I’m delighted to be delivering Core Skills A: Storytelling this semester for Edinburgh Acting School. With an eclectic background in theatre, puppetry, and visual storytelling, and a passion for sharing the magic of theatre through performance, education and community engagement, I’m excited to share some of this with the new students. My approach to teaching is rooted in collaboration and playful exploration, and in interrogating what we see in the space…
Each week we’ll focus on a different theme. These themes will include puppetry, mime, ensemble, voice and movement, confidence, storytelling. We’ll explore these themes through a variety of activities, including games, exercises, and scene work. We will be drawing on the work of Michael Chekov, John Wright, Mervyn Millar and Pierre Byland, maybe more! I can’t wait!
I was delighted to help Citadel Arts with their own particular version of the Christmas Carol Tale – McScrooge. My puppet became Tiny Tim who had fallen off his bike on Leith Walk and was wearing a stookie… I watched the opening performance at Assembly Roxy – Dementia Arts Festival and a later one at Seagrove Dementia Daycare Centre which also had a primary 5 class in attendance. Tim came home yesterday but had prompted lots of engagement both with children and the adult audiences. Thank you Citadel Arts for the opportunity!
Every Tuesday morning from 10.30 to 12.30 we all meet up, have tea, play drama, games, improvise scenes or do image based work – all this hosted by the very beautiful Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre.
One of the ways in which we reduced the scale of Seven Ravens was to make new tiny needle felted puppets/objects to replace the characters of the Sun and Moon. These were originally played by an actor, me. In the process of finding out what they could look like we tried lots of different eyes – each set and even the orientation having a very different effect!
This place, run by Edinburgh Acting School is to be part of my life every Monday and Tuesday evening this winter. ‘Why so?’ I hear you ask? Well, Monday evenings are Actors Gym, a session where Edinburgh Actors come together to share and practice skills in a safe supportive space facilitated by the inimitable Jen McGregor. On Tuesday evening I deliver classes – Core Skills B: Improvisation – with a great friendly group of adult students… what do we do? We focus on work with the body, relationship with audiences, long and short form impros, working with objects all drawing from various influences: Keith Johnstone, John Wright and Moshe Feldenkrais amongst others…
A bit of mixed feelings – sad to leave Edinburgh Palette’s St Margaret’s House after several years in a studio there, but, very, very excited to clear and attic and create a studio… Huge thank you to Euan Jackson and Peter Searle who helped me to pack up my studio and get it up in the roof space with a lovely white dance floor offcut to frame it nicely.
After all we learnt in making and touring Little Toy we turned out attention to The Seven Ravens… So we are very proud and pleased to have made a touring suitcase show out of Ada’s story.
Little Toy’s first steps into performance thanks so much to Northfield Community Environment Fair, Craigmillar Library and Books for Babies, Cumbernauld Theatre and Craigmillar Fair.
And what is the secret that Ada learns about her past?
Inspired by the Brothers Grimm fairy tale of the same name, this tells the story of Ada, a feisty young girl, is visited by a Raven and thrust into a dream world of quests, feathers and a Glass Mountain.
The audience is taken on a tiny world adventure over an extraordinary, felted landscape as Ada unlocks the secret the Raven is trying to tell her.The Seven Ravens is a brand new and unique performance/installation by Tragic Carpet Theatre using an innovative mix of live puppetry, digital image capture, processing and display, needle felting and specially composed music and song.
It was such a pleasure to be involved with this beautiful local community led festival. I was so pleased and proud to be there and to work with some of the children attending.
Weekly drop in drama sessions for those feeling a bit isolated, or are looking to gain confidence in going back out again or are looking to find new friendships.
What is it?
A weekly session where we play fun games, tell stories and enact small scenes from different inspirations. We also organise trips to the theatre to see different kinds of interesting shows, so far we have visited the Festival Theatre, The Storytelling Centre and we have plans to visit the Lyceum soon.
Questions you might ask:
Ok, so what if I haven’t done drama before or I did and didn’t like it?
The classes are respectful, inclusive and fun. They are built around us sharing stories, playing games which build our skills and confidence – great to transfer to everyday life – and anything we don’t like we don’t do it again.
What if I am not very confident about going out now after the Pandemic?
This is just the place to come to help you get used to getting back out again. The Centre is a safe place to find your feet and the group is friendly and supportive.
What if I have done drama before?
Then please come! The group is learning all the time so this is a place where you can refresh skills whilst having fun.
Why Over 50s?
Because we thought that there are people in the older age bracket that are struggling with loneliness and self confidence after the lockdowns. It is a huge step to take to come along to a new group when feeling like this, we know. So do come and try it out – you will probably find it a friendly relaxing experience and have a lot of laughs along the way… and laughter is the best medicine!
Why have others come along? They came because they were curious, some had done drama before and they say “Honestly it is fun” and “you can express yourself”.
Poster with details of the class – Tuesdays 10 am at the Prentice Centre Granton
Here we have the empty space, an invitation to Tragic Carpet from Edinburgh Palette for the entire month of March. The invitation is to reconnect with the work of the company and with each other and to find out what our next steps will be.
So what will be happening?
We will be getting things out and dusting them down. We will be looking at different ways we might approach the exploration of the Grimm’s fairytale, The Seven Ravens, revisiting work already done, seeing which ideas stay and which have to go.
This process – which is an open one (and we are learning what this might look like) – will help us to talk to people who are interested in this piece, in Tragic Carpet and its work or just curious about puppets! We hope to rekindle relationships, meet new people and work out our next steps. We have a list of questions we want to ask ourselves and also our visitors.
So on Tuesday 1st March that empty space will have some things put into it, props, puppets, some techy stuff, the makings of tea and coffee, a comfy chair or two and we will see where it all goes.
We will be making coffee for visitors every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 11am. We have also invited lots of people to visit at other times – artists who might be interested in the work, venues, festivals – and are really excited and looking forward to meeting them.
An empty space, G16 at St Margaret’s House (Photo by Panna)
tragic carpet 