Posts filed under 'Theatre'
by Pieter de Buysser & Jacob Wren
May 10 & 11, 20:00 / Archa Theatre
Czech premiere (in English)
Fans of contemporary world drama have a reason for optimism. In May the Archa Theatre will present An Anthology of Optimism by Belgium’s CAMPO Theatre, a celebration of critical optimism directed by Jacob Wren and Pieter de Buysser that explores the dream of a better tomorrow.
Pieter De Buysser and Jacob Wren wrote a letter that began, “An Anthology of Optimism is a pre-emptive celebration of a critical optimism we tentatively hope will increase in the twenty-first century.” They sent the letter to writers, artists, thinkers, scientists, politicians and businesspeople all over the world, asking for a response, a contribution. This could be anything: a photograph, a piece of music, an object, a short text, a drawing or painting, a film or video, or something else entirely.
The setting for the lecture-performance is simple: Jacob and Pieter alone on stage, using the contributions they received as a framework for their own realizations and reflections, delightfully enacting a process of research into how critical optimism might function in our world. They take the spectator on a journey through the fragments of today’s dreams for tomorrow, gathered from different corners of the world.
Jacob Wren is a writer and maker of eccentric performances. His books include: Unrehearsed Beauty, Families are Formed through Copulation and Revenge Fantasies of the Politically Dispossessed. As co-artistic director of Montreal-based interdisciplinary group PME-ART he has co-created: En français comme en anglais, it’s easy to criticize, Unrehearsed Beauty / Le génie des autres, La famille se crée en copulant and the ongoing HOSPITALITÉ / HOSPITALITY series. He frequently writes about contemporary art. He first met Belgian writer, philosopher and theatre-maker Pieter De Buysser in 2000 in CAMPO nieuwpoort, Ghent (B). They felt a great affinity with each other and started an intensive correspondence resulting in An Anthology of Optimism.
The performance is in English with Czech subtitles.
Tickets CZK 290 (students CZK 190) on sale at the Archa Theatre box office and Ticketpro outlets.
May 4th, 2011
“Don’t you know me? I’m the new Berlin Wall, baby. Try and tear me down!”
15, 16, 22, 23 April
all shows 19:30 at
IRON CURTAIN (formerly Propaganda)
Michalská 12, Praha 1
all tickets 200 kč
Ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not, theatre AKANDA proudly presents HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH. This groundbreaking Off-Broadway cult musical tells the story of punk rock song stylist Hedwig Schmidt, a fourth-wall smashing East German rock ‘n’ roll goddess who also happens to be the victim of a sex-change operation gone wrong. This outrageous story is presented in the form of a rock concert and stand-up comedy routine of the blackest style. The action is moved along by Hedwig and her husband Yitzhak, a former Yugoslavian drag queen, and backed up by hard-rocking band The Angry Inch. Hedwig’s tale begins in East Berlin just before the downfall of Communism and then moves through the bleak landscapes of Midwestern America as she searches for wholeness and self-completion. Her saga finally culminates right here right now in a glam-spattered cellar in the center of Prague… easily one of the most perverse and unexpectedly beautiful stories ever told.
Under the guidance of Czech-Canadian director Mélanie Rada, an international cast of actors and musicians bring to life AKANDA’s interpretation of John Cameron Mitchell’s award-winning rock musical. Long-time Prague resident Jeff Fritz plays the title role of Hedwig opposite Uliana Elina, former frontwoman of Russian band SLOT and winner of the 2005 RAMP award for best female vocal, in the role of Yitzhak. Appearing as the Angry Inch are members of local Prague bands Broken Glass Extet and Tristram Trio lead by Ian Mikyska on guitar and Anar Yusufov on keys, with Tomáš Mika on bass and Pharoah Smeaton-Russell on drums. Production design and video projections created by Estonian artist Johanna-Mai Vihalem for the stage of Iron Curtain, a club, bar and restaurant containing numerous artifacts of the Cold War era and the memory of the dissidents who tore it all down.
For ticket reservations and info please visit our website www.akanda.cz
March 22nd, 2011
3rd – 5th November at 19.30 – 21.30
and
6th November at 19:00 – 20:30 and at 21:00 till close
Blood, Love and Rhetoric are delighted to present an original adaptation of the famous 1920s horror author H.P Lovecraft for the stage in which they will bring you three of his short stories interwoven by an original play.
Agent Jablonski (Jim High) arrives at Arkham Asylum to interview three of their patients (Maithili Tideman, Jeff Fritz, Mel Rada) regarding an incident that happened in the mysterious town of Innsmouth. A story of accursed electrical machines, the possessed crew of a submarine and the awful legend surrounding Devils Reef, “Lovecraft” guarantees you a terrifying November holiday complete with the unspeakable and unutterable horror of the Cthulhu Mythos. Written, adpated and directed by Logan Hillier.
Tickets 250kc/200kc
Available from the Globe Bookstore, and Shakespeare and Sons.
Reservations by writing to info@bloodloverhetoric.com
Reserved tickets should be picked up 30 mins before the show
October 26th, 2010
David Peimer, who teaches at NYU and has worked on several Prague Playhouse projects, is directing a play at Divadlo Na zabradli in English. The cast is mostly Czechs with some of the Black Snow company members thrown in for good measure. The play, a translation of a Polish play about Romanians, is called “A Couple of poor Polish speaking Romanians…” and was written by Dorota Maslowska.
Why Divadlo Na zabradli chose to do a translation of a Polish play into English for their first English-language production is something of a mystery to me, but it’s certainly an interesting choice. If it is successful (especially with tourists), I think we can start to see more theaters trying this out, which could be a boon to the English-speaking acting community here. I’m also curious to see how the Czech cast (the majority of the actors are non-native speakers) manages the English. Recent films shot in English (Bathory and Libuse) with Czech or Slovak casts have solidified my impression that acting well in another language is extremely difficult.
I have worked with David as a director and am very confident of his abilities and artistic sensibility, so if anyone can pull this off, he can.
The premier on June 3 is sold out, but there are still some spots left for the reprise on June 15. For tickets, you can call the Zabradli box office: 222 868 868
May 28th, 2010
The Czech-German theatre-ensemble “POET’S CABARET” is offering a theater workshop weekend on the topic of hotel stories !
Based on improvisation studies (Keith Johnstone and others) we are going to create a crossover theater collage, accompanied by some experimental music scores.
Where?
Nekvasilova 625/2, Prague 8 – Karlín
Metro Station Invalidovna (B-line)
When?
Friday 28th – Sunday 30th of May 2010
daily between 10 to about 6 pm.
We offer valuable theater experience FOR FREE!
We’re inviting interested artists simply to email us a soon as possible.
Who you are and which artistic discipline you’re following doesn’t matter!
All actors, actresses, singers, dancers, musicians - no matter if amateur or professional! – of all ages, with or without theater experience are invited to this workshop!
You
- have some knowledge of English or German
- are open for a nonprofit artistic experience
- are possibly but not necessarily of Eastern European origin!
- if musician, you would bring your instrument with you (piano ready to play in theatre itself)
Please contact us by email markusnieden@yahoo.com
or call 774168801 (English and German speaking)
Every email will be answered!
And just have a look at www.rhiz.eu!
In the search box above right you put in: ”Hotel Red Cello”
***********
If you consider coming, please everybody bring some personal object related to a hotel or a private room with you that could be for example…
door key(s), book, mirror, item of clothing like jacket, shirt, cap, hat or shoes…
object from daily life like umbrella, mobile phone, letter to post, other documents, passport…
bracelets or rings, hairdryer, soap, shampoo, razor…
calendar, price list, urgent files, magazines, bottle of wine, champagne, vodka (empty, of course), suitcase…
You name it!
We need it to play with in some way.
Thanks a lot!
DONT FORGET TO CONFRIM YOUR PRESENCE BY EMAILING OR CALLING ME!
See you then and there, hopefully!
MARKUS
markusnieden@yahoo.com
774168801
May 10th, 2010
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
***************
Let me be short and concise today!
I am totally thrilled about Mark Wakeling’s return to Prague in a month. In case you haven’t heard of him: He is a teacher at the “Actor’s Temple” in London. He held a weekend-seminar in late November of 2009 for us Meisner students at the Prague Film School. (Click here to read about it!) Now he promised to be back from June 7 to 11.
The seminar last year rocked my soul. It helped me keep on keeping on at this difficult time, where none of my efforts at getting started as a professional actor really seem to succeed. His version of Meisner also kept me from dropping out of this class. I have been looking forward to his oncoming seminar ever Brian started to talk about it, i.e. at least four months.
If you can afford it and have the time, please register for the seminar!
Mark will try his best to confront you with the inner barriers you set up to protect yourself against intense feelings. He is relentless in a way. But since Meisner is about the truth, it is absolutely necessary to get rid of these blocks. Mr. Wakeling will get you at places you wouldn’t even have known existed. If you trust him at least a little bit, he will help you free quite a bit of the aspects you carefully held captive inside for so long. You will shine!
Meisner is about getting ready to play anything – no! to be able to live it under imaginary circumstances. If you dare use the technique to the extreme – which Mark will help you with – it will get you there.
Mr. Wakeling will give you a good kick in the butt that will let you fly in the right direction.
He will take Meisner’s image of “the pinch and the ouch!” in a totally new and really pinchey-ouchey direction.
And that is absolutely, mind-bogglingly exiting to me.
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General stuff:
Our acting class consists of some twelve new and not so new active members, who meet every Monday and Wednesday from 6.30 pm to about 9.30 at the Prague Film School. We do Meisner. And the Meisner-technique really rocks!
If you want to connect with your inmost feelings, expressing them freely in an acting environment and thus getting to know yourself better and better, feel free to join us! If you do, be prepared for some serious thrills!
+++
About the author:
I am Boris Wilke, a German expat in Prague.
I am a writer at large and have been studying Meisner since January 2008. If any of you know of any kind of acting work that befits a laddish, tall 41-year-old, please leave a note!
May 5th, 2010
The Prague Shakespeare Festival is roaring through rehearsals on the upcoming production of Romeo and Juliet. The show is set to go up May 25 at 19:00. The venue is the wonderful outdoor theater at Vyšehrad. Tickets are an incredibly reasonable 200 Kč general / 150 Kč students & seniors. For tickets, call 222.513.842 or email pokladna@praha-vysehrad.cz. If you have questions about the show, you want to buy an ad in the program or sponsor the show, you can contact me: brian@pragueplayhouse.com.
The show boasts a HUGE cast and many wonderful actors from around town. Full information is after the break:
ROMEO AND JULIET May 25, 26 & 27 @ 19:00
Open-Air Theatre, Vyšehrad – Prague
Prague Shakespeare Festival, Prague’s only professional English-language classical theatre company, is pleased to announce the limited engagement of a new production of William Shakespeare’s ROMEO AND JULIET by PSF Artistic Director Guy Roberts at the Open-Air Theater in Vyšehrad May 25-27, 2010 at 19:00.
One of the most beloved plays of all time, Shakespeare’s masterpiece Romeo & Juliet is the premiere PSF summer production on the outdoor, open-air stage at Vyšehrad, signaling a new annual tradition of “Shakespeare at the other castle” in Prague.
Roberts states, “Romeo and Juliet is clearly the greatest love story of all time. The question to me seems to be how to retain the beauty and romance associated with our expectations of the play, while still making the language and story accessible to a modern audience? We don’t want to feel as if we are watching a piece of museum-theatre. By securing Romeo and Juliet in the past we are also distancing ourselves from the action of the play and allowing ourselves the freedom not to be transfigured by it. I think it is impossible to do a “period play.” Plays can only occur in today’s imagination – and that is where our play takes place. Shakespeare’s Verona is not unlike our Prague today. It is a world that bridges the ancient and the modern-a world that is refreshingly relevant. At the center of the entire play is love – the kind of life-changing, soul-transforming love that we all dream of but perhaps never believe we will really find.”
Fueled by the intense passions and moving poetry that the world has cherished for years, the play is presented in English under the direction of PSF Artistic Director Guy Roberts (who also appears as Mercutio) with a multi-cultural international company of artists: the titles roles will be performed by Lenka Novakova and Kendrick Ong. Returning to the stage, Emmy-nominated Casting Director Nancy Bishop (former Artistic Director of Black Box, Prague’s original English language theatre) is joined by Prague favorites Laura Baranik, Brian Caspe (Artistic Director Prague Playhouse), David Fisher (Artistic Director, Bear Educational Theatre), Vanessa Gendron (co-Artistic Director, Miloco), Curt Matthew, John Poston and Jeff Smith (co-Artistic Director, Miloco) among others. From the United States, Steve Zinkgraf co-stars as Lord Capulet. The production features costume designs by Tatiana Evonuk, scenic design by Ivana Nikolic and an original score by Ed Kliman. Amy Huck is the production stage manager and movement coach. Sidney Berger, Artistic Director of the Houston Shakespeare Festival, is the verse coach and Anezka Novak is the voice coach.
PRAGUE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL
in association with
PZ Adventures, Mermaid Theatre Company, Classical Theatre Company (USA)
Prague Playhouse, Bear Educational Theatre & Miloco (Czech Republic)
presents
THE WORLD PREMIERE of a new production of
ROMEO AND JULIET
by
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
ADAPTED & DIRECTED BY GUY ROBERTS
DATES:
May 25, 26 & 27
CURTAIN TIME:
19:00
LOCATION:
Open-Air Theatre, Vyšehrad
TICKETS:
200kc General Admission,
150kc Student/Senior
RESERVATIONS:
pokladna@praha-vysehrad.cz
222.513.842 phone
ABOUT THE PRAGUE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL
The Prague Shakespeare Festival presents an annual celebration of professional theatre productions, workshops, classes, lectures and other theatrical events, of the highest quality, conducted primarily in English by a multinational ensemble of professional theatre artists, with an emphasis on the plays of William Shakespeare, bringing to the Czech Republic, European and World audiences classical performances that are fresh, bold, imaginative, thought-provoking, and eminently accessible, connecting the truths of the past with the challenges and possibilities of today.
For interviews & more information about PSF and ROMEO AND JULIET contact
Guy Roberts
Artistic Director
Prague Shakespeare Festival
guy@pragueshakespeare.cz
May 2nd, 2010
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
***************
This blog entry is closely related to my last one on keeping face. Brian has been telling us repeatedly to let go off control. The reaction to one’s respective partner should come “like hiccups”, involuntarily, instinctually.
Meisner’s main credo was “fuck polite”.
Politeness always gets in my way! Let’s say, the person in front of me smells from their mouth. See?! I’m being polite again! I wanted to say: If they stink from their mouth, I fail to tell them, for example. I suppress my instinct. Shame on me!
As an interesting note aside: “To stink from one’s mouth” is the direct, i.e. German, way to say it. The cowardly polite Anglos talk about “bad breath” or “mouth odor”. That sucks! In the English language there seem to be either euphemisms or four-letter-expletives. Where is the zone of truthful naming it, nailing it – so to speak – in between those two extremes?
“You have bad breath…” “I have bad breath?” “You have bad breath…” That’s as boring as a cold potato! Go get yourselves a life, people!
It is: “You reek from your mouth like a cow out of its ass!” Where is the fuck, the shit, the damn, the cunt, huh? None of that! And still, this is painfully truthful!
God! That gets me going!
Why are we like this?
I, for one, know that I am absolutely scared of total defeat. And total defeat is a possibility if one “drops one’s bowels onto the stage”. In the past people have been sneering at me, belittling me, pointing their finger at me laughing because of my openness. They called me naive, immature, nasty, weird. They deemed themselves superior and took it out on me by ignoring me, bad-mouthing me, excluding me, cursing me, even hitting me.
The worst thing was, when they let me feel like a weirdo.
I got to nurture my inferiority complexes big time.
I still knew, deep inside, that they sensed somehow I was giving them a gift: my true self. I gave them my heart. But instead of being happy and thankful about it, they dropped it on the floor and trampled on it, just because what was not to be, could not be. And love simply was not an option for them. So they destroyed it, even before it really reached them.
They made me feel like shit – asocial, useless, deranged, ugly, geeky, clumsy – even presumptuous!
Most of those fuckers, I would refuse to touch even with a ten-foot-pole. But they mistook my love for a fumbling pass.
And then I closed myself off. I kept my gob smack shut and pretended to play along. I smiled and went through the moves as well as I was able to. I started to hold back – and later ration – the love I had to give.
I know, some of you will react to my liberal and free – yes: liberated! – use of the word love by putting me down like this: “How dare he say he was loving! He thinks he’s better than us – what does he call us? – «fuckers»?”
But I am talking about my past. This hell started in kindergarten. If this applies to you – yes! – then shame on you for letting innocent, lovely people run into your ready and open knives – for subjecting them to social suicide, just because they were being bold enough – no! They simply dared – to be themselves!!! You let them suffer for their refusal to play by the rules of make believe and cheapskate charades that kids and certainly teenagers create around themselves to spread fear and misery. And all that, because you were even more scared of showing your true colors than we were.
Why?
I have been asking myself this so many times: What do people have to hide that they think they’d rather die than tell us? In class of late, we have been hearing stories like: “My step-mother laughed at my singing in public. I used to love singing. But I’ve hated my voice ever since and never sung out loud again!” or: “Just a few days after my arrival at our new home, my uncle and my father drove with me to a soccer field. And I was supposed to train with the local kids. They were playing in a way that reminded me of urban warfare – so tough! I was scared stiff and refused to get out of the car. But instead of understanding me, my elders were disappointed with me and made me feel like a total loser! They were actually ashamed of me and let me suffer for it, too!”
These stories are lovely in that they talk about true anguish and failure. They make the people who tell them human and amiable. All Tarantino-style bragadero bullshit you hear from so many people “in the business” is just so bloody lame. Yeah, Warren Beatty had sex with over 12,000 women – or was it inflatable dolls?
Who cares? Thinking about it: What do stories like this tell us about their creators? Why did they have to go to such extremes? How wretched must they be, really? Poor things!
True stories about what we feel deeply about – oftentimes it is shame and defeat – are harder to tell than those overblown success stories from the media. But the more of these truly intimate tales we hear the more we come to realize that what we thought was unique in us and dreadfully shameful, is commonplace among our peers. Even murder and incest are aspects of the human condition everybody has to deal with in some way.
Telling these stories is therapy without a therapist – self-healing, so to speak.
So what keeps us from letting go off control? It’s ancient events, the memories of which we buried deep inside, thinking if we ever unearth them we will die of embarrassment and/or shame.
How will we be able to “spill our guts”, as Brian calls it, though, if we get spooked by these ghosts from the distant past? They are just figments of our imagination, really. But they will keep on haunting us, if we don’t finally address them by dragging them out in the open and facing them in broad daylight. What seems like powerful wraiths while rummaging around in the bowels of our subconscious will turn out to be a puny puff of fog fading faster into the air and with way less smell than a real fart you let.
I have seen so many class members give in to self-generated fear. They refused to go back to class due to their reluctance to lift up their carpets and chase those pesky little ghosts from the past out. I am afraid that to this day they keep them roaming inside like gas moving up and down one’s intestines. A simple fart can give you a bad bout of colic, you know? I’m sure even the Queen of England has been told time and again by her doctors to rather create a stir among her subjects by breaking wind than keeping the little buggers inside.
And I think while it would be nice of us to expose our shit from the past to the scrutinizing light of day in class, we are free to use other ways to do it. Therapy is an option. But that takes time and money. Writing a journal about it is free and quite powerful – for the ones who can relate to that. Meditation is fine; so is yoga – even sport! Talking to one’s best friend can do the trick as well.
But done it must be! The sooner we realize that, the better off we are, i.e. the faster we can let ourselves go, the more truthful and in the moment we become. Remember: Meisner training is getting us prepared to act. And to me acting is the best thing in the world!
Yes, we can become instinctual. Yes, our reactions can leap out of us like a cough or a hiccup: wild, loud and ugly! That really is beautiful – and true!
We just have to let go off control.
So let’s do it! Just do it!
**********************
General stuff:
Our acting class consists of some twelve new and not so new active members, who meet every Monday and Wednesday from 6.30 pm to about 9.30 at the Prague Film School. We do Meisner. And the Meisner-technique really rocks!
If you want to connect with your inmost feelings, expressing them freely in an acting environment and thus getting to know yourself better and better, feel free to join us! If you do, be prepared for some serious thrills!
There will be no class from the second week of February on until the end of the month. It will resume in March!
+++
About the author:
I am Boris Wilke, a German expat in Prague.
I am a writer at large and have been studying Meisner since January 2008. If any of you know of any kind of acting work that befits a laddish, tall 41-year-old, please leave a note!
January 30th, 2010
The Prague Playhouse is proud to announce the upcoming production of Sam Shepard’s True West. The show opens January 21st at 19:30 and plays 22, 23, 27, 28 and 29 as well as February 3, 4 and 5. Tickets are 220 Kc general and 190 Kc (for students and seniors over 65) and will be available at the Globe Bookstore (Pstrossova 6) as well as online at the beginning of next week.
The director Jeff Beck, the cast (Mark Bowen, R. Scott Williams, Andrea Bulisova and Frank Martinez), and all of the production staff are going all out for this dark comedy about two brothers who must work out who and what they are to themselves and each other. Past Playhouse productions have sold out quickly, so don’t hesitate to buy tickets now!
January 7th, 2010
The Bear Theater will present Dickens’ A Christmas Carol at Reduta Theater (Narodni 20, Prague 1) on December 13 and 14 at 7pm. Tickets are 220Kc (180Kc discounted) and are available at the box office. It is suitable for families (children from the age of 6).
Ebeneezer Scrooge is the meanest old man in London, but one evening four ghosts visit him and teach him the true meaning of Christmas. The Bear Theatre stay close to the essence of Dicken’s original story but still use film, puppets and real mince pies to communicate the spirit of this classic Christmas tale. God bless us, each and every one!
December 2nd, 2009
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