A new blog!

Hello my Shrew pals!

I've started a new blog.

It's not all going to be about theatre, but you might still like it.

Please give it a go...

here it is!

Shrew Review

For our more academic shrew friends...

The Shrews will be reviewed, alongside Propeller's all male Shrew in the 2013 Shakespeare Survey
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/literature/shakespearesurvey/

I have had a sneak pre publication peek...and fear not Hortensio fans...the lute gets a mention!



Shrew's very own Joy Richardson is back on the road this year with the Globe's touring Much Ado - watch out for her coming to a town near you - including our beloved Kilkenny festival...
Book here GIVE ME JOY IN MY HEART, KEEP ME BURNING
I'm going to the Globe and can't wait.




Our marvellous stage managers Dave and Carrie have embarked (literally on a Barge to Amsterdam!) on the first leg of the Hamlet world tour...what an endeavour.  You can donate to their quest to perform in EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY IN THE GLOBE here: 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1898580232/globe-to-globe-hamlet

The Last Post

I'm not really sure if this will be the last ever post on Shrew Stories...but we have certainly done our last ever show and gone our separate shrew ways...

There are shows, as an actor, that you never want to do again...you've flogged them to death...and a few of your fellow actors have a glazed look in their eyes; there are others where you feel cheated, you were just getting into your stride, just beginning to discover things, when it is taken away.

At the moment Shrew feels somewhere in the middle (although without any glazed eyes I might add) - with nearly 100 shows we probably had done it enough, but I was never bored, and every show was different.  It won't sink in for a while that we're not just having a break, that I've really hung up the nylon suit and packed away the Wicker glasses for one last time (and, please God, the violin).

I'm sure we will all meet up, probably paths will also cross in work - but if there's one thing I now know after about ten years of shows - however hard you try, you will never get the whole cast and crew in one room (tent) again - the nature of our work means we don't stay put.

Here we are on the night of the storm singing 'Health to the Company' from the show -

The Full Shrew Crew - Here's a health to the company

Thanks for reading in your thousands, and for coming to see the show in your tens of thousands...and as for Hortensio...to misunderstand the words of Rosalind in As you like it:

Farewell, Monsieur Traveller; look you lisp and wear strange suits

Singapore

Here we are in Singapore, guests of the amazingly glamorous pan pacific hotel, and despite several shrews being struck down with severe lurgy, the shows have gone down a storm...(more of which later).

We are performing outdoors in temperatures that even at night can reach 35 degrees...it's been up to 40 in the day times.    It is not easy, and many of the multi layered costumes are leaving us hideously sweaty...poor Sally and her world of wardrobe.  We have also been covering ourselves in deet...and performing to a chorus of bullfrogs.

We are in Fort Canning Park, and as well as our bullfrog friends we have some exciting sounding birds and beautiful trees keeping us company...





and the team here have built a wonderful 'mini globe' to enclose the back of the playing space...

Some of the Shrews also managed to catch 'The Reduced Shakespeare Company' who are out here with ABA productions as well and it was good to meet the boys for an actorly beverage.


We also managed the night safari on a rare night off - in celebration of Becci Shrew's birthday.


I last did a show in Singapore about eight years ago and am glad to be back.  Since I was last here the University of Singapore have acquired a house which they have restored to its 1920's glory, and it is an excellent way to make sense of the Peranakan culture that is unique to Singapore.  If you ever get the chance, book a (free!) tour - it's well worth it.

find out more here:
http://www.nus.edu.sg/cfa/museum/about.php

and here I am with our wonderful guide Ailee.

p.s. about that storm...I am able to catch up on our blog tonight because for the first time EVER the shrews were beaten by the weather - it took a tropical storm, thunder and lightening - and rivers of water running down the paths - but the show was called off!  This leaves us with only 3 shows and much as tonight was crazy and fun, and ended with the Shrews hiding from the rain drinking prosecco - we don't want to lose another.

HONG KONG!!!!!

And so we have finally begun the Far East leg of our tour, arriving in Hong Kong 'just clipping the edge of the tornado' to quote our pilot....so for many many reasons we were very glad to arrive! 

Globe Cupcakes

We are hosted here, and in Singapore by aba productions http://www.aba-productions.com/about_us.asp

the theatre - see our poster?

and Matthew and Emma, along with their team, made sure that we were very well looked after.  Their amazing hospitality extended to trips to the beach, several meals out and hiring a junk boat to take us on a tour of the harbour...complete with Pimms.  

It's amazing we managed to fit in any shows...although with a 4 show weekend we did begin to feel we might have been burning the candle at both ends, perhaps.

Josh tries chicken feet...

bury st edmunds and the minack

And so to the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, a theatre I have loved working in before and so was glad to return with Shrew...


The theatre was built in 1819, is Grade 1 listed and is the only surviving Regency Theatre. Our time there coincided with three Shrew birthdays, Sally, Josh and Joy - so it was cakes all round...




We shrews then descended on Cornwall in what seemed like promising weather, for a week like no other, involving more hill, cliff and stone step climbing than some of our knees could take!

The theatre was built by Rowena Cade, an extraordinary woman, and posthumous honorary shrew. Having already built herself a house at Minack Point, in 1929, having seen a local village version of the  Dream, she offered the use of her garden for their next production (The Tempest) and literally began lugging great chunks of rock to make a basic seating area, with the sea as a stunning (some might say upstaging) backdrop. She and her gardener continued to built up the theatre in the winters for the rest of her long life!

It is a very bizarre space to perform in, and we had to rework a lot of the show with Josh, to allow for the very different entrances and exits, and the permanent stone features.

It seats 700, and for the first time ever we shrews were amplified, to help us contend with the sea.  This was just as well, as on our second matinee it blew up a gale, with rain and mist and the tent nearly took off. 

The minack have a wonderful website with live webcam which I urge you to have a gander at.

St Donats and Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond

First a couple of photos from St Donats, where we had only one show - our only show in Wales, in the shadow of the castle (some of which dates to the 13th century) and with the sea to stage right...






Have I not heard the sea, puff'd up with winds, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?

...luckily both weather and water were calm.



Then it was onto The Georgian Theatre Royal, Britain's oldest working theatre in its original form.


To quote the georgian theatre royal website

'The Georgian Theatre Royal is Britain's most complete Georgian playhouse. Built by the actor-manager Samuel Butler in 1788, the theatre was in regular use until 1830 when performances became less frequent.

I'm sure it made sense at the time...

Built by actor-manager Samuel Butler in 1788, the Georgian Theatre Royal was managed by Butler along with his circuit of theatres at Beverley, Harrogate, Kendal, Northallerton, Ripon, Ulverston and Whitby.'

I've worked at Harrogate Theatre before and it was lovely to work in another Butler Theatre. The theatre itself is tiny - and the stage was twice the depth we are used to but half the width - which took some adjustment. The audiences were wonderful - funny, enthusiastic and insistent on repeat curtain calls...

and...

depending on your point of view...

I may or may not have seen a theatre ghost.

Although the only staff member I asked insisted he had never heard of one...and I don't think I believe in them myself...

During the Saturday evening show I saw (in a moment where, in a still tableau, I had chosen to look at the front of a stage right box) the shadow of a graceful woman in a dress, slowly putting on elbow length gloves, and carefully putting on each finger. I watched it for a good minute before having to turn into the scene. It was so clear in shadow the only explanation I could think of was that (as the only shadows were cast from the stage) it was Olivia, as Bianca, for some reason putting on long gloves. But...of course...when I turned to her she wasn't wearing any. It was incredibly clear - and for the two Sunday shows I watched the same area again for any sign of a shadow or flickering that could have tricked my eye. There were no shadows at all.

Forgive me if you think the blog has descended into nonsense...I know I've never believed anything 'supernatural' anyone else has ever told me...

Still seeking the rational explanation I leave you with Antigonus from The Winter's Tale:

I have heard, but not believed, 

the spirits o' the dead 

May walk again...

ne'er was dream 

So like waking.

Richmond Castle