IT'S WEDNESDAY SO IT MUST BE "GIRLS ABOUT TOWN"

A good morning over at the Swindon 105.5 Radio Station, when our guest was Anna Friend, who is the Artistic Director of Quirky Bird Theatre.  I first met Anna when I was involved in The Wroughton Passion Play in 2016, so thought it would be good to have her on the programme and I wasn’t wrong!  Her enthusiasm and energy is contagious and I think it’s fair to say we all felt upbeat both during and after her visit.

It was interesting to hear about the age range she teaches at the Quirky Bird Theatre classes - from 4 year olds up to 16 year olds.  These classes help them develop new skills and encourage their imagination and creativity with some of them eventually go on to Drama School.  

When Anna talked about “reworking classic texts” I thought back to my own “dry and dusty” school lessons.  She told us that this involves taking young actors into schools to motivate pupils in the audience by acting out something they may be doing for their GCSE course.  What an inspirational way to teach and never boring!

There was one funny moment, when Anna told us about one of the “warm up games” she involves people in when they go to one of her classes, called the “East Enders’ Game”.  She gave us a demonstration of this when she shouted out the word “Oi” and then we had to shout it out, in turn.  Of course, I got it wrong, not realising we had to shout out the same word - “Oi” - and it did make us all laugh - but poor Jo, who had headphones on got a real “ear-bashing”.  

Today is a collage of my morning - sadly the only photograph I got of Jo, the Presenter, was her back view when she was helping Vikki, who was about to take over “running the desk” halfway through the programme but I’m sure I will be able to “snap” her another week.

Anna runs a monthly group every second Sunday of the month, and as I so enjoyed being involved in the Wroughton Passion Play, think I may go along.  She said many of those who attend were in the play, so I would know a lot of them.  It would be good to be creative in a different way so I am thinking seriously about going along to the next meeting in April.   

After Anna left, Jo, Rose, Vikki and I had another hour of chat about all sorts of things - who said being retired was boring?  Certainly not me!

“Your acting will not be good 
     until it is only yours. 
That's true of music, acting, 
     anything creative;
          you work until finally nobody 
               is acting like you."
Sanford Meisner : American Actor and Acting Teacher
1905-1997