Monday, March 11, 2019
I’ve thought and written a lot about performing arts foundation courses lately. It’s the time of year when students are looking at possible options for September and course providers are…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 02:00PMTuesday, March 5, 2019
If you work with under-18s developing performance skills (along with confidence and all those other useful transferables) then Samantha Marsden’s new book is likely to be very helpful.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMTuesday, February 19, 2019
Let’s hear it for pub theatres. Unheard of when I was a London teenager in the 1960s, there are now over 70 of them across the capital and they’re beginning to mushroom in other big citi…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMTuesday, February 12, 2019
Should you take a full degree or just top up an existing qualification? Susan Elkin finds out why the quality of the
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 08:00AMMonday, February 11, 2019
I’ve seen several plays recently (no names no pack drill) in which I have missed an occasional line. There is nothing, I repeat nothing, wrong with my hearing.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMMonday, February 4, 2019
So what do you do with theatre programmes aka playbills (in the USA)? They make nice souvenirs of an evening out but what if you’re in the theatre working three or four times a week? You�…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 11:00AMTuesday, January 29, 2019
To Kill a Mockingbird. Oh dear. The production which originated at the Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park in 2015 before touring nationwide including to the Barbican, is now dead. It was due …
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMFor school leavers who have their minds set on a career in the performing arts but are not ready for the transition
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 09:38AMMonday, January 21, 2019
Surely it’s part of good, thorough training to prepare students for the critical world by letting them experience it before they graduate – even if you invite in only those critics you c…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMTuesday, January 15, 2019
A daunting array of options are available for further training. Susan Elkin asks course leaders across the country for their best advice
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 08:00AMMonday, January 14, 2019
Theatre critics have diaries bubbling with commitments. There’s some sort of press night or performance almost every day and often more than one. Clashes are surprisingly common. Getting t…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMMonday, January 7, 2019
Parents often tell me they’re worried about offspring who want to train for a professional performing arts career. They fret about future uncertainty, especially unemployment. My advice to…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:07PMSaturday, December 29, 2018
Yes, I know we’re in a fiercely competitive industry. Everyone trying to make a living in it has to do everything possible to promote themselves and their wares. Social networking might ha…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMWednesday, December 19, 2018
I often see top “A team” critics looking miserably impassive as if they’d rather be anywhere but in the theatre. Is there some code of practice that I’m not party to which requires y…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 12:00PMTuesday, December 11, 2018
As the deadline for UCAS applications approaches, Susan Elkin speaks to the tutors who will be receiving them to find out what
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 08:00AMMonday, December 10, 2018
This year, for the first time in decades, I decided that I’d choose my own Christmas shows and arrange to review them rather than waiting for editors to impose them on me. And I’m having…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMMonday, December 3, 2018
Joanna Lumley, given all your aforementioned useful qualities, you could get attention from lots of influential blokes and get this thing off the ground in a way that I can’t. How about a …
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMMonday, November 26, 2018
Theatrecraft, the annual careers fair, which I attended last week, is doing a fine job by getting around a thousand young people through the door every time.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMMonday, November 19, 2018
It isn’t every day I stumble across a strong new vocational training opportunity which is almost free to the participants. I refer to the Lyric Ensemble which piloted in the 2017/18 academ…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMTuesday, November 13, 2018
New two-year technical programmes are planned to equip young people for employment. Susan Elkin gauges opinion on how the courses will work,
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 08:00AMMonday, November 12, 2018
Three new practical how-to books have landed on my desk along with one rather more academic title.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMTuesday, November 6, 2018
I think variety is the best thing about my life and work. In the last two weeks, I’ve seen a children’s show at Chichester, amateur takes on Our Country’s Good and Follies, three youth…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMMonday, October 29, 2018
Every effort should be made for every show to start on time. Shows run late far too often and I reckon that’s usually avoidable.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 10:00AMTuesday, October 16, 2018
I used to love visiting schools. Having taught for many years in secondary schools myself and visited, in various capacities, literally hundreds since I became first a part-time and then a f…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMAs a number of institutions get set to unveil state-of-the-art facilities, Susan Elkin speaks to school principals about the value of well-appointed
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 08:00AMRanking institutions according to levels of student satisfaction, the annual survey often appears to exclude high-performing drama schools. Teaching staff from around
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 08:00AMWednesday, October 10, 2018
Lago Theatre Company is a fine example of how theatrical entrepreneurialism – aka “making your own work” – can work, and work well for new or newish graduate actors.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMSunday, September 30, 2018
So that journalistically useful wo/man from Mars arrives in Britain in 2018 and decides to go to theatre but needs a few tips. Here’s the deal.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMThursday, September 27, 2018
Last week I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview of Mountview’s jaw-dropping new £28m building in Peckham – just 48 hours before Mountview management were granted full possession and…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMSaturday, September 22, 2018
You are not supposed in 2018 – George Orwell’s Thought Police have certainly arrived – to notice or comment on the body shapes of actors.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMWednesday, September 12, 2018
When the Arden Performance Edition of Othello arrived recently from Bloomsbury (Methuen Drama) the friend who was staying with me was incredulous. “Surely they don’t think you need a cop…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PM 
