All My Sons Auditions

Auditions for All My Sons by Arthur Miller are on Wednesday January 26^th 7.30 pm and Sunday January 30th. 7.pm both at Progress Theatre.

Over the years Progress have performed several Arthur Miller plays. The Crucible has been the most popular being put on in 1956, 1984 and 2004. Death of a salesman was produced in 1966 and then thirty years later in 1996. We have also done A view from the bridge (1983) and The last Yankee(1998) was directed by Harry Gray who is returning to Miller to direct All My Sons.

All My Sons was was one of Miller's earliest plays. He wrote it in 1947 after his previous play had been a flop on Broadway and had said that if it wasn't successful he would give up writing. Thankfully it was successful, winning a number of awards.

Harry Gray has directed and appeared in many productions since joining Progress in 1963. He most recently directed Four Nights in Knaresborough in 2008. This was set in the medieval period and involved chain mail, full helmets and big swords. (The photo shows a publicity shot with Harry standing in as a knight second from right.)  All My Sons is set in the 1940s so the costumes should be easier for the actors to handle although they will have to get to grips with an American accent. All the parts in the play are strong, it is a powerful piece with plenty for actors to get their teeth into. Harry describes it as a condemnation of anti-social behaviour that starts of gently and builds up to a devastating conclusion.  

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Coming up...

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 year's 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.

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.  

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 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.

Christmas with The Ash Girl

After four days of lazing around and eating too much it was good to have an excuse to do something different and helping build the set for The Ash Girl proved to be the perfect break from Christmas excesses.

The centre piece of the set is a 3-sided revolving structure - imagine a toblerone stood on its end. Each of the three sides represents a different setting and is turned round during scene changes. The bit I was set to work on is a huge tree that reaches almost to the lights and has branches that fold back on on themselves when the next setting is required.

The tree was made of hardboard, some bits of insulating foam were then stuck on to represent the knots and lumps and it was then covered in papier mache to give it some texture. My job was to cut out a slanting piece of hardboard with a jigsaw, screw on a bracket and hinge to the structure and then nail on my piece of hardboard. This took me most of the afternoon and was just so that the tree didn't look 'too straight'. It certainly gave me an awareness of how many hours of work go into constructing even the simplest of sets. (Not that this one is going to look simple!)

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 Ash Girl by Timberlake Wertenbaker 10th to 16th January 2011

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.

The Ash Girl Rehearsals

There is not a lot of time at Progress between one production ending and the start of the next one and time on stage is at a premium.

The cast of The Ash Girl were rehearsing in the bar area on Sunday while the set build team were busy on stage. In a future blog we’ll look more closely at the set – the giant toblerone looks intriguing!

As you can imagine rehearsing in the bar can be difficult, particularly with a large cast. There is not much space and actors not in a particular scene have to sit round the edge waiting for their turn.

The Ash Girl is a take on the traditional Cinderella story and bears more relation to the sometimes gruesome original Brothers Grimm tale than the Disney version. The scene being rehearsed on Sunday has Ash Girl going into a haunted forest where she is pursued by the seven deadly sins and some scary trees.

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 Ash Girl by Timberlake Wertenbaker 10th to 16th January 2011

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

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

Teechers Auditions

Hope you all enjoyed Ajax. Coming up next at Progress are the auditions for Teechers by John Godber. These are on Sunday 12th December 2.30 and Tuesday 14th December 7.30 at the theatre.

Director Christine Moran is taking time out from rehearsing her part as a princess in Ash Girl to hold the auditions. She said that she chose Teechers  because she wanted do something light and funny but still good. After directing Going Postal last Christmas she also thought it would be a nice change to direct something that doesn't need a complex set and costumes.

She was supposed to direct John Godber's play Shakers when Progress performed it in 1999 but wasn't able to. Shakers  is set in a cocktail bar and is written in a similar style to Teechers with a handful of actors portraying many different characters, a fun challenge for actors and director. This photo is  from a newspaper cutting from 1999. As a marketing stunt we arranged for some of the actors in Shakers to have lessons in shaking cocktails at TGI Fridays. Shown in the photo are Sawsan Khuri, Jane Bertrand and Helen Wright (who wasn't actually in the play just making up numbers for the photos!)

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 Teechers by John Godber Sun 12th December at 2.30pm &Tues 14th December at 7.30pm

The Ash Girl by Timberlake Wertenbaker 10th to 16th January 2011

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