C C CYGNET THEATRE
SUMMER SEASON 2013
THEATRE HOTLINE: 01392 277189 www.cygnettheatre.co.uk
3rd Stage Dance Company
DANCING AT LUGHNASA THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST A DOLLS HOUSE NINE PARTS A QUAKER PATTERNS IGNITE FESTIVAL THE HOUR OF THE LYNX A LITTLE LIGHT BREATHING
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Welcome to Cygnet’s new look Summer Brochure! Michael Krage has designed our new Cygnet Logo and brochure and Lee Hodges has illustrated some exciting posters for our summer plays, which promise to make a fabulous season, and we are confident that you will be tempted to sample some of the delights we have on offer. As you know we train young professional actors, and as we near the end of another academic year, our third year group are ‘cooked and ready’ and will be presenting a range of wonderful work. We are delighted to welcome Anita Parry to direct Brian Friel’s much loved masterpiece Dancing at Lughnasa, which will largely be our third year actors strutting their stuff. We also welcome Jacquie Crago to direct The Importance of Being Earnest, allowing us an opportunity to enjoy Monica Shallis’ (Cygnet founder) witty music which adorns the action, played and sung in style by members of the cast. These will both play at our theatre and outdoors at Poltimore House. After his acclaimed production of Memories of Childhood in February, Alistair Ganley is directing two pieces: a striking Swedish play called The Hour of the Lynx by Per Olov Enquist, which we saw in Edinburgh at its Traverse Theatre premiere. Our second and first year actors will enjoy getting their teeth into this exciting and searching play. This is followed in July by Ibsen’s ground-breaking A Doll’s House, as powerful today as when it was first played in 1879, for which guest actor Stephen Copp will be joining the Cygnet cast. In the first week of June, as last year, Cygnet is co-hosting Exeter’s IGNITE Festival, alongside The Bike Shed, The Phoenix, The Rusty Bike, The Globe and The Hour Glass. We will be hosting new and young companies with a range of ground-breaking, and exciting work, including dance, music and new plays, including A Little Light Breathing written by Rachel Besser and directed by our graduating director Louisa J Wilde (the team which premiered Inheritance last October.) All this and ice-creams too! …not to forget a selection of mouth-watering fruit-juices, wines and local ales from our bar what more do I have to say? See you on 24th May for the opening of our new Season with Dancing at Lughnasa! Rosalind Williams Principal
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Lee Hodges
DANCING AT LUGHNASA
Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel Cygnet Company Director: Anita Parry
from drudgery with banter and dancing to the Marconi wireless, hoping to find love and a continuing future together. A warm and compelling play by Brian Friel, one of the greatest modern Irish writers.
1936: harvest time in Ballybeg, County Donegal. Set against the ancient Festival of Lughnasa, we accompany Michael back to his childhood home, with his mother and aunts, the Mundy sisters, and returning African missionary, Uncle Jack, their elder brother. We share the joys and sorrow of the sisters, trapped by poverty, and their escape
Performance Dates: 24th& 25th May, 29th May -1st June. Cygnet Theatre: 7.30pm First Night: Pay What You Can on the door(min £2) Poltimore House: 17th & 19th July, 7.00pm Ticket Prices: Adult £10 Senior & Student £8 Child £6.
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A DOLL’S HOUSE
A Doll’s House
by Henrik Ibsen Cygnet Company Director: Alistair Ganley The Helmer’s conventional marriage is shaken to the foundations by the revelation of long-kept secrets. Nora’s journey from pretty girl-wife to self-determining woman is one of theatre’s defining stories. Ibsen’s most famous play still makes an eloquent plea for the equality of individuals 130 years after its first explosive performance.
The Importance of Being Earnest
by Oscar Wilde A trivial comedy for serious people Cygnet Company Director: Jacquie Crago Jack wants to marry Gwendolen, but there are two obstacles: her mother who is a ‘Gorgon’.... and Gwendolen’s ideal ‘to love someone of the name of Ernest’ ... These are the ingredients for Oscar Wilde’s most witty confection: lost babies, lost luggage, lost relations – all enhanced by equally witty music by Monica Shallis. This is a live musical version with songs interspersed in the text. Performance Dates: Cygnet Theatre 9th -13th July 7.30 & 2pm (Sat mat only) First night: Pay What You Can on the door (min £2) *13th July Gala Performance in memory of Beryl & Maurice Dean. Poltimore House: 18th & 20th July 7.00pm. Village Hall, Lympstone 24th July 7.30pm 01395 263928. Creative Innovation Centre Taunton TA1 3PF 26th July 7.30pm 01823 337477 www.creativeinnovationcentre.co.uk Ticket Prices: Adult £10/Senior & Student £8/ Child £6 *Gala Performance £15 to include buffet & glass of wine
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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
Lee Hodges
Lee Hodges
Performance Dates: Cygnet Theatre: 2nd- 6th July, 7.30pm & 2.00pm (Saturday matinee only).First Night: Pay What You Can on the door(min £2). TCAT Tiverton: 23 July 7.30pm TIC 01884 255827. Creative Innovation Centre, Taunton, 25 July , 7.30pm TA1 3PF 01823 337477www.creativeinnovationcentre.co.uk Ticket Prices: Adult £10/Senior & Student £8 Child £6.
A vibrant and varied programme of new theatre performance, music and dance at Cygnet Theatre, as part of the city-wide IGNITE Festival.
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THEATRE Exeter’s fringe seeks to highlight work going on at grass roots through to the very best of professional work and all available for £6.00 per show!
Performance Dates: Cygnet Theatre from 3 - 8 June All tickets are £6.00. Ticket deals available, see Ignite Festival website for details: www.igniteexeter.org.uk
The Hour of the Lynx Cygnet Company Directed by Alistair Ganley. Translated by Kim Dambaek
Performance Dates: 3 June 7.00pm, 4 June 8.00pm, 5 June 3.00pm, 8 June 7.00pm
Lee Hodges
A mystery: an enigmatic young man, an enthusiastic young researcher and a female pastor. ‘I like to imagine that he, in some way, cradled his head into God’s arm, lay there and purred a while, felt the hand that stroked him….’ A tautly written and delicately moving memory play with all the elements of a psychological thriller. The Hour of the Lynx is a powerful examination of guilt and the search for redemption by a young man who has killed in an unprovoked attack. Exploring the space just beyond the limits of our perception, the play tells of the mystical twenty-fifth hour, which, legend has it, belongs to the lynx, that most mysterious of cats. A rare opportunity to see celebrated Swedish playwright Per Olov Enquist’s compelling three-hander, which was first seen at the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh in 1990 and is soon to be released as a film.
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[WO]MEN
Blah de Blah Theatre Company [ WO]MEN is a high energy physical theatre piece about our misconceptions of men and women. From the ‘laddish’ and risqué behaviour of men, to the emotionally challenged states of women, we aim to break the boundaries of conforming to how society expects us to think and act.
Performance Dates: 7 June 9.30pm, 8 June 4.00pm
A Little Light Breathing By Rachel Besser Cygnet Company Director: Louisa J Wilde
A fly-on-the-wall drama, set in one afternoon in a headmistress’ office. A successful journalist revisits her teenage years at her girls’ school, confronting some painful memories and exposing some well-hidden truths. A topical play with a tenderness and a bitter bite, by an emerging local playwright. Performance Dates: 3rd June 9.30pm, 4th June 10.00pm, 5th June 10.00pm, 8 June 5.00pm
Vienna
Gerundagula Productions Late one November evening in 1989 Ultravox fan Barry visits his ex-girlfriend and is faced with a dilemma... What would Midge Ure do? In Vienna things don’t quite turn out as expected in an amusing tale of obsession by award-winning writer Mike Francis Carvalho. www.breathein.co.uk Performance Dates: 5 June 7.00pm 6 June 8.30pm 6
Double Bill: Evolving Motion & 3rd Stage Dance Company
Skirt
Evolving Motion Created and performed by Cathy Seago, Artistic Director Evolving Motion This solo work explores the performance, experience, and dancing of circles. The choreography weaves through the phenomenal, somatic and expressive ever-ringing inclination of spirals; and the tensions between stability and instability, as the forms reverberate through human structure, thinking and spirit. www.evolvingmotion.wordpress.com Performance Dates: 4 June 7.00pm, 5 June 8.30pm
Double Bill: Extracts from Piano Moves 3rd Stage Dance Company present ‘Extracts from Piano Moves’, showing short choreographic and music studies by Scolding, Turner and Bower, three very influential modern day composers, as well as several more compositions from Debussy, Schumann, Sculthorpe and Tiersen. Contemporary based with a classical twist showing romance, troubles and pure interpretations. www.3rdstagedance.com
3rd Stage Dance Company
3rd Stage Dance Company
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The Buttercup
Karla Shacklock Company Raw, charged and universally resonant, The Buttercup is a simple yet powerful story about hope - expressed through the body and a series of everyday, continuously transforming, objects. Using live music and set against a constantly shifting visual landscape, Karla gives a physical and evocative performance and bravely bares her soul as she breathes life into The Buttercup. Performance Dates: 7 June 7.00pm, 8 June 2.00pm
Alexandria
A collaboration between director Peter Cant and video artist Krzysztof Honowski. Constantine Cavafy remembers the illicit encounters of his youth. The hours spent in pleasure and in secret. The mythical cosmopolis of Alexandria, which was his… which has transformed into feeling. Amongst the ruins we build the house of discarded pleasures.
Dmitry Babichev Dmitry Babichev, an affectionately known member of the Plymouth world music scene, presents a unique collection of Russian songs, chosen to give English speaking audiences an unforgettable experience of melodious Russian romance and intensity. Performance Date: 6 June 7.00pm 8
Performance Dates: 7 June 8.00pm, 8 June 9.00pm
Nine Parts a Quaker
Plain Quakers Theatre Projects The story of Thomas Clarkson and the abolition of the slave trade. If the nineteenth century abolished slavery why are more than 20 million people enslaved today? To our shame the work of Clarkson, Wilberforce and others remains unfinished business: human trafficking and indentured labour proliferate everywhere. Does our lifestyle make us unwittingly complicit? Is there anything ordinary people can do to break the chains? The play asks the questions – who can provide the answers? Performance Date: 14 June 7.30pm Ticket Price: (Pay what you can on door - minimum £2)
Patterns
Directed by Sandra Loveday Performed by Emma Daw and Joe McNulty
Performance Date: 21 June 7.30pm Ticket Prices: Adult £10/ Senior & Student £8 / Child £6
Two detectives are hunting the man with the winning smile who gives lonely, middle-aged women the happiest six months of their lives. In this haunting new musical, composer Daniel Loveday explores alienation and loneliness in modern society where, with little social cohesion, people can easily fall under the radar.
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An Acting Life for Me?
Thinking of theatre? Want to be successful at auditions? Do you need to speak in public? Would you like to feel more confident in presenting yourself? Cygnet offers a range of courses for anyone over the age of 18 years. For more details please see www.cygnettheatre.co.uk or email cygnetarts@btconnect.com
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Reality Experience Professionalism
Full Time Cygnet’s unique ensemble training gives realistic experience from day one, and with a constant commitment to public performances produces actors with a high level of skill and confidence. The training covers all the basic essentials for a modern actor from voice work, movement, improvisation and characterisation applied to text, including additional specialist courses in Stage Combat, Dance, Radio, TV & film. Short Courses Two day short courses: Each week-end offers 4 workshop sessions exploring key approaches to voice work, movement, improvisation and characterisation applied to text. Each day will be a self-contained sequence of work, balancing learning with practical exploration and application allowing you to join in for a day or for the full week-end. 19 & 20 October / 16 & 17 November Cost: £60 1 day / £90 full weekend
Five day course: 5-9th August Cost: £295 (£250 if paid by July 1st)
Exeter Intensive Two week BADC certification course Monday July 22nd – Friday 2nd August 2013
This five day course will explore voice, scene work, character development, movement and improvisation leading to an informal showing of work in progress on the final afternoon.
R.C Annie return to the lovely Exeter (our second home) for our fourth Rc-Annie two week intensive at the wonderful Cygnet Theatre, Exeter (home of the Cygnet Training Theatre). Students really learn how to knuckle down and get to grips with the discipline of Stage Combat. Classes run from Monday to Friday, 9.30 till 6pm, for two weeks of intensive training.
This is an introduction to the types of work undertaken in a vocational training. There will be an opportunity to audition for the Cygnet Company to anyone interested. Get in on the ACT Become an Associate of Cygnet Theatre for £12 Benefits include: reduced ticket prices, invites to open rehearsals & assessment evenings Contact cygnetarts@btconnect.com for more information
The course will culminate with a BADC examination. A must for today’s working actor. For more details info@rc-annie.com
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Cygnet Theatre
New Theatre, Friars Gate, Exeter, Devon EX2 4AZ Theatre Hotline: 01392 277189 Exeter Visitor Information and Tickets 01392 665885 New website: www.cygnettheatre.co.uk email: cygnetarts@btconnect.com
Cygnet Training Theatre is a member of Drama UK Registered charity no. 1081824 Company no. 3905769
C C CYGNET THEATRE
Brochure design: Krage Design
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THEATRE IGNITE FESTIVAL The Hour of the Lynx Cygnet Company 3 June 7.00pm, 4 June 8.00pm, 5 June 3.00pm, 8 June 7.00pm A Little Light Breathing Cygnet Company 3rd June 9.30pm, 4th June 10.00pm, 5th June 10.00pm, 8 June 5.00pm Double Bill: Skirt Evolving Motion & Extracts from Piano Moves 3rd Stage Dance Company 4 June 7.00pm, 5 June 8.30pm Vienna Gerundagula Productions 5 June 7.00pm, 6 June 8.30pm
ALSO BRINGING THEATRE TO EXETER:
Dmitry Babichev 6 June 7.00pm Alexandria A collaboration between director Peter Cant and video artist Krzysztof Honowski 7 June 8.00pm, 8 June 9.00pm [WO]MEN Blah de Blah Theatre Company 7 June 9.30pm, 8 June 4.00pm The Buttercup Karla Shacklock Company 7 June 7.00pm, 8 June 2.00pm