ACT NOW! DRAMA COMPANY
Information
Website: http://www.actnowdramaco.com
Location: LONDON
Members: 44
Latest Activity: Jan 1
The Act Now! Drama Company was established by actor/director David Hunt in September 2007 with the aim of exploring diverse acting genres and applying the exploration to professional performance. Rehearsals and classes are geared towards people who have had some experience of drama training and want to pursue the craft to a higher level. All of the original intake had trained and worked in performance to varying degrees.
Sessions consist of 10 x 3 hour acting classes and rehearsals running one evening a week between 7.00pm-10.00pm, plus additional weekend workshops. The rehearsals result in a performance relating to a genre subject studied over the 10 weeks. Rehearsals take place at Mycenae House, Blackheath and cover voice, movement, scene and text exploration, improvisation, directing etc.
The genre subject enables all members to be working on the same topic so that they can build their knowledge on a specific performance related area and also add selected works by the writer to their repertoire of audition speeches or dialogues. There are also devising classes not always connected to the genre subject. Subjects covered so far are Federico Garcia Lorca, August Strindberg, Alan Ayckbourn, Henrik Ibsen, Noel Coward, William Shakespeare. and Greek Theatre.
There are also occasional Saturday Workshops running at Wigmore Hall, Union Chapel, Islington and St Gabriel's Hall, Pimlico which cover voice, devising and genre subjects including Steven Berkoff, Restoration Theatre and Shakespeare Scene Study.
In January 2008 the Act Now! Drama Company performed their first production The Tragedy of Federico Garcia Lorca to a full house at The Broadway Theatre Studio, Catford. Their second production Mind Games - looking at the works of August Strindberg and Alan Ayckbourn - was also performed at The Broadway Theatre Studio in April 2008.
The company premiered their new comedy play That Happy Feeling! written by David Hunt, in September 2008 at the Broadway. The show ran for a week with great public response. This was followed by The Passion of Henrik Ibsen and in January 2009 Coward's Way, looking at the comedy scenes, monologues and songs of Sir Noel Coward.
The companies production of Sophocles’ Greek tragedy Electra ran very sucessfully in March 2009 at The Courtyard, London. Due to popular interest That Happy Feeling! is also scheduled for reprisal at a central venue in mid-2009.
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Shakespeare's villains & villainesses completed a successful run at The Greenwich Playhouse from July 7th - 12th.
More info to follow.
Sessions consist of 10 x 3 hour acting classes and rehearsals running one evening a week between 7.00pm-10.00pm, plus additional weekend workshops. The rehearsals result in a performance relating to a genre subject studied over the 10 weeks. Rehearsals take place at Mycenae House, Blackheath and cover voice, movement, scene and text exploration, improvisation, directing etc.
The genre subject enables all members to be working on the same topic so that they can build their knowledge on a specific performance related area and also add selected works by the writer to their repertoire of audition speeches or dialogues. There are also devising classes not always connected to the genre subject. Subjects covered so far are Federico Garcia Lorca, August Strindberg, Alan Ayckbourn, Henrik Ibsen, Noel Coward, William Shakespeare. and Greek Theatre.
There are also occasional Saturday Workshops running at Wigmore Hall, Union Chapel, Islington and St Gabriel's Hall, Pimlico which cover voice, devising and genre subjects including Steven Berkoff, Restoration Theatre and Shakespeare Scene Study.
In January 2008 the Act Now! Drama Company performed their first production The Tragedy of Federico Garcia Lorca to a full house at The Broadway Theatre Studio, Catford. Their second production Mind Games - looking at the works of August Strindberg and Alan Ayckbourn - was also performed at The Broadway Theatre Studio in April 2008.
The company premiered their new comedy play That Happy Feeling! written by David Hunt, in September 2008 at the Broadway. The show ran for a week with great public response. This was followed by The Passion of Henrik Ibsen and in January 2009 Coward's Way, looking at the comedy scenes, monologues and songs of Sir Noel Coward.
The companies production of Sophocles’ Greek tragedy Electra ran very sucessfully in March 2009 at The Courtyard, London. Due to popular interest That Happy Feeling! is also scheduled for reprisal at a central venue in mid-2009.
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Shakespeare's villains & villainesses completed a successful run at The Greenwich Playhouse from July 7th - 12th.
More info to follow.
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Comment by David Hunt on April 20, 2009 at 11:16am -
Electra by Sophocles –
REMOTE GOAT REVIEW 12/03/2009 – The Courtyard Studio
Directed by David Hunt
Putting on Sophocles tragedy Electra is no easy task. Making it accessible to a modern audience successfully is even more difficult. The Act Now! Drama Company have succeeded in producing a very powerful interpretation of the vengeful saga. The strong subject of sacrifice and matricide in Richard Soames clear translation is well executed by a company of 13 talented players at the Courtyard Studio, N1.
Abigail Harman, as the beautiful title character, aids herself well with just the right balance of determination and sorrow. Her Electra never becomes a drone who wails endlessly. She has humanity and in no way fails to win her audiences and her faithful bunch of choral associates pity. Her grief, on hearing of the loss of her brother, Orestes, is moving to the core and abets itself well with her gritty determination to see justice done.
The chorus of six feisty women, listed as deities in the programme, are a force to be reckoned with. They hiss, snarl, empathise and triumph when necessary and provide a very potent presence on stage. Their taunting of Electra’s loathsome step-father Aegisthus (Richard Cavanagh) is a truly terrifying sequence. They also display the sensuality of the hot-blooded women of the day, notably when one of them flirts outrageously on first setting eyes on the long lost Orestes (David Puckridge). Puckridge has a gentle masculinity which makes him all the more vulnerable. In this production he is presented as the ‘boy-band pop idol’ of the day clad in pure white. A child at heart, his scenes with his guide are warm and touching.
Catherine Janes femme fatale, Clytemnestra, is villainess personified. She flares her nostrils and sarcastically taunts her daughter, but, still appears to be cautious around the ever observant chorus. She holds her sons ashes like a doll, celebrating that ashes they are, rather than longing for his flesh and blood presence.
The production is beautifully framed by a haunting and moving musical soundtrack and strong choices on staging. David Hunt’s direction keeps the pace rolling and never becomes indulgent. The stage is bare of set, but, the actors dress it with splashes of vibrant colours against the purity of their white robes. The rousing final sequence brought the audience to its feet and left many memorable moments in the mind. Ah, those Greeks knew a thing or two. – Mark Stevenson/RG 2009
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Comment by David Hunt on April 14, 2009 at 11:24am
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Comment by Johanna Evans on April 6, 2009 at 2:30pm - Do you hold auditions for your shows or is it a turn up on the first night basis?
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