On Directing: a Conversation with Katie Mitchell

2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Shevtsova
Keyword(s):  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Royal Court ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Intense Activity ◽  
Opera Productions ◽  
Associate Director

One of Britain's foremost directors, Katie Mitchell's career embraces a formidable repertoire of play and opera productions. She has a taste for Greek tragedy – her Phoenician Women (1995) won the Evening Standard Best Director Award – and takes in Gorky, Chekhov, Genet, and Beckett, as well as such contemporaries as Kevin Elyot, whose Forty Winks she directed at the Royal Court in 2004. She has worked in Dublin, Milan, and Stockholm, and is an Associate Director at the National Theatre. This interview with NTQ co-editor Maria Shevtsova shows Mitchell's lucid and passionate engagement with her craft. It took place in London in several stages from December 2004 to July 2005, during a period of intense activity for Mitchell. Maria Shevtsova wishes to thank her for so generously giving her time.

Finding a Physical Language: Directing for the Nineties Generation

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Darren Gobert
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Research Grants ◽  
Vast Array ◽  
Royal Court ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Royal Court Theatre ◽  
Associate Director

In the course of his career, James Macdonald has directed a vast array of plays and operas in London, New York, Vienna, and Berlin, but he is perhaps best known for the premiere productions of Sarah Kane's Blasted, Cleansed, and 4.48 Psychosis at the Royal Court Theatre, where he was an Associate Director from 1992 to 2006. His most recent work includes Peter Handke's The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other at the National Theatre and the Broadway revival of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls. Macdonald met with R. Darren Gobert in London on 23 January 2006 to discuss the challenges of working with spare, difficult plays such as Kane's, Churchill's A Number, and Martin Crimp's Fewer Emergencies. R. Darren Gobert wishes to thank Annabel Rutherford for transcribing the conversation and, for their funding, the Faculty of Arts Committee on Research, Grants, and Scholarships at York University.

scholarly journals Current Opera Production in the Repertoire of the Slovak National Theatre in 1960s

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Michaela Mojžišová
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Opera Production ◽  
Opera Productions

Abstract The study deals with the increase in the introduction of modern opera production at the Slovak National Theatre in the 1960s. The author interprets it not only as an attempt of dramaturgy to enliven the traditional repertoire, but in particular as an ambition to apply more modern theatrical poetics in the production opera practice. Since there was no practice of updating classic opera production in Slovakia in the sense of “Regietheater” at that time, this production of the 20th century was considered to be the most realistic way of reviving opera. At the same time, the study highlights the social motivation of this intention: an effort to address a new, progressively oriented audience that would create appeal for a conventionally oriented audience that primarily focuses on the musical-vocal component of opera productions.

Roy Williams, in conversation with Aleks Sierz What Kind of England Do We Want?

2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-121
Author(s):  
Roy Williams
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Royal Court ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
South West ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Lift Off

Roy Williams is one of the outstanding new voices in contemporary British theatre. Born in Fulham, south-west London, in 1968, he has already, by his mid-thirties, won a shelf-full of awards, with plays staged at the National Theatre and Royal Court. His debut, The No Boys Cricket Club, won the Writers' Guild New Writer of the Year award in 1996. Two years later, his follow-up, Starstruck, won three major awards: the John Whiting Award for Best New Play, an EMMA (Ethnic Multicultural Media Awards) for Best Play, and the first Alfred Fagon Award, for theatre in English by writers with Caribbean connections. In 2000, Lift Off was joint winner of the George Devine Award, and in 2001 Clubland received the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright. In 2002, Williams received a best school drama BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) for Offside (BBC), and in 2004 he won the first Arts Council Decibel Award, given to black or Asian artists in recognition of their contribution to the arts. His most recent play, Little Sweet Thing, was a 2005 co-production between Ipswich’s New Wolsey Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse, and Birmingham Rep. What follows is an edited transcript of Aleks Sierz’s ‘In Conversation with Roy Williams’, part of the ‘Other Voices’ symposium at Rose Bruford College, Sidcup, Kent, in May 2004, organized by Nesta Jones. Williams is a graduate and now a Fellow of the college.

Revisiting ‘The Sea’: Bond's English Comedy in Toulouse

1999 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-182
Author(s):  
Ian Stuart
Keyword(s):  
Royal Court ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Royal Court Theatre

Edward Bond's The Sea was first presented at the Royal Court Theatre under William Gaskill's direction in 1973, and later confirmed as a modern classic in its revival in 1991 at the National Theatre– where it was claimed that it could only have been written by an Englishman. But, as La Mer, it was chosen to open the Thėâtre de la Citė in Toulouse, where Bond scholar and editor Ian Stuart saw Jacques Rosner's production in October, and here reports on the resultant meeting between an English comedy and ‘French serenity’.

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