Marlborough Young Actors is only a year old and after an adult version was added, it is now giving birth to a junior version.
Founder of Friendly Productions, Anna Friend started Marlborough Young Actors to see what interest there was in acting in the Marlborough area – she has been pleasantly surprised.
The junior section for 11 to 13 year olds is due to launch in September and Anna Friend explained its aims to Marlborough News Online:
“This is an opportunity for those wanting to specialise in drama only and work on specific stage skills in a fun way with experienced teacher and director. We will meet for 90 minutes each week with the time split between workshop sessions and rehearsal and work towards one performance a year.”
After a successful debut performance last November, Marlborough Young Actors continues to flourish with a growing membership and is now well into preparation for their next production. And they are still recruiting:
“We are also looking for new, talented actors between the ages of 14 and 19 to join from September and be considered for the cast of the second play in our back to back presentation this November.”
The first of the two plays is ‘Heartbreak Beautiful’ written by Christopher William Hill for the National Theatre Connections series in 2009. The second will be decided once the company is in place.
Their current company draws its members from across the area – Marlborough, Devizes and Swindon. Anyone interested can get in touch and arrange a taster session. They meet weekly in Marlborough for two hours.
The adult course that launched in May has been a hit giving a flavour of a range of stage skills from non-naturalistic epic theatre to a mask workshop. The next course will begin in January 2015.
In between courses and productions, Anna Friend has been asked to direct a play for Ramsbury’s amateur group the Ravensbury Players. She has chosen a currently relevant version of Macbeth – set in “the bitchy and superficial world of tabloid newspapers”.
Anna has directed this version before with her youth theatre in Wells. But this time she wants to include more of Shakespeare’s wonderful speeches.
And yes, you’ve guessed it, the gossip pages are written by the Three Witches. As Anna explains: “Characters will be exaggerated at times and humour will be found beside the real darkness of this story which at its heart tells of betrayal, madness and the corrupting nature of power.”
For anyone interested in taking part in this Macbeth production there is a workshop on Monday, July 14 (7.30pm-9.30pm) and auditions on Thursday, July 17 (7.30pm-9.30pm.) For details email or phone as below.
And for full information on the Adult course, Young Actors, one-to-one speech and drama tuition you can email annalouisefriend@gmail.com or call 07816 823555. Alternatively visit the Friendly Productions website.
