Biography

Amie Connor

Martyn Horner-Glister; Captain and Sergeant.

Martyn is 28 and has been seen in many roles in amateur productions in his home town of Gainsborough at The Old Nick Theatre playing such roles as Beauregard (Darker Shores), Brandon (Rope) Antonio (Strictly Flamenco) It was here at The Old Nick Theatre that he ran the company’s Mirror Image Youth Theatre for 10 years.

At Lincoln University Martyn has also been seen in roles  including; Malvolio (Twelfth Night), Stanley (A Streetcar Named Desire), The Sportsman and An Actor (Uranium 235) and most recently as Torvald Helmer in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. He has also done some audio work for a student original animated production of Self-Centaured.

Aaron Brown; Drum major, Jew and Sound organiser

Aaron is 23 and has been involved in many student productions spanning from mid childhood until the presant  day. He has worked on the stage and in front of camera as well as being involved in effects and editing work.

Recent work includes Voice acting for various Audio production works at the University of Lincoln and occasionally working backstage for productions including tech work and lighting as well as university productions of A Clockwork Orange (Alex), Oh What a Lovely War (Russia, Irish soldier & Generals), Macbeth (Banquo) and in Waiting For Goddot as a directorial role.

 Amie Connor; Margeret and Doctor 2.

Amie is 21 and in her second year studying Drama at Lincoln University.  Amie has been involved in a variety of acting fields including stage, film and radio.  As well as being seen in many roles concerning university assessment performances  including Maria – Twelfth Night, Ma Ubu – Ubu Roi and Cecily – The Importance of Being Ernest, she also particpated in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2010 as a member of The Lincoln Company peforming in Blood Brothers as Linda and The Man Who Fell Out of Bed as Daisy.

Amie has recently been involved in an international tour to Poland inwhich she performed at the Imka Theatre as the character Linda in Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers.

 

Braden Guy; Woyzeck

Braden is 21 and is in his second year of university studying Drama at The Lincoln School of Performing Arts. Braden started off by organising and directing variety shows all in the name of charity and then moved onto armature dramatics. He now works part time as part of the tech crew for the Lpac in Lincoln. Recently he has been in such productions as The Blue Room, The Twelfth Night, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and Uranium 235.

 

 

Sally Nix; The Showman

Sally is 19, studying drama at the University of Lincoln. During her school life she performed as an actor, singer, and dancer, and is in the middle of studying towards the last exam for a teaching qualification in tap dancing.

Productions she’s been involved in have included Oh What A Lovely War at college, where she was choreographer and assistant director, deviser and narrator in The Surfboard Theatre, a devised performance for the university at the Mablethorpe Bathing Beauties Festival, and many other productions for her course. Sally has also been involved in working backstage with the Lpac crew, and at the moment is working with her dance school in the role of lighting designer for their next show.

Kirsty Barnes; Marie

Kirsty is 23 and in her second year of University studying Drama. Kirsty has taken part in various performances since the beginning of her time at University, these include: The Tempest, Slag, Uranium 235, Oh What A Lovely War and Trifles.

During her time at college, Kirsty took part in and devised a performance which was organised and funded by the Department for Education, to encourage young people to not be gender biased when making their choices for further education, concerning the 14 – 19 diplomas. The production was then toured around schools in May 2009.

 

Jimmy Morehouse; Doctor 1, Andres

Jimmy is 20 years of age and is studying Drama at the Lincoln School of Performing Arts. He has performed in various productions since coming to Lincoln, he has played roles such as Malvolio in Twelfth Night, The Puppet Master in Uranium 235 and Vladimir in Waiting For Godot.

Jimmy has also been involved in productions outside of his course such as pantomimes and musicals; he has run drama workshops for young children and performed a period piece at the Bury Theatre Royal.

Current Theme

Amie Connor

As great as our current theme looks, I have emailed Joss and you cant change the picture. =( The only thing he can do is just black it out. I think it might make the page look abit bare and plain. Shall I change the theme? Something similar, keeping the dark look about it? Ill get back to him once we have decided on a new theme.

Thoughts and suggestions? Perhaps post some of the theme names you think might work.

Cheeeersss, Amie.

Its good to talk!

Amie Connor

Hellllllllooooo Fellow Woyzeck Bloggers,

Ive created a page…This page! Blog communication. Its pretty much a communication space, much like the Facebook group we have. I just thought it might be nice to start sharing the conversations/decisions on here rather than/ or as well as Facebook, for all our other bloggers to see.

Also a space incase what you what to share doesnt fit into a certain catagory. Much like I want to say noow… Basically the blog is showing who wrote what. So just make sure we all add our names onto our own posts. That is all =)

Bye for now…Amie x

Reviews of other Woyzeck productions

Rachel Elisabeth White

When I’m directing a piece I like to have look around at reviews of various productions. There appears to have been rather a lot of productions of Woyzeck done over the years, these have provided me with a few ideas of what ought to be avoided. The following are notes made from reviews of two very different productions of Woyzeck:

Counting Squares production 2008, directed by Joshua Chase Gold. Review by Jason Fitzgerald 6/10/08

This production set Woyzeck as something like an American War Story buit with the play being somewhat anti-hero this concept really doesn’t suit it.

The characters insanity undermined the whole production.

Woyzecks state of mind is perhaps conveniently passed off as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which he suffers as a result of military action. However Buchner’s script doesn’t give any specific symptoms related to PTSD.

The Doctor character was used more as a comic interlude rather than providing ” Critical signposts on the road to Woyzeck’s self destruction” (Fitzgerald, 2008)

Woyzecks visions of the godless world he lives in a partly due to the ill treatment he receives from the upper classes or the Bourgeoisie as they were known as. This theme of everyday man being abused by supeiors is a theme still relevent today and will still probably be relevent for many years to come.

Cindy Pierre also reviewed the same production but wasn’t quite as brutal. She did provide some interesting points that are useful for our groups production and will give some things to consider even if they are only in terms of what to avoid doing!

The production used a chorus to represent Woyzecks maddness but they only really succeeded in distracting from the real issues.

Humour was inserted into what should have been very serious circumstances making it inappropriate.

Scenes where Woyzeck is performing menial tasks lost their ability to get the audience to understand Woyzeck’s plight.

The theme of the poor having no morals got lost amongst all the song and dance numbers.

The murder scene a damp squid due to bad staging.

review from http://www.newtheatrecorps.blogspot.com

Icelandic company Vesturport put a circus act spin on their production which was described by Jason Best as ” hectic, often thrilling, sometimes even dazzling but as a whole curiously unsatisfying” (14/10/05)

In this production Woyzeck is not a soldier but a lowly factory worker who is frquently subjected to abuse and humiliation by his superiors. The Doctor takes a very sinister form and treats him as little more than a lab rat and throughout the course of the play conducts cruel and pointless experiments on him.

The physical feats used in the production though breathtaking were very distracting. In fact the physical aspects shoved Buchner’s original words into the background making the production far more impressive as a visual spectacle than effective as a serious drama.

Jason Best 14/10/05
http://www.thestage.co.uk

These reviews have made it clear that there are many things that could potentially make for a production that doesn’t get across the seriousness of what is happening to Woyzeck. It would be very easy to get distracted from the drama aspect by trying to create something spectacular. Yes we want to do something that has the wow factor but we don’t want to over cook it so to speak. But this has provided the group plenty to think about.

Costume Checklist…

Amie Connor

Here is a list of costume bits we need to start getting hold of. Our own wardrobes are a good place to start as I think most of us will have alot of it anyway.

Woyzeck:

  1. Army-Green colour T-shirt
  2. Black Trousers
  3. Black shoes/pumps

Captain:

  1. Suggestions…Something Martyn can change into quickly.

Showman:

  1. Jacket – Buttoned, straight shoulder type jacket (If you catch my drift) I shall upload a picture for this.
  2. Black Trousers
  3. Black T-shirt
  4. Black shoes/pumps
  5. Top hat?

Sergeant:

  1. Army-Green coat
  2. Black Trousers
  3. Black T-shirt
  4. Black shoes/boots/pumps

Drum Major:

  1. As same Sergeant?

Marie/Margeret:

  1. Dresses (Easy to remove, Blacks underneath for circus scene)

Doctors:

  1. White Labcoats

Additional costume:

  1. 5x Labcoats (2 doctors, 3 students)
  2. 5x Rubber gloves
  3. 3x Masks – Masquerade

I think everyone needs blacks underneath there main costume, in order to change quickly into labcoats for the Doctors scene. Im going to have a look in the LPAC props/costume store tomorrow. Ive seen a great jacket that would work for the Showman, whether or not its still there…? If not I think I may have something that could work. But check out the picture and let me know what you think.

If anyone can think of  anything I have missed, please add to the blog. Thanks, Amie =)