The BIG Update

Good morning all! Firstly, a huge apology on the delay of our blog posts, it’s been a manic time for us with a mixture of different things in the pipeline that are coming to fruition, so I’ve been swept up in the whirlwind of it all and thus focusing on the paper trail that the whirlwind has scattered everywhere. But now, WE’RE BACK! So here is the BIG update! Arts Council Funding Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, People, Players and Peasants alike: WE GOT OUR ARTS COUNCIL FUNDING!!! We applied for funding to proceed with Phase 2 of Reynard the Fox; developing the show into an indoor version that is fit for rural touring venues. Alongside running New Landscapes in March, we returned to the rehearsal space ourselves to refresh Reynard and extend the length of the performance, playing with the script and characters and set. This also saw the return of our outside eye, the wonderful Niki McCretton from Stuff and Nonsense Theatre, who spent a few days with us to help explore the intentions of our characters and tighten all the nuts and bolts. Niki McCretton and our friend Maria joining us for our dress rehearsal The end result was a […]

New Landscapes Week 4 – Return to Acro

Finally the Winter weather is starting to drift off and the Sunshine is upon us! This week saw us introducing Gareth into the mix, who has been away on other projects. Now, he’ll be leading Group A and I’ll be leading Group B, though we’ll be together during crossover sections and then next term we’ll be cracking on with everyone together…53 people in one room, it’s going to be fun! So we began the week by designating characters for people to begin creating and continue researching. We’ve a good balance of circus performers now: bearded ladies, strong-men, contortionists, electrodes, and so on! I’m excited to see what material they generate with these characters and what costumes they pull together. Following this, we had an hour with all students together in the space where we sang through our La La song and then introduced the oldest English song to ever be scribed: Sumer Is Icumen In. We taught the song and rehearsed the melody and will return to it later. It’s always great playing with songs when there’s a chorus of 53! Then on Tuesday and Thursday’s sessions we returned to Acrobatics! The intention this time was not only to introduce […]

New Landscapes Week 3 – Characters and Clocking

Ladies and Gents, Boys and Girls, People, Players and Peasants alike, we present: So we’ve just had week 3 and everyone has spent the past week researching into circus acts and specialities that you would’ve found at the stereotypical circus/carnival scene, such as stilt-walkers, jugglers, contortionists, escapologists, etc (this list goes on and on!). This is what our wall for ideas looks like so far: In my next post I shall pop up a picture of how it looks when the students have started pasting their ideas and research all over it! And so far some great ideas have already come to light, such as Chloe’s Barberibbit, a circus Barber that also happens to be a human sized frog (this had me laugh out loud in the rehearsal space, brilliant thinking!) So, to back up a little bit, this week began with discussing the characters you would find at a circus/carnival setting, and then everyone researching the characters they would like to embody for the entirety of the performance. This means performing walkabout in their character and then remaining as that character throughout the whole of the performance, and then in the show performing as that character playing another character…do you follow? This comes from […]

New Landscapes Week 2 – Acrobatics and Archetypes

Afternoon all! It’s been a fun second week with Coventry University 2nd year theatre students. We’ve been getting stuck into the physical side of outdoor performance, visiting basic and intermediate acrobatics and acro-balance, then looking at developing archetypes and stereotypes. The acro sessions, as always, were good fun with many people wanting to experiment and push boundaries. Already plenty of good rolls, cartwheels and handstands to show for it and I’m looking forward to see what comes together for the big acro piece at the start of the show! In the following session with each group they presented their scratch pieces that was assigned to them last week. The outcome was very exciting: 8 great short pieces of theatre with so much potential for an outdoor spectacle. Now that their parameters have been extended and they know these will be their pieces to present in the show I’m curious to see how they utilise the playing space and the audience. Then after a singing refresher we moved on to a technique that has had many names and the practitioner who taught it to me called it ‘The Ministry of Silly Walks’, reminiscent of the Monty Python sketches. I used this technique to develop […]

New Landscapes @ Coventry University

How’s it going all! So this week marked the first week of The Fabularium’s project with Coventry University Theatre and Professional Practice second year students in their outdoor performance module ‘New Landscapes’. For the first three weeks it’ll be just myself with course leader (and Fabularium Associate Director) Glenn Noble while Gareth is away working on another production, but then he’ll join in the mix and we can see how things take shape! We’re currently running skills sessions with 53 students and providing them with the styles, techniques and exercises to help develop and create a piece fit for high primary school age that is suitable for outdoor performance (in this context the specifics are no tech support). In smaller groups they’ve been given a story to adapt into a 5-minute scratch piece ready for next week, which is the beginning of development for the main piece that will be presented at the end of May/start of June.   The show will be titled: Cautionary Tales…for children considering ill-behavior! If you’re unfamiliar with them then give it a Google, some very entertaining stories. (Such as Hoffman, Belloc, Grimm and Busch). I’ve really enjoyed my first week, they’re a good bunch and willing to work, […]

Knee deep in Admin!

Hey all! Apologies myself and Gareth haven’t been publishing much at the moment (we’re gradually getting better at blogging, honest!), we’re currently in the middle of a lot of administration tasks that need to be done to help pan out our year. It’s already looking like a very exciting Spring/Summer for us, with plenty of dates on the horizon for Reynard the Fox, plus various outings for the Animals, Sheep and Peasants. Although we’re in opposing parts of the country, the team are all getting stuck into the admin: Gareth is currently tackling applications and researching more opportunities, Lou is chasing up on bookings, Glenn is making plans for the Tales of Animalia at Just So Festival this year, and I’m currently writing up a bunch of risk assessments to be sent out to all our Reynard dates across the country. For more information on our upcoming performances this year visit the Tour Dates page. Now, let’s face it, admin is not the funnest thing in the world, but it’s worth going through all this e-paper work in the Winter to have an extravagant Spring/Summer, and hopefully an exciting Autumn/Winter at the end of this year! And the admin is a lot sweeter […]

May it be busy…!

So here we are going in to the month of May, and it is a busy one for the Fabularium. Starting off with the first of two Geronimo Festivals in Harewood House in good ole Yorkshire, followed by some teaching at Coventry University. Then it’s the final week of Reynard the Fox rehearsals where we work with the great Sonia Ritter for two days then go to Just So festival site in Cheshire for 3 days before heading to Wandsworth in London for the weekend to perform as part of the Fringe there.  Then it’s back to Coventry and a bit more teaching then finally a couple of days off whilst plans for Lithuania need sorting, preparation for the next Geronimo Festival in Tatton Park, Cheshire and seeing 6 performers in to Lost Village Festival all in the same weekend! Busy busy busy!!!      *Main photo is a quick snap of our new set for Reynard…what an amazing thing!*

Plans Continue…

So we are about to enter some more days of R&D for our new production Reynard The Rox! These next few days see us writing music, devising puppet scenes, finalising the plans for the set design and many more things..everything exciting basically. Watch this space as our plans unfold! Alongside being creative, we have some meetings set up that could lead us in all sorts of directions; more specifically indoors! Yes, The Fabularium are making Reynard an outdoor show with a longer indoor version fit for the rural touring network, so we have a meeting with Live and Local to see about getting us on their books!! So, like I said, watch this space!!!

Reynard Rehearsals

So begins the first week of R&D for our new show, Reynard The Fox. The storyboard is looking good so far (we think….!) 

Town Band of Bremen

Promo photo from The Herbert Art Gallery back in November 2014 for the Town Band of Bremen!