Variety – The Children’s Charity have generously made funds available for Black Swan’s Bus Sponsorship initiative. Variety and Black Swan work together to provide transport and theatre tickets to schools who might not be able to expose their students to theatre otherwise.

To Variety

Thank you very much for being so kind to us. Thanks for providing transport and allowing our excursion to happen! Without your generosity the excursion could not have taken place.

We had a wonderful time in the theatre, the Black Swan State Theatre Company were really fantastic.

Students at CJ come from such a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures, and some of us had never even been to the theatre before. The play was so inspiring and a great and worthwhile experience for all of us.

Thank you for contributing to our education and experience!

Cyril Jackson Senior Campus Drama 1 & 2B students!

We are extremely grateful to Crown Relocations for their help and assistance – and boxes!

Stay tuned for more details, like our new location, new contact details and the garage sale we will be having!

Renee Hale, Stuart Halusz, Brendan Hanson, Luke Hewitt, Kirsty Hillhouse, Geoff Kelso, Ingle Knight, Samantha Murray, Will O’Mahony, Kelton Pell, Kenneth Ransom, Kazimir Sas, Steve Turner and Amanda Woodhams all look fabulous in their costumes, by Twelfth Night Costume Designer Alicia Clements.

All images by Gary Marsh.

What projects have you been involved with in the lead up to rehearsals for Twelfth Night?

AW I played Red Lamb in the Foxtel miniseries Cloudstreet and worked as the Assistant Director on the well received production DNA for WA Youth Theatre Company.

WO This will be my fourth professional Shakespeare since graduating from drama school a couple of years ago. I am currently studying directing at WAAPA.

Before starting rehearsals on a play do you try to learn your lines or is it best to wait until you step into the rehearsal room?

AW As this is my first time working with Shakespearean text I feel the need to learn my lines before rehearsals begin so that stress is off my shoulders from the beginning and I can feel much freer to play around with the text.

WO I would recommend being very familiar with the script but that takes a different form to line learning. I find it much more useful to ask as many intelligent questions about the play and character as possible.

Tell us a little about your character in Twelfth Night.

AW Viola is an intelligent charismatic and resourceful young woman. Twelfth Night follows her struggles to conceal her identity and maintain her safety in the town of Illyria after she is separated from her brother. Having disguised herself as a boy she becomes trapped in an awkward love triangle.

WO Sebastian, a shipwreck survivor grieving the death of his twin sister Viola, is a victim of mistaken identity. From the moment he steps onstage he is embroiled in all sorts of misunderstandings to the point where he fears for his sanity.

Do you ever stay in character when you are at home?

AW No, I believe in dropping a character the moment rehearsals are finished for the day. I am not the characters I play.

WO No.

What are you particularly looking forward to about Twelfth Night?

AW Getting to work with seasoned professionals I’ve respected on stage for years like Geoff Kelso, Steve Turner and Luke Hewitt, as well as getting to work with director Roger Hodgman and soaking up his wealth of knowledge. I feel I’ve got a lot to learn and that makes for a very exciting time ahead in the rehearsal room.

WO Shakespeare offers audiences more drama word for word than any other playwright I know. It is exhausting to perform and a great challenge.

Tell us one thing you find yourself doing as an actor that people might not realise you have to do….

AW Having to deal with the strange timing of the profession! As an actor you’ll have a month without work where you essentially fill your own time in and then you can be plunged in to full time rehearsals for a show. It’s odd, you have no chance to build up stamina for it and you often feel exhausted for the first few weeks. Then you’ll switch from exerting all you energy during the day to exerting it all at night once the show goes up and it can really muck about with your sleeping patterns.

WO I never work on a script at home. I’ll often be found wandering the streets muttering to myself. I find working on a role in motion fuels agility of thought – crucial for an actor.

The Richard Burton Award for New Plays was established to celebrate the illustrious career Richard Burton, one of the great stars of the silver screen, and encourage great storytellers from all over Australia to develop new work. The competition is open to full length, unproduced plays which have been written in the 12 months leading up to the closing date of the Award. Plays that have been commissioned by a company are not eligible for the Award, and entrants must be 21 years of age by the closing date.

Black Swan State Theatre Company will stage a reading of the successful work, and Sally Burton’s company Onward Production and Black Swan State Theatre Company will have the first exclusive rights to produce the play for 12 months from the Award being announced. With a prize pool of $30,000, the Richard Burton Award for New Plays is one of the richest in Australia.

Sally Burton said, “I am very excited to begin the process of reading, discussing and shortlisting this year’s entries to the Richard Burton Award for New Plays. I am sure the panel will have some very lively debates about the merits of each play, but I am confident that the panel members will select a deserving inaugural winner. I have high hopes that the Richard Burton Award for New Plays will help to discover new work that will not only be seen in Perth, but on stages across Australia.”

For further information and the entry form, click here. Entries close on Friday, 2 July 2010.

Check out a few photos from the pre-show talk , below.

Give your vocal chords a workout when Black Swan and Kathryn Hanlon take you on the vocal tour of duty!  Black Swan’s Theatre Thrills & Skills Term Three course returns with Voice Care & Control, presented by actor and voice coach Kathryn Hanlon, occurring every Thursday from 22 July to 23 September. There are only 25 places available so book early to avoid disappointment!

VOICE CARE & CONTROL
TUTOR: Kathryn Hanlon
WHEN: Every Thursday 7 – 9pm
DATE: Thursday 22nd July – Thursday 23rd September
WHERE: Old Masonic Hall, 6 Broadway, Nedlands
COST: $275 incl. GST for 10 weeks
ENROLMENT DEADLINE: 5pm Tuesday 20th July 2010
CURRICULUM COUNCIL ENDORSED: Participation earns student points towards Secondary Graduation

The 10 week course of Theatre Thrills & Skills: Voice Care & Control will cover the basics of resonance, articulation, projection and vocal modulation, as well as studying the patterns of the voice, the voice in space, the character voice, the poetic voice and the speaking voice.  Kathryn Hanlon will guide the participants through warm-ups, acoustics, voice-overs, playing with accents and exploring “BOB”, then finish off the course with participants choosing and performing monologues.

This course will cater to beginners through to the more practised individual, providing a venue to exercise and explore performance voice. Theatre Thrills & Skills is a program involving an intensive series of performance workshops for people over the age of 16.

Teachers are actors too!  Black Swan’s Voice Care & Control course is a must have teaching tool that will arm teachers with plenty of techniques to ensure they look after their own voice whilst teaching as well as that of their students.

About Kathryn Hanlon
Kathryn Hanlon trained at WAAPA, ECU and Trinity College in London and has over 20 years experience teaching as a voice coach privately and at WAAPA, ECU, Curtin and UWA. She has worked as an actor for Black Swan, Perth Theatre Company and deckchair theatre.

Participants are asked to wear loose comfortable clothing.

To secure your place in Voice Care & Control, log on to the Black Swan State Theatre Company website at http://bsstc.com.au/theatre-thrills-and-skills-term-three/ and download an enrolment form. Or for further information contact Alena Tompkins on (08) 6389 0311 or alena@bsstc.com.au.

Black Swan State Theatre Company’s Thrills & Skills Workshops are endorsed by Western Australia’s Curriculum Council. Participation in the Thrills & Skills Workshops will earn secondary students points toward Secondary Graduation.