this month's
Ink Pellet contains
A Final Haunt
After 33 extraordinary years, Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black will haunt the stage of the Fortune Theatre for the final time, as the production ends in the West End on Saturday 4th March 2023. PW Productions announce that after 33 extraordinary years in London’s West End, the theatrical sensation that is Susan Hill’s THE […]
Reaching for the Moon
Susan Elkin paid a visit to Half Moon theatre in London’s East End to chat with CEO Chris Elwell about their extensive education outreach and innovative theatre programmes. Half Moon Theatre sits in the heart of Limehouse in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, spitting distance from the DLR and mainline station. Formerly a pretty […]
National Youth Theatre Rep Company
The National Youth Theatre’s Rep Company is celebrating its first ten years and Susan Elkin paid a visit to learn more. Each year a group of fifteen or so talented NYT members, aged 18 to 25, are selected by audition to join this company. In just a few months they rehearse three shows, many of […]
Apprenticeships
An important and often overlooked route into the industry, especially for many non-performing roles. Susan Elkin has some suggestions. Theatre is like an iceberg. For every role on stage there are probably at least half a dozen technicians you can’t see. And the industry has been telling us for decades that there are skills shortages […]
School Shows
Never underestimate the power of a school production – for every single person involved. When you meet former students, sometimes from decades back in my case, it’s usually taking part in Oliver! or A Midsummer Night’s Dream that they reminisce about with shining eyes. Most importantly it’s a terrific bonding exercise. We hear a lot […]
New Perspectives
With three separate Lucian Freud exhibitions currently on, Graham Hooper took time to visit and here is his review of these contrasting shows. LLucian Freud would have been 100 this year, and that’s a good excuse to look back over his life and work, but especially his work, as the two have a rather nasty […]
Grandad Anansi – Half Moon Theatre
Predicated partly on Black History Month, Elayne Ogbeta’s muliti-layered play presents Grandad (Marcus Hercules) and his primary school age granddaughter, Abi (Jazmine Wilkinson) in his garden. Like everything else in this show, the garden designed by Sorcha Corcoran, is beautiful with lots of colour, light and plants that Grandad knows by name and talks to. […]
Theatre Review – The King of Nothing – Little Angel Theatre
Ben Glasstone’s charming, witty account of The Emperor Who Has No Clothes works well for two main reasons. First it is one of the most perceptive stories ever written, dealing as it does with vanity, self delusion, conformity and truth. It’s both topical and timeless. Second, we have a cost of living crisis and the […]
Book Review – Activist
by Louisa Reid Published by Guppy Books Cassandra, narrator of this powerful verse novel, is a reluctant sixth former in a prestigious mixed school, formerly all boys, where toxic culture simmers. Driven by her own experience, and by nature a feisty “shouter” she campaigns forcibly for acknowledgement that some of the boys at school treat […]
Book Review – A Poetry Pedagogy for Teachers: Reorienting Classroom Literacy Practice
by Maya Pindyck and Ruth Vinz, with Diana Liu and Ashlynn Wittchow The thrust of this detailed, well-researched, quite academic book about the poetry in classrooms is that we shouldn’t teach students to search for meaning so that “the poem becomes a specimen for examination under the microscope of interpretative practices”. Instead we should experience […]
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Long established in North London, the Mountview Academy is heading south of the river. Here Susan Elkin catches up with principal Stephen Jameson Founded in 1945 as an amateur repertory company, Mountview Academy took its name from its local North London old style telephone exchange. By 1958 it was offering part time training. The full […]
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Running Wild is embarking on a UK tour this year and Ink Pellet dropped in on final rehearsals and chatted to the show’s creative team For those of you lucky enough to have caught Running Wild at the Open Air Theatre last summer, you’ll be delighted to hear that the Children’s Touring Partnership are taking […]
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As the Head of Dance at READ College, I am passionate about ensuring that my young students have the very best start to their professional dance training and consequently their future careers. This means educating our young people about how to look after themselves both physically and psychologically. By Helen Read In recent years there […]
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Proving an unmitigated success, the annual Playing Shakespeare season at The Globe promises to enthral, engage and entertain thousands more teenagers this spring. Susan Elkin is a huge, well wrapped up fan Anyone who doubts that Shakespeare still speaks to young people should get along to The Globe to see The Taming of the Shrew […]
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Susan Elkin meets the ArtsEd’s Chris Hocking to find out why the school continues to be so successful and is in such high demand “I think we are probably the school of choice for anyone wanting to specialise in musical theatre” says Chris Hocking, principal designate of Arts Educational Schools in Chiswick and currently head of […]
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Ben Ofoedu chats with Susan Elkin about his life and career, from global singing star to scene-stealing genie and beyond He bounds beaming up the stairs to meet me in a Mexican café in Soho. He has chosen this establishment because they’ve given him a Gold Card in acknowledgement of his celebrity status. His rather […]
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NATIONAL THEATRE TO TOUR IBSEN’S MASTERPIECE HEDDA GABLER Following a sold-out run at the National Theatre’s Lyttelton Theatre, the NT will begin a UK tour of its acclaimed production of Hedda Gabler on 2 October 2017. Beginning at Theatre Royal Plymouth, the tour will journey across the UK finishing on 3 March 2018. Just married. […]
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Michael Volpe is the director of Opera Holland Park but his background is unusual. He spoke to Susan Elkin
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by Gary Day Bloomsbury Methuen Drama So how did it all begin? It’s easy to forget, when you’re sitting in the National Theatre absorbed in, say, the current Christmas show, Peter Pan with all its technical smoothness, that drama as a genre is constantly changing and involving. It has a long history and key periods […]
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by Katherine Zachest Drama Games for Rehearsals by Jessica Swale Nick Hern Books A couple of new additions to the bestselling Drama Games series from NHB landed in our office. These dip-in, flick-through, quick-fire books would make an excellent addition to the resources at your disposal – whether you are working with young children or […]