This week at the Barons Court Theatre, Tuesday-Saturday, Animal Farm.
A rebellion is being planned – the animals are taking over the asylum. Well, the farm. With song and bloodshed the suppressed successfully manage to overthrow the tyrannical overlords, to create a utopia of equality and prosperity. What could go wrong?
Book your tickets now as we’re running out! Tickets can be reserved here: 020 8932 4747. Please note this is a cash only box office.
Congratulations to the cast & crew of ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, which closed it’s run last night. A merry / appropriately uncomfortable time was had by all!
We are delighted to announce our castings for our Autumn Season shows. We had a very popular audition, and it was a pleasure seeing so many talented enthusiastic people. This is the casts for our November shows, congratulations to all involved. We’ll be cheering you on from the audience. (Quietly. We won’t actually cheer. Until the end, or a specifically-authorised cheering-point. Directors, can we have one of those please?)
Annabella – Julia Pagett Bergetto – Stephen Lucas Giovanni – Calvin Crawley Grimaldi – Iacopo Pozzana Lord Soranzo – Matt Tylianakis Poggio – Charlotte Robbins Putana – Kelly Nicholas Signor Donado – Stephen Russell Signora Florio – Danielle Capretti Sister Bonaventura – Camilla Walters Vasques – Annabel Thomson
Animal Farm
Old Major / Napoleon – David Pearson Squealer / Moses / Frederick – Nick Fraser Snowball / Benjamin – Rhydian Harris Narrator / Jones – Rahul Singh Clover / Various Animals – Ylenia Mezzetti Boxer / Pilkington – Yannis Lionis Mollie / Muriel – Portia Leslie
See our chair & artistic director talk about us, and hear this season’s directors talk about their new shows in these videos from our season launch party this week.
KDC & ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore
Sarah & Carl talk about KDC, and then Nick talks about ‘Tis Pity (skip to 16:35 for him!)
As the incoming Artistic Director of KDC, I wanted to write a little about my views. What I think we’re good at, why we’re here, what theatre is for me, and what I plan for us over the coming year. About the artistic direction I would like us to take.
Theatre is almost unique in the performance art forms in that it has the ability to personally connect the performers with the audience. This audience and actors exist in the same place, the actors affect the audience, and also the audience feedback to the actors, there is a closed loop that makes each performing instance unique, and personal. Only live music rivals theatre in its ability to connect bi-directionally… but we can tell more stories.
Currently in London we are in an era of theatrical renaissance. Blockbusters like Hamilton have re-introduced musicals to the popular mainstream culture. Fringe shows have a place each winter in the excellent VAULT Festival. We have world-exclusive improvisation extravaganzas. London itself is even building more theatres.
So, why KDC?
Amongst all of this we should question why KDC particularly is here. What are we good at, what are we weak in. Amongst all of this opportunity what actually is our place? What are our strengths?
We’re agile – we’re a low-budget operation, so we don’t need to attract large audiences. We can take more risks.
We’re open – as part of those risks, we don’t need to know you before you get involved. Looking back at our recent show, on average half of each cast are brand new to KDC.
We’re varied – last year we did a devised horror, a translated Russian comedy (komedy!), a Terence Rattigan classic, and several pieces of new writing. We aren’t beholden to any genre.
We are focussed on actors and directors
We have weaknesses too, that’s uncomfortable thing to admit but it would be disingenuous to pretend they don’t exist. We’re not awash with cash, we’re a fairly bare-bones operation. Often our shows aren’t technically stunning, or sometimes the sets are quite limited. These limitations aren’t without exceptions – the audience of last year’s Hush Now was experienced through headphones with live stage dialogue mixed with a sound effects and music, and Hand To God had a fully destructible set for nightly main-character breakdowns. But examining our weaknesses does as good a job as our strengths in showing who we are.
Which means… what?
KDC is a place to learn and experiment. I would like us to emphasise what a good time we have in making our productions, the key word is play, after-all. Shows that are fun to put together are fun to watch, it comes through. I also would like to focus on development of skills. With KDC you can try things that you can’t elsewhere, maybe because you are being assessed, or are under pressure to produce a high-selling low-risk show, or because there are other production distractions. We intend to provide a sandbox where enthusiastic amateurs and professionals can hone and develop their skills.
How we plan to do that… well that’s probably a post for another day 🙂
