Rough-Hewn Theatre Company

Middle Englandby Carla Kingham Tues-Sat, 7th Week (4-8th...

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:06:00 -0400

Middle England
by Carla Kingham

Tues-Sat, 7th Week
(4-8th June)
Burton Taylor Studio (Oxford Playhouse)

Tickets available now.

Production photography for The Winterling by Jez...

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:29:00 -0400

Production photography for The Winterling by Jez Butterworth.
Directed by Susanna Quirke.

Production photography for 1984 by George Orwell (adapted by...

Sun, 12 May 2013 14:14:36 -0400

Production photography for 1984 by George Orwell (adapted by Matthew Dunster).
Directed by Luke Rollason.

Video

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:38:54 -0400

The Winterlingby Jez Butterworth Tues-Sat, 4th Week (14-18th...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 19:44:00 -0400

The Winterling
by Jez Butterworth

Tues-Sat, 4th Week
(14-18th May)
O’Reilly Theatre (Keble College)

Tickets available now.

1984by George Orwell Weds-Sat, 3rd Week (8-11th May)...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 06:46:00 -0400

1984
by George Orwell

Weds-Sat, 3rd Week
(8-11th May)
O’Reilly Theatre (Keble College)

Tickets available now.

Stills photography from today’s trailer shoot for...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:03:35 -0400

Stills photography from today’s trailer shoot for Rough-Hewn’s
Darkness Visible
season.

Directed by Alexander Darby

Production photography for Bunny by Jack Thorne Directed by...

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 18:21:23 -0400

Production photography for Bunny by Jack Thorne
Directed by Tommo Fowler

BUNNY by Jack Thorne. 5th Week (12-16th February, 2013). Burton...

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 14:51:19 -0500

BUNNY by Jack Thorne.

5th Week (12-16th February, 2013).
Burton Taylor Studio, Oxford.

Illustration and animation by Joel Macpherson.

© Tom Edkins Films / Rough-Hewn, 2013....

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 21:12:00 -0500

Featuring ‘Kettering’ by The Antlers.
antlersmusic.com
[The Antlers are not affiliated with Rough-Hewn.]

*Very special thanks to OVADA and Ildiko Buckley & Jane Palmer for the use of their ‘YES’ installation.*

"I know of one acid test in theatre… When a performance is over, what remains? Fun can be..."

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 08:05:43 -0500

“I know of one acid test in theatre… When a performance is over, what remains? Fun can be forgotten, but powerful emotion also disappears and good arguments lose their thread. When emotion and argument are harnessed to a wish from the audience to see more clearly into itself - then something in the mind burns.”

- Peter Brook, The Empty Space (Penguin, 2008), p.152.

The Blasphemy that went around the World by David Ralf. I am an...

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 06:26:00 -0500

The Blasphemy

that went around

the World

by David Ralf.

I am an internationally produced playwright. My work has been performed across the UK, in New Zealand, Canada,and in the USA. This is true despite the fact that I have never been paid for my writing, or indeed, had a play produced in a theatre by anyone other than myself.

The explanation? Churches. I learned about theatre from watching and participating in biblical dramas in church halls, long before I habitually attended professional performances with plush cushioned seats and interval drinks. From them I still harbour a love of presentational and didactic drama. And, although I consciously rejected the faith many years ago, I still write sketches for my parents’ church, mostly for the Christmas carol service.

Why? Nothing holds me to it. I could certainly argue I don’t have the time or the inspiration, and guiltlessly deny my parents’ requests. But I don’t. And I write them for two reasons. Firstly, as Robert McKee argues, writers each have a little demon inside them that eats pages. I feel pleasure if I write and finish something, and especially if I know it will be performed. Second, I was satiated with these stories growing up, and I derive considerable pleasure from retelling them, even if the message is not one in which I still literally believe.

That said, I do stick in little jokes for my own amusement. I referred to the wise men as ‘fairy godfathers’ one year (that got cut), and this year I had an angel reflect drily, after being sent to wrestle Jacob ‘until daybreak’, that if he had free will, he might have thought about disobeying. Most of these things go unnoticed - if you’re watching a christmas drama in a church hall bedecked with tinsel, you tend to take the words as gospel. The faithful aren’t likely to interrogate them for facetious blasphemies, even if the speaker is wearing a white sheet and holding a flaming sword made out of cardboard. It was true of my first full-length play, set in New Testament times-

Another part of the yearly ritual is to make the dramas freely available online, and because of that my little blasphemies have travelled the globe. The most recent, penned but a few weeks ago, has had two performances in the UK and has appeared in a Salvation Army pamphlet (for the Kentucky/Tennessee division, don’cha know) of resources for celebrating the Christmas period in whatever style the Salvation Army habitually choose. A lovely woman kindly requested the use of the play, and she even sent me a copy of the odd document for my perusal.

Last week, however, I received one of those emails that checks ones confidence:

To Whom It May Concern:

We, of S—————- Baptist Church, S——————, Indiana, are performing the Christmas drama “God With Them” in our morning service on December 23, 2012 at 11 a.m est, if the Lord will. This play is being performed for the Glory of God and we appreciate you making it available for us.

God Bless You, Merry Christmas,

S—————- Baptist Church Youth Department

I don’t know if it was the textual tic ‘if the Lord will’, the serial-killer over-capitalisation, or the fact that this was to be performed by or to young people that might lack my sense of irony, but somehow it wasn’t funny anymore.

I have been aiding and abetting a religion for which I feel nothing. Oops.

David Ralf is a freelance playwright and collaborator with Rough-Hewn.

This blog is also available on David’s IdeasTap profile.

‘Joseph’ image © JupiterImages.

The 2013 'Stage 100'

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 06:15:35 -0500

The 2013 'Stage 100':

A bit late on this, but the theatrical elite of 2013 are now ‘official’ thanks to this year’s Stage 100.

Great to see that so many subsidised and regional theatres made it, particularly the first ever entry for Dan Evans at Sheffield Crucible and another high position for Jonathan Church/Alan Finch at Chichester Festival Theatre.

More designers on the list next year, perhaps…?

Auditions We are holding open auditions for the Rough-Hewn /...

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 09:57:00 -0500

Auditions

We are holding open auditions for the Rough-Hewn / Screw the Looking Glass co-production of Eight by Ella Hickson,
which forms the final part of the (un)familiar reflections season.

Auditions will be held at Worcester College from Monday to Wednesday of 1st Week (14-16th Jan.).

All you need to do is email Julia to arrange a slot, and prepare a short modern monologue.

"Art reimagines time and space, and its success can be measured by the extent to which an audience..."

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 06:46:00 -0500

“Art reimagines time and space, and its success can be measured by the extent to which an audience can not only access that world but becomes engaged to the point where they understand something about themselves that they did not know before.”

- Anne Bogart, And Then, You Act: Making Art in an Unpredictable World (New York: Routledge, 2007), p.12.

"Truth is, here we’re all disturbed."

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 19:38:00 -0500

“Truth is, here we’re all disturbed.”

- ‘ill Manors’ by Plan B

Plan B’s lyrics perfectly capture the ambivalence and hardened sarcasm of disaffected youth railing against a government which (rightly or wrongly) demonises them.

It is these themes which Jingan Young (Royal Court Young Writer) will use in our adaptation of Antigone. Along with director Marchella Ward and Tommo Fowler, she will seek to use the sheer energy of the 2011 Riots as a potent social background to examine the major tensions within Sophocles’ play.

‘ill Manors’ by Plan B on Vimeo.

Antigone
runs from 20th-23rd February, 2012 (6th Week, Hilary Term)
at the O’Reilly Theatre, Oxford.

We’re thrilled to be working with illustrator and animator...

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 10:51:00 -0500

We’re thrilled to be working with illustrator and animator extraordinaire Joel Macpherson, who will be creating the animated set for our production of Jack Thorne’s Bunny.

You can see a video of his above, or click here for more of his work.

Bunny is showing from 12-16th February at the Burton Taylor Studio, Oxford.

We are delighted to announce that Rough-Hewn’s second...

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 08:35:00 -0500

We are delighted to announce that Rough-Hewn’s second production of Hilary Term 2013 will be

Antigone

after Sophocles

20th-23rd February, 2013.
O’Reilly Theatre, Keble College, Oxford.

Antigone will be directed by Marchella Ward, and adapted by Jingan Young (Royal Court Young Writer) and Tommo Fowler.

"If we’re no longer a manufacturing country nor a power in the rugby world, let us for God’s sake..."

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:50:00 -0500

“If we’re no longer a manufacturing country nor a power in the rugby world, let us for God’s sake defend and celebrate the one field [theatre] in which we are undisputed world leaders.”

- Max Stafford-Clark
Artistic Director, Out of Joint
on the recent dispute over arts funding from the Government.

Letter published in The Evening Standard (November 29th, 2012).

The full text, also available on the Out of Joint website, reads as follows:

“The theatre needs champions at the best of times and this is clearly becoming the worst of times for the theatre, which needs its champions more than ever. I salute Nick Hytner for his leadership and Danny Boyle and Stephen Fry for their passionate advocacy in the face of slurs from ‘sources in Whitehall’ which have derided their criticism of government cuts as ‘ridiculous and infantile’. This in a week where the Culture Secretary suggests the theatre ‘must get better at asking’.

At the same time Newcastle City Council is proposing to cut all funding to the arts in the area (£1.6 million). Yet Live Theatre Newcastle which has been a regional and national leader in theatre under the inspired leadership of Max Roberts (PITMEN PAINTERS and A WALK ON PART are just two of their recent successes) calculates that for every pound invested in the arts in Newcastle and Gateshead £4 is generated for the local economy.

And Michael Gove is proposing to downgrade dance, music and drama by removing it from the English baccalaureate. We’re about to be whitewashed by the Southern hemisphere nations. If we’re no longer a manufacturing country nor a power in the rugby world, let us for God’s sake defend and celebrate the one field in which we are undisputed world leaders.”

New production ahoy!

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:16:00 -0500

We are delighted to announce that our next production will be Bunny by Jack Thorne (writer of Skins and Shameless).

12-16th February, 2013.
Burton Taylor Studio, Oxford
£6/5

Bunny won the coveted Fringe First award when it premièred at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2010, and we are excited to be reviving it in the coming year.

The production will be directed by Tommo Fowler.