En Root Theatre Company: Beach Break Live 2010

Festival fever is setting in for the Summer of 2010 and our newly formed theatre company En Root is no exception to that craving. Oh how I've missed that fuzzy feeling that festivals so graciously provide.

We went last year and loved it, and this year's Student Festival Beach Break Live 2010's line up was similarly mighty fine.

So... we took our show 'Knickers-fulla-glory' comprising many eclectic elements of creativity for your viewing pleasure: including urban/ slam poetry from myself, Matthew Ferdenzi and Florence Espeut-Nickless, songs from a great new band Two For Joy, a sketch of a Doctor Who fanatic and a comedy sketch and song from two delicious single geeks. As you can imagine we had a ball and some!

The Correspondents were an absolute treat, mixing swing with a beautiful front man that possessed the most mesmeric hips I've seen in quite some time. Dan Le Sac VS Scroobius Pip, provided an afternoon delight as we hung out horizontally amoungst the grass and some grass and let his lyrical genius enter our open lungs, ears and minds. My only thought: Beats bubble in my bones.

The whole festival I found myself thinking: 'What a glorious way to celebrate finishing ones degree!' which incidentally I find out results for on July 7th: Yikarumba!

Until soon 'Love and that festival feeling'

LG

Hello World. Hello West Side Story. Hello Atlantic.

Bonjour all,

Shucks it has been a while. Hasn't it?
Strangley enough life is still good, and there is another show about to burst into a theatre near(or there abouts) you! The Minack Theatre is so far away from City life; it's the perfect place for an evening of entertainment, or naturally an arvo avec a yummy picnic. It is an open air amphitheatre carved with precision and beauty into the Cornish cliffs at the very far east of Cornwall, south of Penzance.

We're performing one of the treats and classics of musical theatre: West Side Story there next week, and I landed the very fiery role of Anybodys, which I cannot wait to perform against the backdrop of the Atlantic.



'America'

Welcome to the West Side!

In true fashion Full Tilt are back and we are running at full pelt in our final phase 2 of rehearsals!



Jets Vs. Sharks: 'Prologue'




BIG NEWS:

As if the Atlantic didn't have enough sharks already, we've added a further two- in gang form. A huge welcome and well done to Suneil and Andrew as they jump right into the action and swim like no Shark has swum before in catching up with ALL the dances, scene work and songs.




FUN NEWS:

The set and costume's have arrived in full, filling the set with yet more colour. Y-Fronts on the washing line and hanging as happily as the cast's smiles, in awe of the phenomenal twenty strong orchestra who joined us in rehearsals last week.

Brass and woodwind glistening in the sun we're basking in the sunshine. Topping up Puerto Rican tans and working out for our pumped up American Jet Boys.




TICKET NEWS:

We're SOLD OUT! Great news for everyone involved! Thank you to all those who have eagerly shelled out to support us and enjoy a fantastic day of picnics and 1950's 'cool' entertainment.




We can't wait to get down to The Minack... Something' coming... pull up a chair!
The air is humming,
And something great is coming! ...

The show must go on:Mummies and Daddies- Medea Revisitied.

Firstly , congratulation to all the company of Mummies and Daddies, opening night last night was apparently very well received!

Grit in throat and pauses in my heart, my health slides down a cliff and floats at the edge, diluted and dettached, but it is our second night of three tonight and what a night I hope it will be! Potential in laws and many more guests and plus 1's 2's and 3's are on their way to see our reinvention of the Greek Classic, Euripides' Medea.

Like the child I inhabit and the child that once roamed within my body and shared my toes, my 'play' must not stop: So rip out my health throw it to the ground. Pull off my immune system and make me stand.
The Show Will Go On.
And I hope you get to see it and share with our children, our story.

Mummies and Daddies @ Bath Spa University: Tonight annd tomorrow (Thursday 17th December, 09) at 8PM.

My angel: I think you know what I've been trying to say.

I promised I would never leave you. Stop and Start: Goes my Heart.

I have this sickening over powering thirst for more than anything I have, and it fucks me up and I want to fuck you over, I love (forking)fucking you.. over. Trying to break you, hoping you break, in my arms and that I can come out on top, fucking you...again.. over and over. I want to feel the bitter sweet stab in my gut, and the blood drain and gush so I know I can thank each morning light that pierces open my eyes. I hate rocking to sleep with you breathing bastardised shards of lie ridden love against my back. Shivering inside I tremble that I may be love made to in the morning. Made to make love, love made to, an inanimate powerless object. I enjoy that lack of power, that riding wave of shit heap heavy flesh rushing through me, in me. Fucking me ... over. Don’t stop, push, deeper, fuck me, sounds creep out as I push you further in. Pain and more stabbing until the whole unity subsides and the slick thick shit slides and slips out again, cup and run. Dirtying my flesh clean little life as the holy child, that doesn’t believe, anymore. Daddy took my belief away and then you confirmed his greed and that of men. Or man. It is exactly as I hoped, a little bit weird, little bit too far gone and strangely fucking perfect. As duty has it and fate determines my peasant ridden path I’ll suck you dry a little longer, but rest not in my breast, nestle not in my palm, hold not my neck as you kiss it. Rip my private parts apart. Tear my bursting vessels from the arms in which they so sickly sit, and wrench my throat into the wall without remorse the very way I hide your breath from your lungs so I can enjoy the air, more. Leave me to rot, I need to feel, to lose it all so I can build a new me, one I am proud of. Because I am already too arrogant for my own skin, skin which rightly boils up and over the bones to reveal the true evil beneath. I was bore this way. Evil. And yet the truly kind, real, loveliest one you’ll ever meet. I(some) would go so far as to say: perfect. I heard it once before: And she is perfect. Yes. Thank you that’s right. I do love you mummy, even if you did abuse me. I can’t remember any of that now. All gone, shhhh, there we go, all gone.

Mummies and Daddies: Medea Revisited.
Euripdes' Medea: Bath Spa University Theatre: Dec 15-17th 2009

How critical is it, that a critic is a critic?

I thought I'd join the debate started months back and picked up by The Guardian's Karen Fricker; and thus me: How critical is it, that a critic, is a critic? Hello Band Wagon!

It's been rumbling in my stomach for a while now, this endless restlessness that began life in the beating entity in my chest, torn between entertainment and evaluation, or to put it more literally, to be an actor or a critic? Of course, I know the answer: an actor, always... but, why? If I want to have a massively informed, intellectual, creditable view on the world and I want to have an impact on others’ views, then surely I should want to share the final view, A.K.A.: that of the reviewer- so I can influence, the already influenced viewer. Non?

And so I delved into my head and went traipsing through the files marked 'Unnecessary worry' and 'What about my lifestyle?' which as a training artist, I have conveniently shoved under the endless copies of The Stage, Timeout and The Evening Standard, presumably in hope that I may fool myself or consciously subconsciously somehow(?)divert myself away from the practicalities of being '90% out of work' or better still working... but in a coffee shop! So as I delved deeper into what I'd planned to casually breeze past in my life planning, I actually managed to interrogate, only to realise: 'Money is not everything' and 'I can make it!'.

Decision made then: I picked out the scary files and actually used them to propel me into sheer motivation and fuel, if you will, to succeed as an actor!! Whoopie! All good so far... until the daily (treble) inbox spring clean (the old school MSN Messenger fit__lady02 account; the University mail account; and the I'm all grown-up and pro-fesssh-un-al don't cha know 'lauren_gauge' account) occurred; and in this daily/spring clean I stumbled across an opportunity.

Now, a gal like moi and an opportunity like c'elle-ci, equals a jolly excited lass pining for something she shouldn't really focus her attention to: A Grad Scheme Journalist Job at.. wait for it... The Telegraph(admittedly it could have been The Guardian! But at this point I. Am. Chuffed. Thrilled. Eager. and Excited.)

Needless to say I drop everything, my hopes and dreams of acting forever and ever (what a horrid flimsy phrase-that still fills me with warmth and hope as it did aged 'nearly six') and CTRL+C, CTRL+V the link to loved ones in search of their 'review' and valued opinions: luckily my chap's father is a crackingly great and over qualified journalist and encouraged me from the word GO! 'Lollie- You go for it!' ...

Time passes.

The deadline for the application is Monday November 30th, 3 days away and true to form I have not started it.
What does this say to me? (I interrogate myself objectively)
I cannot hit deadlines all that well, SO...
a) NEVER BE A JOURNALIST LAUREN!
or
b) GO CRAZY! DO IT! APPLY! STAY UP ALL NIGHT JUGGLING YOUR DEGREE, THESIS PITCH, REHEARSAL IDEAS, ESSAY PLANNING AND WRITING- THERE's STILL TIME!

Answer? b) -EVERYTIME. So I am choosing not to be a critic and not to be an actor: I am choosing to attempt both! Brilliant!

I figure, if you can't beat them, try your best to join them- I have no idea if I would make a fabulous critic or a groundbreaking actor- and in answer to the debate of who is the best critic? The Critic or The Joe Public... I think The Critic started out as Joe Public- Conclusion being: Ultimately everyone's opinon is valid. Therefore, you can be whatever you try really, really, hard to be! So whether I feel qualified to be a Telegraph journalist or not- I am going to TRY. Similarly whether I feel qualified to be an actor or not- I am going to TRY...

...Because frankly I love both and I feel strongly that if you are passionate about something (anything!)and you truly invest your every ounce of time and effort, sweat and tears into researching your passion and finding out everything about the world in which you live and the industry in which you so avidly want to work, you will at least then be equipped to form an opinion. It is then that informed opinion that justifies you having 'something to say, worth saying' as a living breathing human being (be it an artist, critic or otherwise) in this world!

Familiar Face: Finally Found.

The man who shapes our learning, intrigued my ambling feet in the very first episode here in The Safari Park. All this time I wondered what the familiarity was. Finally I realised as his body crumples to the side of our rehearsal room. Static and solid, really quite carved and coarse, the man reminiscent of my childhood, he is our captain...Captain ?

Rhythm In My Bones: Splitting my sides with smiles

It takes a lot to make me fly: but fly I did when I split my ears in two to listen to these beats bump and grind: openning up my fragile mind. Nothing overtly special but just two melodies with great memories infused like the perfect cup of tea.