Let me first introduce ourselves. We are called the ‘Golden Travellers’. We are a small drama group who have formed in our third year of university. In this final year we have come together to develop and eventually perform a major community performance. Our focus is to work with the schools within the Hounslow area. For the next few months we will be working with 7 different schools, with ages varying from 6-11. We will be devising several workshops with the children from which our story for our performance will develop from. The aim of this project is to bring together different communities especially the children. We are searching for a way in which we can bring people together in a fun and effective way. We have got four separate sections within the ‘Golden travellers’.
The four groups are Schools Liaisons, Fundraising Team, Creative Team and the Design team. The schools liaison team will be communicating with the different schools that we are working with to find out how they are finding the workshops and what best suits what the schools are teaching the children at the moment. We have decided that this would be the best thing to base our project on as the children are already studying this subject. It also provides a great and magical base for us to start developing our piece from. The Creative team will be designing the big project from writing the story, characters, and directing the piece for maximum enjoyment, and effectiveness of learning. The Design Team will build all the set to making all the props that we need and have chosen the site in which we are going to work in and will be dealing with Chiswick house throughout the project. Lastly we have the fundraising team which will be raising the funds that we need to actually make this project happen. Any donation would be a great help to us as we feel these productions are very important for young people.
Our initial idea was to do with fantasy and dreams, however, since visiting schools and doing workshops with them, we have decided to go ahead with the idea of Egyptian mystery and magic. We have chosen to work with the younger age group as we believe that this would be a more gratifying and enjoyable experience for us, and would help introduce drama to children early on in the hope that it would help build their confidence and help with communication skills.
We will also be giving the students an opportunity to be physically involved and active within the piece as we will be giving them a chance to evolve storylines and come up with ideas for characters and costume, where they will be given a chance to make costumes for eachother, as well as mask workshops, where we hope to let their creativity show.
Our workshops consist of 4 or 5 of our team going out to schools, where we each have a group of 5-6 pupils. We have chosen to do it like this to give the quieter children an opportunity to talk and to get involved as it feels more one to one, and also gives us a chance to get to know the students better, we hope that by the end this will give the quieter students more confidence and will help students bond, and teach them team work.
Our intention from this is to teach, but make it fun and exciting. Since we do not have a lot of time as the project will be taking place on Thursday the 21st May. I hope that you can respond to this email as soon as possible.
In sending this out I hope that we can raise as much money as possible, as we are hoping to make this project as colourful and enjoyable throughout workshops, as well as in the final performance, however, any donations we can receive, which will help us raise money, would be great.
In the mean time may I sincerely thank you for any assistance you may give, and I hope to hear from you soon.
Please feel free to contact me about further information.
Fundraising Team
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Monday, 11 May 2009
10th April
Richmond Theatre gave the drama in the community team some free tickets for Noel Coward's Brief Encounter. as soon as I walked into the theatre, and the curtains raised, i felt like i was in the 1930s and believed the whole experience. This is the first production I have seen by Knee High and enjoyed it thoroughly.
Monday, 27 April 2009
Brief on John Kani
Bonsile John Kani (1943 -) is a South African actor, director and playwright.
He was born in New Brighton, South Africa.
Kani joined The Serpent Players (a group of actors whose first performance was in the former snake pit of the zoo, hence the name) in Port Elizabeth in 1965 and helped to create many plays that went unpublished but were performed to a resounding reception.
These were followed by the more famous Sizwe Banzi is Dead and The Island, co-written with Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona, in the early 1970s. He also received an Olivier nomination for his role in My Children My Africa!
Kani's work has been widely performed around the world, including New York, where he and Winston Ntshona won a Tony Award in 1975 for Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island. These two plays were presented in repertory at the Edison Theatre for a total of 52 performances.
Nothing but the Truth (2002) was his debut as sole playwright and was first performed in the Market Theatre in Johannesburg. This play takes place in post-apartheid South Africa and does not concern the conflicts between whites and blacks, but the rift between blacks who stayed in South Africa to fight apartheid, and those who left only to return when the hated regime folded. It won the 2003 Fleur du Cap Awards for best actor and best new South African play. In the same year he was also awarded a special Obie award for his extraordinary contribution to theatre in the USA.
Kani is executive trustee of the Market Theatre Foundation, founder and director of the Market Theatre Laboratory and chairman of the National Arts Council of SA.
Kani's son, Atandwa, is also an actor and made his first debt in U.S. television on the now canceled CW series Life Is Wild.
Kani has also received the Avanti Hall of Fame Award from the South African film, television and advertising industries, an M-Net Plum award and a Clio award in New York. Other awards include the Hiroshima Foundation for Peace & Culture Award for the year 2000. He was voted 51st in the Top 100 Great South Africans in 2004. In 2006he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Cape Town.
He was born in New Brighton, South Africa.
Kani joined The Serpent Players (a group of actors whose first performance was in the former snake pit of the zoo, hence the name) in Port Elizabeth in 1965 and helped to create many plays that went unpublished but were performed to a resounding reception.
These were followed by the more famous Sizwe Banzi is Dead and The Island, co-written with Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona, in the early 1970s. He also received an Olivier nomination for his role in My Children My Africa!
Kani's work has been widely performed around the world, including New York, where he and Winston Ntshona won a Tony Award in 1975 for Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island. These two plays were presented in repertory at the Edison Theatre for a total of 52 performances.
Nothing but the Truth (2002) was his debut as sole playwright and was first performed in the Market Theatre in Johannesburg. This play takes place in post-apartheid South Africa and does not concern the conflicts between whites and blacks, but the rift between blacks who stayed in South Africa to fight apartheid, and those who left only to return when the hated regime folded. It won the 2003 Fleur du Cap Awards for best actor and best new South African play. In the same year he was also awarded a special Obie award for his extraordinary contribution to theatre in the USA.
Kani is executive trustee of the Market Theatre Foundation, founder and director of the Market Theatre Laboratory and chairman of the National Arts Council of SA.
Kani's son, Atandwa, is also an actor and made his first debt in U.S. television on the now canceled CW series Life Is Wild.
Kani has also received the Avanti Hall of Fame Award from the South African film, television and advertising industries, an M-Net Plum award and a Clio award in New York. Other awards include the Hiroshima Foundation for Peace & Culture Award for the year 2000. He was voted 51st in the Top 100 Great South Africans in 2004. In 2006he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Cape Town.
24th March Richmond Theatre
Matthew Hahn gave the first public read through of his new play The Robben Island Bible at Richmond Theatre, to which he gave drama's students the chance to to listen to 3 amazing actors read through his script as well as a Q&A session after the reading, which was thoroughly entertaining, thought provoking and educational.
it was fantastic listening to Jon Kani read, and the relationship between him and his son was dynamic, to which you could see and feel from the stage. His presence on stage was powerful, that you found yourself believing and feeling everything he said. i could have stayed there listening to him for hours!! he was so inspirational and his stories were absolutely brilliant!
The play was a verbatim play and one which takes the Shakespeare quotes from which the Robben Island prisoners had highlighted and dated, as quotes that have personal meanings, to which no quote was marked twice!! He also did one on one interviews with survivors, touching on personal stories.
I found myself complately engaged and enjoyed this as an experience which I feel cannot be repeated and feel honoured to have been there.
it was fantastic listening to Jon Kani read, and the relationship between him and his son was dynamic, to which you could see and feel from the stage. His presence on stage was powerful, that you found yourself believing and feeling everything he said. i could have stayed there listening to him for hours!! he was so inspirational and his stories were absolutely brilliant!
The play was a verbatim play and one which takes the Shakespeare quotes from which the Robben Island prisoners had highlighted and dated, as quotes that have personal meanings, to which no quote was marked twice!! He also did one on one interviews with survivors, touching on personal stories.
I found myself complately engaged and enjoyed this as an experience which I feel cannot be repeated and feel honoured to have been there.
24th Feb Chiswick House
We went to Chiswick House to see what we had to work with in preparation for the schools' show in May. We got a tour given to us from a member of staff, Not only for health and safety purposes (building was still in progress) but also so that any questions we may have had could have been answered there and then. I have to say i cannot believe i have never been there before. as far as staging goes, the place is amazing!! and should be great to create an magical atmosphere of mystery and fun.
there were plenty of areas in the park that would make an amazing set to play with. there were buildings in the park that even appeared to be grecian/egyptian, which can be placed within our play, as we are going for mystical and magical with egytaian myths and legends as our initial stimulus.
Also not forgetting the tree. which generated much excitement amongst our group! watch this space....
there were plenty of areas in the park that would make an amazing set to play with. there were buildings in the park that even appeared to be grecian/egyptian, which can be placed within our play, as we are going for mystical and magical with egytaian myths and legends as our initial stimulus.
Also not forgetting the tree. which generated much excitement amongst our group! watch this space....
19th Feb. Mask Workshop.
Today we had our mask workshop and though it was extremely fun and of course new talents were learnt (that rolling newspaper into a stick machine, which coincidently was totally awesome!) was left a little disappointed, as even though we demonstrated good team work and work well to make an absolutely massive paper masche mask (boy did i forget how messy that is!) i felt that it would have been great to make loads of little ones and all let our imaginations go on uor own to see what varieties we could have come up with as a group! would have been amazing to see what all the invididuals would have come up with!
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Fundraising
First of all i have to apologise as i havent been updating my blog
i guess I'm pretty useless at this.
now on to the important topic....Fundraising.... OH MY GOD!! I never thought it would be as difficult as it has turned out to be!!
Its not an area i have ever been involved in before and I believe this will probably be the last time too!
At first I was really excited about being a part of the fundraising team. I have never really been the type to shy away from a new challenge and I weren't going to let this on be the first... And to this day I dont want to hide from it! but wow its turned out to be a challenge and a half.
I don't know if its just me not being persuasive enough or being the credit crunch (obviously hoping for the latter) but it has been virtually impossible for the team to get companies to part with their money! Its turning out to be a bit of a nightmare in all honesty. I guess I underestimated just how challenging it would be. More fool me really!!
On the up side, It has taught me how to better my telephone manner, and has given me a speech which has been embedded in my brain!
Here's hoping though that as we continue to ring out, someone will be willing to splash out!
i guess I'm pretty useless at this.
now on to the important topic....Fundraising.... OH MY GOD!! I never thought it would be as difficult as it has turned out to be!!
Its not an area i have ever been involved in before and I believe this will probably be the last time too!
At first I was really excited about being a part of the fundraising team. I have never really been the type to shy away from a new challenge and I weren't going to let this on be the first... And to this day I dont want to hide from it! but wow its turned out to be a challenge and a half.
I don't know if its just me not being persuasive enough or being the credit crunch (obviously hoping for the latter) but it has been virtually impossible for the team to get companies to part with their money! Its turning out to be a bit of a nightmare in all honesty. I guess I underestimated just how challenging it would be. More fool me really!!
On the up side, It has taught me how to better my telephone manner, and has given me a speech which has been embedded in my brain!
Here's hoping though that as we continue to ring out, someone will be willing to splash out!
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