Directing with Chekhov: Roundtable

Time: 2-4pm UK time

Location: on Zoom

Watch this event here: https://vimeo.com/541255467

The Chekhov Collective hosted a round table discussion with a panel of directors working with Chekhov’s methods and principles in different ways and contexts.

On the panel: Chekhov Collective Co-Directors Cass Fleming and Gretchen Egolf, joined by Anjalee Deshpande Hutchinson; Rebecca Freknall; Margaret Kemp and Sinéad Rushe.  Chaired by Roanna Mitchell (Co-Director of the Collective).

Panel Biogs

Cass Fleming joins us from the UK. She is the founder and co-director of The Chekhov Collective and works with the department of Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths.  She is a director and a teacher of acting, directing and theatre making.  Her directing work has spanned classical and contemporary plays, devised theatre and dance/physical theatre.  Before joining Goldsmiths was a company member with English National Opera and then worked with Second Stride, Flaming Theatre and Rubicon Performance Company – she also had a brief spell in television in the late 1980s!

Her practice and research centres on the use of play in the actor training and theatre making processes developed by Michael Chekhov and Suzanne Bing (2013).  She was lead researcher, with Tom Cornford, on the long term, muti-institutional practice research project that led to a book: Michael Chekhov in the Twenty-First Century: New Pathways, which she edited with Cornford (Bloomsbury, 2020).  In this book and her practice research she has specifically addressed Chekhov technique for directing and devised theatre making. She is also a Senior Associate of MCUK and a director on the board of MICHA.

Other publications include writing on Suzanne Bing and Jacques Copeau in The Great European Stage Directors, Vol. 3, and co-editing a Special Issue on non-canonical actor training for Theatre, Dance and Performance Training journal, with Mark Evans (2020).

Margaret Laurena Kemp joins us from Sacramento.

Margaret is an actor, a multidisciplinary performing artist and teaching artist, a Professor of Theatre & Dance at UC Davis, a Fitzmaurice Voicework Lead Teacher, and faculty member of MICHA (the American MC Association).

She trained at The George Washington University at The Shakespeare Theatre and has a B.S. in Interdepartmental Studies from the School of Speech at Northwestern University.

Margaret has been awarded a host of prestigious artist awards and residencies in the US and Australia, and as an actor has toured Australia, South Africa, and the United States.

Her film CITE opened at the Elaine Jacobs Gallery in Detroit, and her directing work includes amongst other things The Bluest Eye, adapted for puppetry from the Novel by Toni Morrison. The production won several awards at the American College Theatre Festival including the distinguished prize for directing and ensemble performance; and AntigoneNOW,(which has been screened around the globe, adapted for digital performance and co-directed with Sinead Rushe in 2020. http://www.mlkemp.space

Anjalee Deshpande Hutchinson joins us from Pennsylvania.

She is a director/deviser/educator and award-winning teacher at Bucknell University. Anjalee is a graduate of the MFA directing program at Northwestern University, and studied under Robert Falls of the Goodman Theatre. Before and after graduate school, she freelanced as an actor /director in New York City, Chicago, London and Mumbai.

Anjalee has trained in Moment Work through Andy Paris of The Tectonic Theatre Project, is an accredited teacher of the Chekhov Technique through The National Michael Chekhov Association and is an accredited teacher of the Sanford Meisner Technique through the True Acting Institute.

She is also Faculty Fellow with Bucknell University’s Office of Equity and Inclusive Excellence, a member of MICHA’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council, and is co-chairing the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival until 2027.

Her publications include: Michael Chekhov and Sanford Meisner; Collisions and Convergence in Actor Training, and Acting Exercises for Non-Traditional Performance: Michael Chekhov Reimagined.

Sinéad Rushe joins us from the UK.

She is an interdisciplinary artist working in performance, and teaches at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. She trained in Dublin, Paris and London, and her work continues to straddle these three cities. Sinead works with, the acting methods of Michael Chekhov and Vsevolod Meyerhold (Biomechanics) as well as the embodied listening techniques of Focusing and Shadow Yoga.

Her directing work has taken many forms, including adaptations of contemporary European literature, devised shows from verbatim material, new writing, dance theatre, and directing Shakespeare with actors in training. Recently she co-directed AntigoneNow with Margaret Laurena Kemp, adapted for digital performance in 2020.

Her publications include, among many

• • Her book Michael Chekhov’s Acting Technique: A practitioner’s guide

• • Her chapter on Michael Chekhov’s Approach to Theatre Design in the book Michael Chekhov Technique in the 21^st Century: New Pathways

http://www.sineadrushe.co.uk

Rebecca Frecknall joins us from the UK

Rebecca is Associate Director at the Almeida Theatre, where she has directed Nine Lessons and Carols, The Duchess of Malfi, and a new version of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, all to critical and popular acclaim. She was the movement director on the Almeida’s original production of Mike Bartlett’s Albion, as well as its revival in 2020. She directed the critically acclaimed Summer and Smoke, which opened at the Almeida before transferring to the West End. The production won the 2019 Olivier Award for Best Revival, and Rebecca was also nominated for the Peter Hall Olivier for Best Director.

Prior to the Almeida, Rebecca was Resident Director at Northern Stage from 2015-2016, and before taking up that role, she worked as a freelance director in London and has worked with the National Theatre, RSC and Young Vic.

Way back in the day, she trained at Goldsmiths, and at LAMDA.

Gretchen Egolf joins us from the UK

Gretchen Egolf is an actor, director, and teacher, and co-director of The Chekhov Collective UK.  After training at Juilliard, she went on to perform extensively in theater, television, and film in America and in recent years the UK as well.

She is a practitioner of the Michael Chekhov approach and teaches and directs regularly with the students of LAMDA and Central School of Speech and Drama, among others.

Recent productions include APPROPRIATE at Lamda and VERNON GOD LITTLE at Central.