Hertfordshire Theatre School 1995

Ah HTS was a blast

 Places

 The Orestia

Deathtrap

Interestingly Newport Playgoers are staging a production of Deathtrap in January - I'm not in it but will be working backstage on sound

1994

Below: Every spring we would do a themed show of sings, some would be form Musicals, some would be pop and rock songs, the theme in 1994 was Directions, so songs from Miss Saigon and Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat were performed along side a comedy version of Tammy Wynette's Stand By Your Man.

And A Little Love Besides - by Allan Plater -this was performed in the studio

Drama School

In 1993 I was lucky enough to go to drama school, for three years I trained at Hertfordshire Theatre School in Hitchin Hertfordshire,

under the direction of Kirk Foster, John Gardiner (Dracula Spectacular and Dazzle) and Anne-Marie Lewis-Thomas, the truth is those three years were the happiest years of my life and the things I learned there have stayed with me through the years.

 Above as Beryl from A talk in the Park by Alan Ayckboourn - we only did a scene from this but I remember how exciting it was.

Below, various costumes and characters in Second From Last in the Sack Race by Michael Birch

From the Roaring 20's to Outer Space!

Today we continue the tour of my scrapbooks and the plays I was in that have led me gently to the Dolman and Newport Playgoers.

So there were 2 more shows before I ran off to drama school in Hertfordshire.

 In Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone I ended up playing 2 parts - both men due to the shortage of male actors, this was fins by me as I got to shoot myself in the face with custard as one of the hoodlums in Fat Sam's gang and got to sing So you want to be a boxer as Cagey Joe - I still have my copy of the script signed by the case and crew.

In one of the more embarrassing of my theatrical exploits I wore a bin bag and a scull cap painted yellow in Big Zoo, one of those shows devised by the cast - In this story the Dozers blast their way across the universe laying waste to every planet in their wake. On their way they meet the peaceful Trashers and a revolution led by yours truly takes place.

For Services Rendered

Well rehearsals for the play I am in are now underway and what a great evening we had starting the blocking, and the lovely Steve Bissex-Williams has already started sorting out the costumes! Talk about organisation.

It is going to be an excellent show because, well we have a brilliant cast and director, tomorrow I will get back to sharing some of my previous theatrical triumphs, probably boring you with old photos before boring you even more with stories from rehearsals!

Grease in the Black Wood

Around the time that college was ending Blackwood Miners Institute was renovated and changed into an arts centre, with bar, theatre and cinema and we were asked if we would like to volunteer to be Ushers etc, joining the institute would be a young man I had met the year before at the Sherman Theatre, Adam Fresco and he brought with him the ideas for youth theatre. The first production completed for the Youth section was Grease.

 Raychel Harvey-Jones (Rizzo), Alfie Marino (Danny) and myself (Marty)

After that came Max, a play devised specifically for the Valleys Live festival that was taking place that year.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to every one in the cast, and if the people who saw it remember it.

An Actors Life pt2

As the first rehearsal of For Services Rendered approaches I thought I would continue the journey through my theatrical life so far with a few more photod

Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht

That concluded the first year in college - but I was not one to give up for the holidays - oh no - instead I spent most of the summer catching the bus to Dunfries Place and walking from there to the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, to take part in the Summer School, where with the help of the professional staff we wrote, designed, produced and staged our own production. (this would not be the last time I would do this, though the venue would change from Cardiff to the Black Wood)

At the Sherman, I didn't perform no myself and another lad designed, rigged and operate the lights - on these bad boys - my favourite part of the this was operating the strobe.

After the Summer it was back to college 

In talkin' bout out our generation (another show devised by ourselves) we spanned the history of music from the 1950's to the present day (1991), in these photos I am rehearsing the 80's Madonna classic, Material Girl. This was dedicated to Freddie Mercury who had died not long before the show went on.

Tomorrow - Grease and the Black Wood

An actors life for me!

Ever since I was little I have loved performing and as you know I have recently become a member of Newport Playgoers.

 I was lucky enough to be included in Love Story the musical earlier this year and next week we begin rehearsing the first of three plays intended to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War - those plays being The Accrington Pals, Blackadder Goes Forth and the play I am in For Services Rendered by W Somerset Maugham.

So before I bore you with posts about the rehearsals, I thought I'd bore you with a series of posts about the plays and musicals I have been in so far.

My first performance was in around 1976 when I was 2 and a 1/2 years old, it was with the baby class of Abbotswood Dance School, Bristol that myself and the rest of the class performed Wee Willy Winkie - I was very proud of my little lantern which my Grandfather had made for me, mine was the only 3D lantern - my Grandfather was a precision engineer and believe it or not I actually remember fragments of the performance.

After this there were other school productions and I vaguely rmember playing the star on a Christmas Tree in one.

 This play was called something along the lines of The Animals Christmas, I played a sheep that's me in the white coat, I had to sing with a boy named Mark except it turned out that he didn't want to sing and I ended up singing on my own.

After this there were performances in A Christmas Carol and Carousel and then I went to Crosskeys College - now Coleg Gwent Crsskeys Campus.

 This show was devised  by us students in the first week of term the title was 'Night' and we had to use 2 songs Night and Day and A Hard Days Night, from what I remember we played toys in a playroom which came alive at night.

 Action by Derek Boswell

Rites by Maureen Duffy