Frantic Assembly Theatre Workshop
On Monday 25th and Tuesday 26th June the Theatre Studies Department were extremely proud to host two practitioners from Frantic Assembly (www.franticassembly.co.uk), one of the country’s leading physical theatre companies. LV Theatre Studies students enjoyed two mammoth evening workshops with Vicki Manderson and Helen Heaslip, who provided an excellent introduction to the company’s devising process.
As a theatre company, Frantic Assembly is notable in that neither of its artistic directors has a formal background in drama, theatre or dance. In creating work, the company relies on influences that lie, for the most part, outside the realm of theatre and its regular forms and practice. Linked to this is a strong affinity with the music video. Despite being unparalleled in terms of its progressive and ground-breaking history, the pop video has provided the company with much of its approach to rhythm, visual framing devices, editing techniques and most importantly the use of music. Each Frantic Assembly show has featured a specific soundtrack. Early work consisted of various found tracks, but later pieces such as ‘Peepshow’ and ‘Dirty Wonderland’ saw the company collaborating with bands such as Lamb and Goldfrapp to create pure soundtracks. More recently, Frantic Assembly collaborated with Mark Ravenhill a playwright who along with the likes of Sarah Kane and Martin Crimp, is largely responsible for setting the tone of new British play-writing from the mid-90s to the present day.
It was extremely exciting to have professional theatre-makers accustomed to working at the cutting edge of the industry here at Cranleigh, and we look forward to capitalising on the students’ new-found skills when the GCSE devising projects kick off in the Michaelmas term.
Ben Tait
Published
26 June 2007
- Category
Drama
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