Research - Week #7 Look How Far We Have Come!

'When we are on stage, we are in the here and now.' - Constantin Stanislavski

Today we invited a small audience of friends and family, students and staff of LAMDA to a sharing of our work. 

Run through

A quick rehearsal before our audience arrive. A rough framework is set. We enter the unknown. 

Welcome

We welcome the audience into our space and invite them to play a round of 'Suspension Ball'. We feel comfortable and at home. 

Highlights

We perform the highlights of our process together. The 'Don't Try This At Home' dance, the Kray twins, Talk to Hand improv and some clowning around. 

Here & now

Having an audience changes everything. The room is buzzing. Things happen that are unplanned and some scenes take an unusual direction. The room is alive. 

Questions

We open the room up to questions from the audience. They are engaged and curious. We are the experts in our field. We do a toolkit show & tell of our timetable and grow tree. 

Reflect

We mingle with the audience. Together we create a common ground. We invite them to take a look at a reflective journal of photos from our process. We talk and reflect. There are more questions, viewpoints and answers. Look how far we've come!

The strange power of art is sometimes it can show that what people have in common is more urgent than what differentiates them. It seems to me it's something that theatre can do, but it's rare; it's very rare. - John Berger

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My name is Nathalie Carrington, this is my reflective diary following my research on how a two-way creative exchange between performers with learning disabilities and drama school graduates can impact theatre as a training and communal activity. This research is being done in partnership with LAMDA, University of Brighton and BCH to further understand the benefits of inclusion of learning disabled artists within professional actor training.