plus photos from this, our first production - Production photos - © Guy Bell, GBPhotos.com
The film clip / video is of the famous trial scene from our 6 character new version of the equally famous play, our adaptation entitled A Merchant of Venice.
The characters in the scene are -
#Solania - a composite of various roles from Shakespeare's play
#Antonio - the eponymous Merchant
#Graziano - kinsman to Antonio
#Bassanio - in love with Portia
#Shylock - the Jewish moneylender who has entered into a legal agreement with Antonio and is contesting his rights in the case
#Balthazar, a young lawyer - aka #Portia
FIVE AND FOUR STAR REVIEWS FOR OUR WORLD PREMIERE OF SIX-CHARACTER VERSION OF THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, ADAPTED & DIRECTED BY THE MULTI AWARD-WINNING
BILL ALEXANDER
THE PLAYGROUND THEATRE
UNTIL 4 DECEMBER 2021
see links to reviews
Photographer - © Guy Bell, GBPhotos.com
Some rehearsal photos of Shakespeare in Italy's first production, a brand new 6 character version called 'A Merchant of Venice' adapted and directed by our #AssociateArtist Bill Alexander
Portia - Lena Robin
Shylock - Peter Tate
Antonio, the Merchant - John McAndrew
Bassanio - Alexander Knox
Gratiano - Alex Wilson
Solania - Mary Chater
Design and costumes - Sara Perks
Lighting - Ryan Day
Sound and music - Sarah Sayeed
The show opens on November 10th and runs until December 4th at The Playground Theatre, Latimer Road, W10 6RQ
To book tickets see link below -
https://theplaygroundtheatre.london/events/merchantofvenice/
#Portia #Shylock #Antonio #Bassanio #Gratiano #newcharacter #Shakespeare #theatre #brandnew #adaptation
Grant funding for project working with Well Written and One Community in West London
Shakespeare in Italy Theatre Company is delighted to announce that it has been awarded a grant from the Clifford Chance Foundation. The £5000 grant is for a community project Aliens Order linked to our production of A Merchant of Venice.
watch 5 contrasting short videos shot and edited by Matt Kowalczuk with sound by Sarah Sayeed at #ACE funded summer school in local #orchard
Flower of this purple dye,
Hit with Cupid's archery,
Sink in apple of his eye – Oberon, A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 3 scene 2
The five films are - first, a longer one that reflects the sense of summer heat in the orchard with images and sounds from the event. Then June's film Champignons with her thoughts on being in the natural world, Shaliya's film Innerscape featuring her poem, Talk with Luca about the cultural differences he notices between England and Italy ( his mum is Italian and they visit Italy regularly) and finally Billy May's short film with her poem Magic.
The four day Arts Council funded summer school for young people was held in Racehill Community Orchard in #Whitehawk area of #Brighton from August 31 - September 3rd this year.
There were 4 facilitators, 7 participants and two youth leaders from Trust for Developing Communities. #BrightonPermaculture enabled the course to happen by allowing us to use the orchard on Racehill.
Please read the extremely upbeat feedback from Caroline Vitta, youth leader at TDC -
The project was brilliant – we saw lots of positive growth in the group’s confidence and they all reported back that they had enjoyed the sessions with several requests to do a similar project again. The facilitators did an amazing job at supporting the group and bringing them all out of their comfort zones. The message throughout the 4 days seemed clearly that being yourself is ok and this seemed to hit home with the group.
Apples and Eyes was quite a break away from our usual youth work at TDC but upon meeting Mary Chater and Tonya Easter I had a gut feeling that we should just try to run it and it was absolutely the right decision. It worked better than I ever could have imagined.
The team seemed flexible and were able to adapt the workshops to meet the needs and interests of the group
Beautiful setting of the Racehill Community Orchard was great for the young people - they fed back that they had enjoyed being outside.
The young people were supportive of each other and worked well together sharing ideas and encouraging each other
It was a lovely touch at the end to give everyone presents based on what the facilitators had observed are their interests over the project -made the young people feel heard and seen.
We didn’t hit the target of 16 young people - 11 were signed up and 7 managed to stay the full course.
Reasons for non attendance were:
2 said it clashed with induction sessions at college
1 was going to come from Moulsecoomb and decided it was too far to travel for a 10 am start
1 dropped out due to a family bereavement but had really enjoyed the first day
It’s hard to think of what I would change – maybe having the workshops in the middle of the summer holidays might have worked as some young people were probably getting ready for school/college – although this might have also clashed with other summer holiday activities on offer – not much tends to be offered after the bank holiday.
I might possibly lower the ages to 13 but it was nice to have a project aimed at older young people - often young people start dropping out of youth services around 16 years so great to have a project that more mature young people feel is for them.