Young Actors' Shakespeare Intensive

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Posted 2015-09-18 by Jemma ⇒ follow

Tue 29 Sep 2015 - Fri 02 Oct 2015

These September holidays, the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble (QSE) is offering high-school students a new training program - the Young Actor's Shakespeare Intensive .

QSE is a non-profit organisation dedicated to engaging Queenslanders with Shakespeare.

Delivered over four days (29th Sept - 2nd Oct), teenagers from grades 9 - 12 who are eager to connect with Shakespeare's words are encouraged to come along. Young actors will have the opportunity to unravel the riddle of Shakespeare's text through exercises and techniques utilised by QSE's Core Ensemble, and will learn how to deliver the words with clarity of thought, emotional engagement and physical embodiment. The program will conclude with a work-in-progress showcase for friends and family.

Two of QSE's Core Ensemble members, Rebecca Murphy and Anthea Patrick will lead the program with their combined experience of over 25 years as private acting coaches and theatre practitioners. Their diverse background in the arts ranges across acting, dancing, music, theatre directing, acting-teaching, producing theatre and film production. Both facilitators recently performed in QSE's production Titus . Their full bios can be found on the QSE website.

QSE focuses on the works of William Shakespeare because his plays - created when language was a rhythmic experience - insist on a whole-body relationship to words, challenging theatre artists to act boldly and speak with desire.

The Ensemble's core belief is that performance is most compelling when embodied by actors who train together as they exchange skills and experience and show a sense of belonging with one other. Shakespeare's language is therefore the ultimate actor training and community building tool.

A testament to this philosophy is the positive reviews QSE have received for their recent main-stage production, Titus:

The text was interpreted in such a way as to bring new life to words written all those centuries ago that made them seem fresh and newly written. (Nahima Kern, absolutetheatre.com.au)

Like all the best Shakespearian companies, QSE have not merely brought the script to stage: they have played the text, and played it well … rich with emotion and unmasked skill. (Madeleine Dale, creativedrinks.com.au)

It can be difficult to make Shakespeare's heightened language feel like natural dialogue, but many of the cast achieve this (special mention to Rebecca Murphy in her role as the vengeful, deceptive queen Tamora) (Bobbi-Lea Dionysius, aussietheatre.com.au)

The technique behind this critical acclaim is what QSE will be sharing with participants throughout this new training program.