February the 1st in Theatrical History

(John Philip Kemble and Sarah Siddons in Macbeth as painted by Thomas Beach)

On the first of February 1757 John Philip Kemble was born. The son of Roger Kemble (b 1721 d 1802) and Sarah Ward (b 1735 d 1807) he was part of the theatrical dynasty the Kemble Family. John Kemble had several siblings being one of twelve children, out of whom 5 others became actors including the most famous female actor of the age Sarah Siddons. The family has its beginnings in the famous 'Ward Company of Comedians' run by John's grandfather John Ward and the union of Roger Kemble to John Ward's daughter Sarah solidified the legacy of the Kemble family. John Philip Kemble learnt his trade touring with his grandfathers company and ended up having great success on the London scene after debuting at Drury Lane in Hamlet. In 1803 Kemble left Drury Lane and joined George Frederick Cooke at the Covent Garden company with his sister Mrs Siddons joining him soon after. Tragedy struck five years later when Covent Garden was destroyed by a fire. Both Mrs Siddons and Kemble lost their vast wardrobes to the fire and chose to build a new theatre designed by the architect Robert Smirke, his most recognisable work is the facade of the British Museum, costing one hundred and fifty thousand pounds in 1809 which is the equivalent of nine million pounds today. This of course led to increases in the price of attendance which brought about the darkest part of Kemble's career when on opening night of the new theatre at Covent Garden the audience cried out for the old prices and continued until the police and military had to be called. For two months riots and disruptions continued under his regime at Covent Garden until he finally agreed to reduce prices to the old rates. Kemble would retire in 1817 leaving his share in Covent Garden to his brother Charles but by now the shine on the Kemble family had long been overshadowed by a new star Edmund Kean.



Ulysses is produced at Her Majesty's theatre in 1902. This play is a poetry play based on the ancient Greek tale and was written by Stephen Phillips. It was produced by the theatre company of Beerbohm-Tree and is speculated to have been part of the inspiration for James Joyce's later novel of the same name.

RTDA Update and Musings

Ok so another Saturday and another day out and about on the South Coast where yet again I found more tomes for my studies with the RTDA. Here is the list of purchases...

State of Revolution by Robert Bolt

Presence by David Harrower

Shakespeare - Hit or Miss? by John Gielgud

German Expressionism Five Plays by Georg Kaiser

Marat by Peter Weiss

Postwar German Theatre An Anthology of Plays printed by Macmillan

Punch at the Theatre

All in all a good little haul which was most fun gathering together.

Musings from the Week at RTDA

So this week whilst getting drenched at work a couple of thoughts about RTDA crossed my mind, slight little things that I didn't take into account when enrolling in this course. Learning prose, verse and the intricate nuances required to properly convey emotions on stage is relatively simple with practise and study, which is of course the point of this whole exercise, compared to learning two skills that most drama academies and schools teach but for which I do not really have the facilities nor the talent to teach myself. These are 1. Dance and 2. Singing. Now my singing voice is alright and and in many ways perfect for choral singing, plus when I get round to Cicely Berry's Voice and the Actor its breathing techniques and voice control exercises will probably improve my singing voice. I just wonder how much I can learn on my own singing along to 'Starlight Express' and 'Grease 2' compared to taking lessons, however perhaps I should peruse youtube and see if anyone on there is offering free lessons or tips. Then there is the dancing, well I have two left feet and when I HAD to do dance on my BTEC ND in performing arts course I was atrocious to the point of looking like I had only had one rehearsal when performing for an audience. So in a world and industry where you are expected to sing and be able to handle simple dance moves in Street Jazz, Tap, Jazz and Classical its kind of a problem being rhythmically challenged like myself. In the past I had looked up home dance courses and they were very pricey, I think the cheapest course I found back then was around one hundred pounds so I initially ignored the idea. Then today when I searched again I found a UK based company that offered a reasonably priced course on DVD.

This dance studio has produced several dvd classes worth investing in but when I saw the title of the complete beginners I was hooked. 2 Left Feet Complete Beginners looks like its exactly what someone like me who has hardly any talent needs to increase their technical base and boost their confidence. A snip at £26.99 and something which the RTDA may need to invest in for the future.

RTDA isn't going to address everything that a drama school will but there is always another way of getting round these problems you just have to be willing to look and get creative with your solutions.

As for Lear, it is there waiting and it will be done soon. Having read the background and contexts has made me mull ideas over of the staging and presentation of such a dramatic piece of work. All of this is very well and good but for me as a creative person I really cannot put together a solid vision until I have studied the content and hopefully in the next week time will become available to really crack on with Lear and Approach to Theatre.

Remember to check in throughout the week for new articles and further content from the RTDA project. I hope you have a great week and please feel free to comment.

Introduction: The Project and its Beginnings

Introduction: The Project and its Beginnings



As a graduate of drama school who is looking for a position in the world of the Theatre but I have so far found barely any work in this age of austerity. I graduated in 2007 with an Upper Second Honors degree and since then I have wanted to study further to get my Masters degree but have never had the money. However what I have accumulated over the past 8 years is a mini library of books which hold a wealth of practical knowledge, theory and plays. I also have a few multimedia items in my library that I have managed to collect over that time which are fascinating. I was looking at this little collection and conjured up this idea about how I could study Drama at home from all these books and try to use the knowledge gleaned from them to improve myself. So here we are, I am going to see what I can learn from books bought from all over the world, out of print texts and some of the bog standard theatre books you find on every drama school’s reading list. First of all to give you a real understanding of how many books there are take a gander at this pic…

Yes this is a mountain of books but I bought them all meaning to read and study them and now I will. I do not know how long this project will take and I have no idea if studying at home can truly help a wannabe actor become better and learn the skills he needs to succeed but I am going to give it a damn good try.

Being Self Critical: The most important trait in an Actor

It is a well established 'fact' according to many peoples opinions that an actor must be self centred, arrogant and full of hot air. Whilst there is some sort of bravado that must indeed be linked to being an actor, being these things up above is more detrimental than anything else in this writers opinion. I will freely admit to having a boast about how many people congratulated me about this and that so and so from the RSC praised my work and said I had a future in the industry blah blah blah but the truth is that it is hot air that I don't need and that I shouldn't let get me resting on my laurels. Here is the cold hard truth, especially for me, the lack of work can lead your once sharpened skills to dull quickly. Last year I was very rusty when I did 'The Worthing Tales' and I would never say that it was a very good performance from myself, it was fun but it wasn't very good (my acting that is, the show was fabulous). So what can we do about this apart from keep practicing with monologues and joining drama clubs and societies etc?

We can remember our faults and analyse them. In 2005 whilst still at University I was taking an Auditions Workshop in which we had to look at our strengths and weaknesses before picking a piece we felt could win us a job. I had until recently forgotten what I had written down and had made up a lot of new problems or what I felt were problems I hadn't addressed before when lo and behold whilst going through my folder of random notes etc I found on the back of an Entertainment license information resource a list of my strengths and weaknesses dated the 26th of May 2005. The list makes for good reading as it instantly reminded me of work I had done to combat all these problems when I was rehearsing and creating a character. It also reminded me of some of the monologues I had toyed with doing ranging from the work of Edward Bond, someone in my class recommended him so I looked in the College Library for some of his work and found nothing I then went to Methvens in Worthing and spent £14.99 (that includes the student discount) on a brilliant book I have barely read due to all the roles being out of my playing range, to the eventual choice of Benedick from M.A.A.N by Shakespeare where I decided not to do this monologue and instead picked what I now believe to be the easier one. I have since reread my list of bad things and thought you might all like a read or at least a look.

• Posture
• Shuffling Feet
• Diction on the letters P, B, D
• I need to add more movement
• I need to deepen my physical characteristics
• Work on my mime work
• Work on accents

I find this list now very refreshing to read mainly due to the fact that there is my complaining about my shuffling feet yet I am also saying I need to move more. I guess it was just a case of moving with purpose, something that I do not think I ever really got until my final degree year. Posture has always been one of my main problems, when you have spent years slouching it can be very uncomfortable to stand up straight and even today I have issues with this. P,B and D being problems for me was just laziness and as soon as I read this I remembered how the first couple of days after acknowleding this issue I went around and over emphasised those letters, it did make my Shakespeare speech sound very funny though. Mime is something I sometimes find very hard to grasp but I respect the ability to do it and I think with practice I could probably improve this a lot. As for accents, there I fall down quickly, much like my singing voice my accents fail after about 20-30 seconds of sounding even moderately correct. I would say the majority of this list still are things I struggle with but knowing them is half the battle. I really should make a 2010 one that brings all of this up to date and lets me work and focus on improving myself. I would recommend that you performers out there should always review what you are doing right and wrong because we need to be self critical. Without being your own critic you cannot grow, I am not saying slate everything you do because you want to grow. Its fine to compliment yourself and go 'Yes I did that well' but remember you are only ever as good as your last performance and that is why you should always be looking at ways to improve your abilities.

I know I said I wrote a positives list as well but I will not be sharing that with the World as I think everyone can see my point, plus I don't want to pat myself on the back. Complacency is the death of good acting, I should know I got complacent when I was younger and it took me nearly 3 years to get my confidence and ability back to where I wanted it to be. Remember to be critical means to be able to push yourself to bigger and better things. You can do it, we can all do it. Just remember to always review and if you think you're perfect then get a peers opinion because they will surely know what you did wrong.

Xtofer