Pastures new

From the beginning of Sept I will start a new job as Senior Lecturer at the Department of Drama and Theatre of the University of Kent. While I will miss my excellent and wonderful colleagues at Exeter Drama, I am also very excited to re-contextualize my work in a new environment and be inspired by the new surroundings and people.

More interviews

In my attempt to tackle 'musicality' in contemporary theatre, which appears to be a particularly eclectic field, I have tried to identify a range of practitioners and practices that might make for some interesting case studies for this final chapter. I have had along conversation with Jörg Gollasch about his work with German director and incoming Intendantin of the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Karin Beier (see previous blog entry). After that Gareth Fry, sound deisgner for Katie Mitchell, Complicite and others very kindly spoke to me about Mitchell's multimedia works and the role of sound and music in these. I was also intrigued by Filter's work with music and sound in their anarchic and highly entertaining adaptations, such as Midsummer Night's Dream or Twelfth Night. Director Sean Holmes kindly spoke with me about this work. And finally I was able to talk to German director Michael Thalheimer, who has developed a unique style of adapting classical text into condensed scores of gestures, words and music with the signature stage design by Olaf Altman and compositions by Bert Wrede. Thalheimer famously said that theatre should be like a good pop song and we had an interesting conversation about what that might mean.
So now all I have do is to write that final chapter.... if only the sun hadn't decided to finally grace the South West with its long-awaited presence...