Occasional interludes
Category

Actors and Acting

Category

The Warmest Spaces in the Coldest Places

The Warmest Spaces in the Coldest Places

A personal reflection by Kate Wilson To experience the wildness and weirdness of Antarctica is to come closest on Earth to another world. Its emotional and sensory impact is overwhelming: the remoteness, changeability, blinding whiteness, impossible quiet, and lack of all that is familiar. When I visited some years ago I fell in love with

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Finding the Voice a Book Deserves: getting started with audiobook narration

Finding the Voice a Book Deserves: getting started with audiobook narration

Out of the booth I often find myself listening to other actor’s voices rather than to what they’re saying – a professional hazard for a narrator and voice coach, I suppose. As I do this, I invariably form an image in my mind of what the actor looks like. Usually if I meet them afterwards

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So You Want to be an Actor? We still have a problem.

So You Want to be an Actor? We still have a problem.

Every now and then, and this has happened for decades since I’ve been an actor and in the actor-training game, someone tells me they’re thinking of becoming an actor too. It usually comes with a hopeful look and the slightest wince, as if they’re waiting for me to deliver bad news gently. And yes, the

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Looking back

I read a good piece this morning from Cory Doctorow who has been blogging every day for what seems like the beginning of blog-time well, 20 years anyway. Here’s Cory’s post about what he does – full of amazing information about how he does it, and why. One thing that caught my eye was his

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Keep Your Hook Baited

Keep Your Hook Baited

Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish. (Ovid) There is no plan. (Daniel Pink: The Adventures of Johnny Bunko) Ounce by ounce, putting it togetherSmall amounts, adding up to make a work of artFirst of all you need a

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Directing at a (safe) distance: MACBETH IN THE DARK

Some months ago, I watched David Berthold interview the great director Peter Sellars. Among other things, Sellars noted the possible upsides of the pandemic. “There’s an upside?” I wondered. But Sellars said something which I’ve kept front and centre in my thinking for the past almost 6 months: “The virus is our teacher.”  Those five

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Musings …

Getting back to work in a company is absolutely critical for anyone who ‘teaches’ acting. I have learned so much this time around – do we ever stop learning I wonder – about this most elusive and testing art form that, in part at least, is about ‘Behaving truthfully in imaginary circumstances.’ Stamina, focus, preparation,

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In Performance: the new routine

Monday – a day when most shows are ‘dark’ for a day off. It marks the end of the 8-shows a week into Week 2 of our season. Routines have changed from the day-long, week-day intensives of rehearsal and production week to the rhythms of a night-shift worker.

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