed (2008). The photo shows a scene from The Tamer Tamed with Helen being menaced by a bear.

As well as acting at Progress Helen has done some film work. She was an extra in The Sweet Shop starring Gemma Atkinson from Hollyoaks. Helen also had a small role in a local independent film called The Dragon and George. This was made by a group of amateur film makers called TeamTV. Both these opportunities came via contacts she made at Progress Theatre. She is also part of a training group called Spotlight on Diversity that uses drama to work on issues around prejudice and diversity.  

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Coming up...

The Ash Girl by Timberlake Wertenbaker 11th to 16th January 2011

Auditions for All My Sons by Arthur Miller Wednesday January 26^th 7.30 pm  and Sunday January 30^th  7 pm

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Thursday 10th to Saturday 19th February 2011

Auditions for this years outdoor Shakespeare The Tempest, Sunday 20th and Tuesday 22nd February 2011.

Teechers by John Godber 14th to 19th March 2011

See Progress Theatre website for details of all our productions and auditions.