Under Milk Wood

Steven Brodie has been involved with Progress Youth Theatre for the last 8 years and he is still only 17. In Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas he plays Captain Cat, a blind ex-sailor who is on stage throughout the whole performance. He tries to keep his eyes slightly out of focus and is careful not to follow the action on stage as well as not wriggling too much on the hard wooden chair.

Steven explained that the play tells the story of the lives of the people of Llareggub partly through their dreams and partly through real events. Apart from Steven most of the cast play multiple characters and he was hugely impressed by the idea of a one woman production he has heard about.

I wondered what production Steven had most enjoyed taking part in while at Progress. He mentioned several, for different reasons that cover the whole range of motivations for being involved in theatre: Cold Comfort Farm because everyone in the cast became very close; Macbeth because it is his favourite play and Blood Wedding because it was the first play not written for children he was involved in. My favourite was  Don Juan Comes Back From The War which he said he liked "because it was such a beautiful play", He's right it was and if Under Milk Wood is of the same standard it will be well worth watching.


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Progress Youth Theatre Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas 5th - 9th July 2011
(please note dates as were wrong in previous posts)

Open air production The Tempest by William Shakespeare 23rd - 30th July 2011

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

Progress on the Whiteknights studio trail

This weekend, 18th and 19th June 2011, Progress Theatre will be one of the venues on the Whiteknights Studio Trail. This exciting annual event is an opportunity to visit artists based in the university area in their studios or other venues. You can see examples of their work and talk to the artist.

Progress will be showing work by artist Carole Stephens. Carole is mainly inspired by flowers and gardens and creates beautiful bright pictures using water colours and pen and ink. She went to art college in 1964 and has been teaching and working as an artist ever since. As well as flowers she likes painting toys and is happy to take commissions to paint a favourite toy (or your garden.)

The exhibition at Progress is open 11am - 6pm on Saturday and Sunday and Carole will be there to answer any questions about her work or just to chat to visitors. Tea and coffee will be available and the bar will be open during licencing hours. Importantly for those visiting several venues on the trail there will be somewhere to sit down and toilet facilities. Progress member Alice Mulford is exhibiting her work at MERL as part of the trail. Full details of the trail, including a map showing all the venues can be found here.


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. 

Progress Youth Theatre Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas 4th - 11 July 2011

Open air production The Tempest by William Shakespeare 23rd - 30th July 2011

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

Proof auditions

A quick blog post today to let you know that auditions for the first show of next season  Proof  by David Auburn are today Sunday 12th June 2.30pm and Tuesday 14th June 7.30pm at Progress Theatre. There are parts for four people, men and women ranging in age from early 20s to 50s.

Shinfield Players have recently finished a run of this play so if you saw it there and fancy having a go at one of the parts then this is your chance. If you missed the Shinfield production then come and see ours in September.

Director Aidan Moran recently reached the age at which life begins and went on a helicopter flight to celebrate. He is clearly a man of adventure and up for a challenge so it should be a fun production to be involved in. Full details about the play are on the Progress website. 
 

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. 

Progress Youth Theatre Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas 4th - 11 July 2011

Open air production The Tempest by William Shakespeare 23rd - 30th July 2011

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

Manufacturing Porn Mags

Liz Carroll, who plays one of the leading roles in Enjoy, was voted 'Wonderful Woman of Reading' in March for her voluntary work. So how has she gone from pillar of the community to cutting and pasting photos of semi-naked women?

It is all in the name of art and essential to the drama of course. During the play a pornographic magazine is passed between characters and is an important part of the action. As the play is set in the 1980s the production team wanted a magazine from the right period. We like to recycle props at Progress so they were pleased to find that a period porn mag had been purchased for the recent production of Teechers.

Liz is one of the people responsible for Progress's 'body of persons' licence, giving us permission to produce plays with young actors. In this role she thought she ought to check that the magazine was suitable to be shown to a young person. It didn't take her long to decide that it certainly wasn't.

She then bought a celebrity gossip magazine that was the right size and put it inside the cover of the porn mag. This solved the problem of the unsuitable material but now there was a problem of authenticity. As the magazine is passed around the stage it is likely that audience members near the front would be able to see that it was not what it claimed to be. So stage two involved Liz trawling the Sun's website to find photos of their 'Golden Girls' - page 3 photos from the 1980s. She then printed these and stuck them in her magazine.

Liz reading an (undoctored) vintage TV Times.

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...

Enjoy by Alan Bennett 6th - 11th June 2011

Progress Youth Theatre Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas 4th - 11 July 2011

Open air production The Tempest by William Shakespeare 23rd - 30th July 2011

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

Enjoy door practice

When I last wrote about Enjoy I mentioned that they needed some extra actors to take on non-speaking roles. They have now found some volunteers and they were at their first rehearsal on Tuesday night. Also at its first rehearsal was a functional front door.

Doors are difficult to work with on stage (never work with children, animals ...or doors). They take time to open and shut, actors have to remember when to close them and when to leave them open and the door itself can block the audience's view of the action. The scene I watched being rehearsed was fairly short but did involve the door so a lot of time was spent trying different ways of opening the door and places to stand. All further complicated by having to find space for two extra people on the stage. Director Peter Charles has assigned all the cast extra door practice.

Door Practice

 

 

 

 

Producer Mandy King told me about another problem they had with the door. It has a working letter box that they fitted on before fixing the door into position, at which point they realised it was upside down. Taking it out and reinstalling it the right way round proved more difficult than putting it in the first place. I think Mandy learnt some good new swear words though.

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...


Enjoy by Alan Bennett 6th - 11th June 2011

Progress Youth Theatre Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas 4th - 11 July 2011

Open air production The Tempest by William Shakespeare 23rd - 30th July 2011

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