Theatre streams two masterclasses
THE Bush Theatre has announced two new masterclasses, which will offer an insight into theatre by leading practitioners Trish Cooke, Nathan Bryon (February 11), and Katie Mitchell (February 25).
Participants will be able to attend the online masterclasses from the comfort of their home via Zoom. The sessions will develop skills in writing and directing for all levels and will be interactive.
Online tickets, £20 ,are now on sale via the Bush Theatre Box Office. There are a limited number of bursary places available and concession pricing. www.bushtheatre.co.uk
■ Trish Cooke and Nathan Bryon: Writing in Different Forms
Thursday February 11, 5 pm-7 pm
Have you got ideas for stage, screen, and books? How do you find which idea works best for each medium?
And how do you kickstart your writing career? Trish Cooke (So Much, winner of the 1994 Kurt Maschler Award and the Nestle Smarties Book Prize) and Nathan Bryon (Sunday Times Bestseller Look Up! and Bloods on Sky 1) have written everything from plays to television to children’s books and are here to share their best tips and exercises.
Trish Cooke is currently the Writer in Residence at the Bush Theatre in London with previous writers’ residencies at the Liverpool Playhouse (1989); Second Wave Young People’s Theatre at the Albany Empire (1992) and BBC North (2002). She is currently the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Huddersfield and patron for Alive & Kicking Theatre Company. Trish writes for theatre, TV, film, radio and enjoys writing for both adults and children.
Trish has written seventeen books for children including So Much, which won the 1994 Kurt Maschler Award and the Nestle Smarties Book Prize. She is the author of the Puffin Classics edition of Tales from the Caribbean.
Trish was a presenter on the BBC’s children’s television programme Playdays. She also appeared on You and Me. She has acted in and written plays for theatre, radio, and television, both for children and adults. Her children’s television scriptwriting credits include The Tweenies and Mags and Mo and she has participated in the BBC Children’s Drama New Writing Initiative.
Nathan Bryon is an actor, writer, and author. His picture book Look Up! is a Sunday Times Bestseller and won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2020, Nathan has cocreated and written Bloods for Sky 1 which has just wrapped filming. He is best known to viewers for his role as regular character Jamie in Some Girls and Benidorm’s sunniest holidaymaker, Joey Ellis. Nathan’s latest play Dexter and Winters Detective Agency toured in the Paines Plough Roundabout for six months and has been published by Nick Hern books.
■ Katie Mitchell: An Introduction to Directing
Thursday 25 February, 3 pm-5.30 pm
From internationally acclaimed director Katie Mitchell comes an introduction to the basic skills necessary for theatre directing and guidance through the steps the director takes in making a mainstream production from getting the job to the final performance.
Katie Mitchell has directed over 100 productions in a career spanning 30 years. In the UK she has directed 9 productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, 19 for the National Theatre, and 12 for The Royal Court – and she has been an Associate Director at all three organisations. In opera, she has directed for English National Opera, Glyndebourne Opera, Welsh National Opera, and the Royal Opera House.
Since 2008 she has split her time between working in the UK and on mainland Europe in countries including Germany, France, Holland, and Scandinavia. She is currently a resident director at the Schaubuhne (Berlin), the Deutsches Schauspielhaus (Hamburg) and she has just finished a seven-year residency at the Aix-en-Provence Festival (France). In 2015 the Stadsschouwburg Theatre in Amsterdam hosted a retrospective of her work, presenting eight productions from across Europe.
Her many awards in the UK include two Time Out Awards (1990 & 1991), the Evening Standard Best Director Award (1996), and a Tonic Award for her representations of woman and nurture of female talent (2018).
She is currently a Professor in Theatre Directing at Royal Holloway University where teaches on an MA directing course. She is currently a Cultural Fellow at Kings College, London, and from this Autumn she will be the TORCH Visiting Fellow in Theatre at Oxford University.