Michael Chekhov Laboratory Series: Transformation with Tom Bostock
With Tom Bostock and Pollyanna Newcombe
6 weekly sessions, starting Monday 2nd March 2020 |Time 6.30-9pm | Location: Central London, TBC | Cost: £90 (£15 per week).
“All true artists, bear within themselves a deeply rooted and often unconscious desire for transformation” Michael Chekhov.
Led by Tom Bostock (Gruff Theatre/The Chekhov Collective UK) and co-organised by Pollyanna Newcombe (director/Mountview Graduate), this laboratory series idea began when Pollyanna and her fellow cohort of directors and actors caught a glimmer of the approach while training at Mountview, from director & Chekhov Collective UK trustee Rebecca Frecknall, and have been using / recycling / experimenting with it ever since and want to discover more.
Over 6 sessions we will encounter some of MC’s guiding principles for actor-training and performance, focusing on the theme of transformation. Working psycho-physically we will begin to stir our inner worlds and awaken a creative state and space to work, exploring presence, image, atmosphere, dynamicspace, outer and inner movement and all things imaginary. Chekhov offers us a door to artisticfreedomthroughmovement, imagination, play and sense work, through this we will move towards transformation by applying the principles to 2 radically different texts/performance structures.
It’s important to us that this is an open laboratory space to experience, apply and experiment with the principles, enabling you to notice what gifts they may reveal.
We are looking for a group of artists/performers to embark on this together as an ensemble for 6 sessions, no prior experience of the technique is needed! This is open to all, especially newcomers! Sessions will run every Monday evening from 2nd March for 6 weeks from 6.30-9.00pm, central London location tbc. (Just to note this is not a drop in series.)
We are very keen on making the price accessible, each session will be £15.00, with the full series a total of £90.00. Due to the nature of the series ideally you would be able to pay the entire fee upfront but we also understand this is not always possible, so please contact us so we can discuss a payment plan.
These sessions will be of interest to actors, directors, devisers, theatre makers, scenographers, movers, movement makers, all artists searching to experiment, explore and enrich themselves through the principles of Michael Chekhov’s expressive, intuitive, and radical approach to the art of performance.
Pollyanna Newcombe is a fierce believer in theatre’s ability to interrogate and illuminate the world we find ourselves in; she has a particular interest in movement-focussed work which champions unheard voices in inventive ways. Pollyanna was most recently the assistant director to Abbey Wright on a global climate change project with Universal Music, WWF and National Geographic. Pollyanna trained on the MA Theatre Directing programme at Mountview under the tutelage of Peter James CBE and has additionally worked with, or received training from, Kate Flatt, BBC Arts, The Hofesh Shechter Company and The Young Vic. Recent directing credits include: Radical (The Soho Theatre Upstairs), Harper Regan (The Tabard), Becoming the Invisible Woman (Milton Keynes Theatre, Sky Room), Your Way or Mine (Theatre 503), A Sticky Season (Tristan Bates and Drayton Arms), Specky Ginger C*nt (Katzpace); She’s Fit, Just Kiss Her (Southwark Playhouse, Large); Homo Superior (The Karamel Club); and Leave The Tape Running (Radio Play). Recent assistant directing credits include: Diamond (dir. Jane Moriarty at the Bush and The Underbelly); For King and Country (dir. Paul Tomlinson at The Southwark Playhouse, Large). Pollyanna was long listed for the Peter Hall Emerging Artists Fellowship 2018 and iscurrently a script reader for Stage Scripts and a directing scout for Theatre 503. Prior to this, she read Economics & Management at the University of Oxford, graduating 2012.
