College Participation in the RSC Open Stages Project
Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance is proud to be a contributor to the RSC Open Stages Project that aims to ‘embrace, develop and celebrate amateur theatre, re-forging the bond with the world of professional theatre’ (RSC Open Stages).
Over 2011/2012 the RSC, in partnership with a number of regional theatres and amateur theatre associations, are running a national programme of skills sharing events and showcases, with amateur societies from across the UK invited to produce their own RSC-branded Shakespeare themed productions.
Rose Bruford College has been selected as one of the training centres, to create a tripartite team, which involves practitioners from the RSC, regional theatres and training institutions. We have been asked to contribute workshops in acting and stage management, but have also contributed to areas of stage design.
The College was invited to liaise with two regional theatres, The Questors Theatre in the South East, and The Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, in the South. These theatres are working with 57 and 26 amateur companies respectively.
Our practitioners have also been invited to participate in Skills Exchange weekends in Cardiff at The Sherman Theatre and The Welsh Academy of Drama and Music, in Glasgow at The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in collaboration with The National Theatre of Scotland and at The Sage in Gateshead with Northumbria University.
Research
The College’s involvement in the Open Stages Project also comprises a research element under the aegis of its International Research Centre for Voice and Speech. The skills workshops have been filmed in order to analyse methodologies employed by practitioners in their specific training disciplines and to ascertain the exercises’ appropriateness for encouraging the participants to not only experience the various strands of training, but also to apply them to their own rehearsal s and approaches to working on Shakespeare, along with modern and contemporary drama.
Moreover, it enables the College to forge links with amateur companies, and potentially provide further training for their members in the future; and to enable mutually beneficial relationships to develop with the College’s practitioners and those in the selected professional theatres.
The nature of the outcomes of this research will be decided in consultation with the RSC, the Questors Theatre and the Nuffield Theatre, and with the permission of the amateur theatres involved. However, given that our practitioners have participated in several of the Skills Exchange weekends, we have valuable feedback from them together with filmed excerpts of the workshops and some workshops filmed in full, and extended interviews with key members of the Open Stages Project.
Whatever form the research outcomes take, we hope that this resource will be useful to a wide range of people interested in performing Shakespeare and in Shakespeare in performance.
