Category: News

Pitches for Spring 2013

This is the month for you to put your directing minds, if you are so inclined, towards launching KDC Theatre into next year with some suggestions for our 2013 Spring Season.

We will be returning to our friends in Kentish Town at the Lion and Unicorn on weeks beginning 25th March, 1st April and 9th April, so as with last Spring, will be presenting THREE WEEKS of exciting and engaging shows. What are these shows you may ask? Well… right now that is up to you! We need YOU, our membership, to pitch to us!

If you have directed or produced or acted or stage managed for us before, we want to hear from you! If you have directed for one of our sister theatre companies like SLT, Tower, or SEDOS, we want to hear from you! If you’re interested in directing but want to build up some experience and attach yourself to the shows we choose, we want to hear from you!

Last Spring we embraced the Shakespearean. In Summer we went into the one act fringe world. This winter we are being seasonal. This is what we are looking for for our Spring Season:

1)      A classic play with a broad range of roles. Something established that can really bring in that sense of cast community that KDC loves to embrace. Something Greek with a chorus perhaps? Or a contemporary of Shakespeare? A hint of the fancy with something along the lines of Moliere, Goldsmith or Sheridan? Perhaps something from Oscar Wilde’s era takes your fancy?

2)      Directors for our new writing. We will be having readings this season of some of our work, as well as having plays already in our new writing bank on offer. Please email us to express an interest in this and we will send you further details of what’s in the bank.

3)      A KDC Spotlight. A cast of UP TO  four to really showcase our actors and directors with a smaller cast and a tighter focus. Last winter, Vic Craven brought us his extremely funny production of Talking Heads and this Summer we had Caryl Churchill’s two-hander A Number. So it could be a four person play, or it could be a series of monologues like Bash, or even something as intense as Waiting for Godot (rights permitting!)

The pitches are open NOW and will CLOSE ON SUNDAY 4th NOVEMBER.

We encourage our pitchers to come up with 2/3 options that we can consider, but the process is open to all. If you are interested, please drop me a line at chair@kdctheatre.com.

We hope to hear from you soon.

Introducing the 2012-2013 KDC Committee

On Tuesday 28 September, KDC held its Annual General Meeting. An opportunity for the members to learn about the progress of the year, the changes made to KDC, and the financial situation of the company. Also, it is an opportunity for new members to step up and nominate themselves to become a part of the committee and have an active hand in shaping the direction of the company.

We have four new faces on the committee for the next year. Dave Balfour has joined Fiona Thomas on the technical side of things, after having stepped up and been the lighting guru for shows during the past few seasons. He even brought a gobo! Sarah Heenan is taking up the post as the New Writing Coordinator. Sarah was a writer for Summers Gone and The War of The Waleses (as well as the director) as well as being an active actor/socialiser in the KDC circuit. Kim Morrison joins us as Secretary, replacing Anna Marx. Kim is very new to KDC having just appeared in the devised piece, Pub Quiz Champion. And finally Aruna Buchanan-Brown has come forward to fill the long vacant position of Publicity Officer, so you can expect to see a lot more tweets, facebook invites and emails from her!

I would also like to that a massive thanks to Anna Marx and Sandy Nicholson who have been on the committee for… ooof… can’t quite remember how long. I blame the Hoop. Thank you so much for everything you’ve done to contribute with the committee, Anna for the bookings, the general crisis resolution and Showdown, Sandy for your help with the Round Tables, the new writing, both for stepping up as Liaison and Audition reps. Thanks both!

So our new Committee for 2012/2013 is as follows (contact page):

Chair: Andy Marchant
Deputy Chair: Steph Urquhart
Artistic Director: Emma Knott
Treasurer: Richard Williams
Secretary: Kim Morrison
New Writing Coordinator: Sarah Heenan
Technical Directors: Fiona Thomas & David Balfour
Publicity Officer: Aruna Buchanan Brown
Social Secretaries: Carrie Johnson & Tracie Laurinaitis
Lockup Manager: Tracey Pocock
Website Administrator: William Baltyn
Executive Officer: Steph Urquhart

Stay tuned for more information about our forthcoming Newcomers Night on the 13th September, and our subsequent auditions for the fantastic plays for Winter 2012: THE LYING KIND and THE PRIORY

See you soon,

Andy Marchant
KDC Theatre Chair

‘What The Dickens!?’ Ghost Story Adaptation Project

We’re doing our first ever Halloween Show this year, Liz Lochhead’s Dracula, directed by Duncan Moore.

In honour of this witching hour seasonal spectacular, and also to match up to Charles Dickens’ 200th anniversary celebrations, we are issuing a new writing challenge.

I, your humble chair and servant, would like to open up the opportunity to you, our members, to adapt one of Dickens’ short ghost stories into a script, which we will then have readings of in October. The man wrote a whole variety of these, including, most famously, A Christmas Carol.

If you are interested in creating an adaptation – it could be five minutes or fifty – simply drop me a line to chair@kdctheatre.com. The adaptation style will be totally up to you. It could be a straight translation, a modern update, a Greek Choral effort… anything! You don’t have to know Dickens. You don’t need to have written a play before. This is just an exercise in fun, so conjure up some ghosts and ghoulies for Halloween.

There are lots of these stories around if you wanted to do some investigation online, but just get in contact if interested, or if you have a request, and I will assign you a task (to avoid repetition)

For further reading, some examples of these stories (but there are many more!) are: ‘The Queer Chair’ (from The Pickwick Papers), ‘The Baron of Grogzwig’ (from Nicholas Nickleby), ‘The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain’, ‘To be Read at Dusk’, ‘The Ghost in the Bride’s Chamber’ from ‘The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices’ and ‘The Signalman’.

‘What The Dickens!?’ Ghost Story Adaptation Project

We’re doing our first ever Halloween Show this year, Liz Lochhead’s Dracula, directed by Duncan Moore.

In honour of this witching hour seasonal spectacular, and also to match up to Charles Dickens’ 200th anniversary celebrations, we are issuing a new writing challenge.

I, your humble chair and servant, would like to open up the opportunity to you, our members, to adapt one of Dickens’ short ghost stories into a script, which we will then have readings of in October. The man wrote a whole variety of these, including, most famously, A Christmas Carol.

If you are interested in creating an adaptation – it could be five minutes or fifty – simply drop me a line to chair@kdctheatre.com. The adaptation style will be totally up to you. It could be a straight translation, a modern update, a Greek Choral effort… anything! You don’t have to know Dickens. You don’t need to have written a play before. This is just an exercise in fun, so conjure up some ghosts and ghoulies for Halloween.

There are lots of these stories around if you wanted to do some investigation online, but just get in contact if interested, or if you have a request, and I will assign you a task (to avoid repetition)

For further reading, some examples of these stories (but there are many more!) are: ‘The Queer Chair’ (from The Pickwick Papers), ‘The Baron of Grogzwig’ (from Nicholas Nickleby), ‘The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain’, ‘To be Read at Dusk’, ‘The Ghost in the Bride’s Chamber’ from ‘The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices’ and ‘The Signalman’.

The War of the Waleses Returns!

KDC Theatre have the amazing honour of performing at the RSC’s open stage, The Dell in Stratford-upon-Avon!

http://www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/list.aspx?start=5-8-2012

The show was really well received in its London Run in Spring of this year, so we’d love to see some KDC Members heading up there to support the show. It’s FREE to watch, and there are two shows on Sunday 5th August, 12pm and 3pm. All YOU have to do is get up there!

It’d be great to hear from any casts that are reuniting to head up there, or having feedback from a gang of you making a pilgrimage, that we might be able to put up on the website to show ourselves off!

So get a gang together! Give yourselves a daytrip to the home of Shakespeare! Escape the madness of the London Olympics for a day! Let us know how your day was!

Fly the flag of the K!

Post-season message from KDC Chair

Good Morning KDC!!!

What a beautiful start to the week, a sky of glorious sun, ushered in NOT by the onset of the Olympics, but by another fantastic season from KDC Theatre!

We tried something different for our Summer Season this year. A new theatre in the Etcetera. New writing pieces by friends of the company. New actors. New directors.

With the Summer holidays sinking in the Olympics getting in everyone’s way, we still wanted to provide you, our members, with a season full of new and interesting theatre. Clones, Artists, Breakdowns, Nuns and a pub quiz were all brought out on show for you!

So once again, the big list of thanks from us in the KDC Committee to; Juliet Colbert, Helen Niland, Katherine Wootton, Richard Williams, Ciara Robley, Sian Davies, Carrie Johnston, Amy Jackson, Matthew Partridge, Helen Jackson, Peter Cabrera, Trina Hasthorpe, Govind Hodgson, Bernard O’Sullivan, Michael Johnston, Lisa Moore, Nick Dastoor, Aruna Buchanan-Brown, Jeremy Small, Alex Waddington, Samantha Merrydew, March Fothergill, Fiona O’Sullivan, Anna Whitelock, Catherine Ion, Kevin Morin, Oli Wilson, Caleb Watson, Fiona Thomas, Francis Whittaker, Invo Dinkov, James Tulley, Kim Morrison, Maeve McClenaghan, Vanessa Okello, David Balfour, Nick Franco, David Crackles and Charlotte, Martin and Ryan and the other guys at the Etcetera Theatre.

We have a few more things going on this season though! Reading nights coming up! Our AGM is on 28 August at the Hoop & Grapes, where you can come and even stand to be on the committee! And most importantly, FIVE MORE PERFORMANCES of KDC Theatre’s summer smash The War Of The Waleses (two up in Stratford on 5 August, and three at the Camden Fringe on 14/15/21 August).

And then NEXT season, we have some great shows lined up for Winter: Dracula for Halloween (already cast) and The Lying Kind and The Priory (auditions in September) which will be at the Lion and Unicorn in Kentish Town.

We hope to see you either at the AGM or the Newcomers on 13 September at the Red Herring pub!

Have a Great Summer!

Andy Marchant

KDC Theatre Chair

Last call for Pub Quiz Champion – Dev Blog 5


A scene from Pub Quiz Champion, the Studio Piece in Summer 2012

Pub Quiz Champion has its last showing this Sunday (July 20th) at 6:30pm at the Etcetera theatre.

So why a pub quiz?

The question I’ve not been asked, but I’m sure some readers of this blog have been wondering is: given all the wild and varied settings we explored in the early stages of the process, why did we take forward something as mundane as a pub quiz?

While our process focuses a lot on settings at the beginning – and that’s important to give the actors context to work in – in truth the ultimate success of the play relies on drawing the audience into the characters and their relationships with each other.

The second studio piece, Last Order, started with a single two-hander scene between a crippled husband returned from war to the wife he left behind. The third studio piece, The Words I Keep Secret, started with a simple family dinner between a mother, son and daughter in a restaurant. It was the relationships, rather than the settings, that provided our way into the story. In several ways, Pub Quiz Champion combines both the relationship hook of these pieces and the exploration of individual character that powered the first studio piece, Ups & Downs.

For the relationship we have the triangle between current pub quiz champion Steve (created by Francis Whittaker), his long-term girlfriend Alice (created by Maeve McClenaghan) and his quiz-mate / old school-friend Lauren (created by Kim Morrison). It was clear from the first improvisation that the veiled tensions between these characters had stage potential.

For the characters we have a diverse array of old quiz-hands and new talent. All drama is rooted in contrast and – after we’d chosen the pub quiz setting – we quickly established that we wanted to highlight the contrast between the characters’ professional or home lives and the people they became in the heated rivalry of the quiz. We have Donovan (created by Ivo Dinkov), a therapist who’s great at giving advice but unable to take it; Collette (created by Vanessa Okello) whose professional veneer conceals a woman of passionate determination; the fun-loving Jodie (created by Fiona Thomas) whose pranks are a release valve from her dark daily life; and the local barfly Clive (created by James Tully) who struggles between his weakness and his faded nobility.

Studio Piece Summer 2012 – Dev Blog 4

 
Arthur Zacharias as Anatole, Beril Kaya as Justine and Tracie Laurinaitis as Summer
in a scene from Last Order, the Studio Piece in Spring 2010

Guest blog – Trina Hasthorpe Assistant Director

Hi, I’m Trina. I’m the Assistant Director of the devised piece: the newly-announced Pub Quiz Champion.

Staring at the web of multi-coloured scrawl on reams of A3 that are the fruits of our labour from the first devising session, I had my doubts. Reading through the character descriptions, setting notes, questions, answers, demands, and trying to follow the arrows that snake between them had me thinking – How could these disparate ideas generated by 7 strangers possibly evolve in a few short weeks to be a script – let alone a staged show?

At the halfway point now, with first draft in hand and a full run scheduled for our evening rehearsal, I am absolved of all doubt. In fact, my doubt dissipated weeks ago as I watched the actors, guided by Richard, bounce confidently and skilfully between a multitude of diverse and largely off-the-wall scenarios: bourgeois households to alien territories to lands of talking animals to the behind-the-scenes of a comedy club. I’ve seen reluctant farmers feed guerrilla armies, innocent husbands poisoned by spurned lovers, backroom witches tempt lonely priests and the elusive Danny Jones break more hearts than you can poke a stick at, but finally our story has found its home – in the more conventional yet highly entertaining setting of a local pub quiz.

The devising process that Richard has developed can be frustrating: having to let go of particular ideas about stories and characters is difficult at times, but the process relies on relinquishing control of the direction of the plot and dialogue decisions in order to give the actors free reign. And it pays dividends – the resulting script is funny without being affected, heartfelt without being cliché and honest without being boring. What was once scrawl is now a play – and a bloody good one at that.

Summer Studio Piece: Pub Quiz Champion

 

KDC announces the summer devised piece
After weeks of devising, KDC are proud to announce the title of the new Studio Piece for this summer season. Two performances only on Sunday 15th and Sunday 22nd at 6:30pm at the Etcetera Theatre, Camden. See it for less if you’re watching another KDC show this season (details below). 

Pub Quiz Champion

Nothing much happens in the quiet town of Ansoforth. The height of excitement is the weekly pub quiz, billed as a good-natured, relaxed affair where taking part is more important than the win. 

That’s what it should be. But that’s exactly what it isn’t. 

As the answers go in, the knives come out. Dirty tricks, swiping team members, nobbling the barman, it’s all fair game as the quizzers’ game-lives and private-lives collide in the quest for the title of Pub Quiz Champion. 

Cast:

  • Fiona Thomas
  • Francis Whittaker
  • Ivo Dinkov
  • James Tully
  • Kim Morrison
  • Maeve McClenaghan
  • Vanessa Okello

Directed by Richard Williams
Assistant Director Trina Hasthorpe

Tickets £12 (£8 conc.) (Etcetera Theatre Club members £10.50/£6.50)

Two performances only, 6:30pm Sunday 15th July and Sunday 22nd July

Etcetera Theatre
265 Camden High Street
London NW1 7BU 

Important Booking information
Booking is open now on the Etcetera Theatre website listed as ‘Studio Piece’
Book online for 6:30pm, 15th July or 22nd July through Ticket Web

http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/user?query=search&region=xxx&category=misc&search=studio+piece&x=0&y=0# 

Or book for either performance over the phone on 020 7482 4857 

If you’re coming to see another show in the KDC summer season _before_ Pub Quiz Champion then you can get the Etcetera theatre member price (which is £1.50 less than regular ticket prices). When you come to see your first KDC show this summer season (or any Etcetera show in the last year) make sure you pick up your Etcetera Theatre Club membership card (the cost of the membership is included in a regular ticket price). Take that card along to the box office when you come to see Pub Quiz Champion and buy your ticket at club member rates. 

In short:
1) Buy a regular ticket for your first KDC show of the season
2) Get your Etcetera Theatre Club membership card when you come and see it
3) Book your ticket for your second KDC show over the phone
4) Pay the Etcetera Theatre Club membership ticket rates in cash at the box office.

Please note:
If you want to use the Etcetera Theatre membership discount, you must book over the phone rather than TicketWeb. The Box Office are not able to refund or reduce a TicketWeb ticket.

Phone bookings will require you to pay cash at the box office. There’s more information about phone bookings here: http://www.etceteratheatre.com/index.php?id=7