Somewhere in between Shakespeare’s mewling schoolboys (and girls?) and his sighing lovers (girls and boys) come Marlborough’s young would-be actors – and Anna Friend is keen to recruit them.
Anna is launching Marlborough Young Actors and her inaugural course starts with a recruitment evening on September 1. She’s planned a series of workshops and rehearsals leading up to three performances at the Theatre on the Hill at the end of October.
And the play? That depends on the talent joining the course, the gender mix and so on: “I don’t know who I’m getting and what’s going to suit them – what they’re good at.”
But it’s unlikely to be a musical: “A lot of other youth theatre – quite rightly – concentrates on musical theatre because it’s inclusive and can have a large cast with a range of ages.” So watch this space.
And after the performances the cast will have two workshops: one on working with Shakespeare given by the actor Sam West – of Howards End and Enron fame, and who is now a successful stage director. The other workshop on using physical theatre will be with Jesse Briton of the award-winning Bear Trap Theatre.
Anna moved to the area in June last year and to Marlborough in October. Her husband is director of science at St John’s Academy and she has just had their second child.
She’s already been recruited by the Marlborough Players and had a notable role in their recent production of Habeas Corpus.
She is also teaching 16-18 year-olds at the Stagecoach Performing Arts School in Swindon which holds classes every Saturday during term-time.
After state education and with a university degree centred on stage design, Anna Friend began her career making music videos and commercials. She then decided that was not good enough and in 2004 trained as a teacher at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
She found she loved teaching and after her first day in the classroom she said to herself: “I should always have been a teacher’”
She moved from London to Somerset and ran the Wells Community Youth Theatre company for three years producing six performances. Their Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hamlet were performed as part of the Bristol Shakespeare Festival.
Anna believes that training in acting skills brings definite advantages. Of her last company at Wells, six young actors went on to drama school and twelve more went to read drama at university.
But beyond that more tangible success, the training has very useful by-products giving the whole of a company confidence and the ability to speak in public.
“Working with young actors is an absolute gift for a director. They are so full of emotion.” And she favours ‘serious’ plays: “Serious drama can handle topics and language that’s more challenging – and emotionally deeper.”
For her first performance at Wells she re-worked Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet into two one act plays under the title Blood, Sweat and Tears: “They loved it. I do mess with Shakespeare” – just as Shakespeare messed with his sources.
“One of the nicest things said to me after a performance at Wells was ‘Shakespeare comes trippingly off the tongues of these young people’.”
And as the Bard nearly wrote one young actor in their lives plays many parts – with their exits and entrances. Anna Friend’s Young Marlborough Actors will provide an exciting entrance to the world of theatre.
For full information about joining Marlborough Young Actors contact Anna at marlboroughyoungactors@gmail.com or visit the website.
Mary Gray, a former mayoress of Marlborough
