A Conspiracy Of Clowns

And that, as they say, is that. Another closing night, we’re pleased to say another standing ovation, and now Pictures 0f You rests until June and the NAF.

It’s been a great 2 week return season – we fell agonisingly short of our ambitious audience target, but audience turnout and response has been awesome.  What’s really great has been people returning 3 or 4 times, and still enthusing. Love it when a show touches the audience in such a way.

Without hardly missing a beat, we turn to QUACK! for Out the Box, then 2 brand new pieces in April/May. Whoo hoo! The year unfolds magnificently…

Unbelievably, we are down to the last few shows of Pictures of You at the Baxter.  These 2 weeks seem to have flown by.

It’s been so awesome to have a return season – another first for us. Back when we were planning it, we all felt that 2 weeks would be enough, but by the evidence of things now, we’re starting to wish we’d made that 3. The buzz is back, the word is out, and audiences have been streaming through the doors. Our “Tuesday is Twos-day 2 for 1 special” has been particularly successful – seems everyone loves a special, and it looks set to become an institution for us.

Reviews have been good too – we thought we wouldn’t get any this year cos of a media blitz last year, but come they have.

The Writing Studio said: "If you’re looking for a magical visual experience that flirts just at the edge of reason, you’re in for a treat. Ready…engage right brain hemisphere…go!" 

The Citizen said: "a remarkable theatre experience: unnerving,funny and poignant."  

Artslink called it "phenomenal". 

Bizcommunity said: "…this is a show that you have to watch if you have only a the tiniest bit of respect for the performing arts." 

And Cape Times said: "the actors perform with the stilted gestures of arthritic robots…vapid staginess…typicality, stock situation and allusion: they suggest a director who doesn’t observe people and uses style to not get real."

Heh. At least it can’t be said that we don’t provoke a reaction!

Ends this Saturday at the Baxter Golden Arrow Studio. This will be the last of Pictures of You in Cape Town for no doubt a long time, so we’re going all out to end in conspiracy stylee!

Vluit-vluit doe storie’s uit!  Yep – Pictures of You gets 2 nods for the 2009 Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards: firstly, Janni Younge (who seems to be an awards magnet right now – rock on!) is nominated in the category for Best Props and/or Puppetry Design for the masks, and Rob Murray is nominated for Best Lighting Design.  We’re pretty stoked, as you can imagine, here at Conspiracy HQ, and look forward to the swanky gala affair on 21 March at the Baxter Theatre.  Keep ‘em crossed!

And, if that’s not enough, Janni is also nominated in the same category of Best Props and/or Puppetry Design for the masks for QUACK! and for the puppets in The Tempest. Seems like its her category this year!  How cool is that?  And how cool is it that visual theatre is finally getting the attention it deserves? Right on Fleur du Cap, and right on cape Town!

For a full list of all the nominations, check here at Artslink. Congratulations all for a bumper year and see y’all at the Awards Evening.

And…we’re up! All official like! So official that we even had Helen Zille, the Western Cape premier, her entourage (think that’s the first time we’ve hosted bodyguards…I mean, executive security…now what did they think of the show?!), some members of parliament, members of the consulate, all FTH:K’s executive committee/advisory board, and development committee in the house. (It’s awesome having these kinda VIPs around – everyone’s so blasé, like: “oh Helen Zille, yeah,  big deal”…but come the night, and everyone’s suddenly muscling in on photos and chatting up a storm. It’s great. You gotta love humans some days. We might be kak at too many things, but delicate, fragile, heart-warming humanity will always out.)

Liez and Dorian responded with a great show for the expectant audience – still shaving time off, and getting slicker and smoother every performance without losing the gritty heart that has always been at the core of Pictures. And then all mingle-mingle, wine-quaff, snack-chow, kak-pratery…and plans and conspiracies tiptoed into the night. Love it.

Actually, I don’t always love it. Openings can be quite hard work. But, like Tink said, this one is slightly different, because it’s a return season I guess. It’s not a new show, or new cast or anything, but a “back by popular demand”. So there were many new and different people at the opening, as the usual suspects have already seen it once or twice. And that gave it an interesting dynamic. And we had a blast!

Anyhoo, we’re up, on the planks, open, charting our course for the stars again.

Thanks to all who came to watch for the first, second, third or fourth time…you guys rock!

Unbelievably already, we only have 9 shows left. Madness!

So, we return to the Baxter with Pictures of You.  The upstairs foyer is in renovation, as it is turned into a rehearsal room – which is good for the Baxter. Makes for an interesting front of house as it gives a real buzz going into the theatre with a bit of backlog as opposed to how it used to be with everyone milling about. Always a good thing to have a buzz going in.

Had a weird get-in/preview – we kept tripping the lights for some reason. High voltage? Static electricity overload? Are the nerves or excitement getting too much? Not really nervous…we’ve done Pictures so many times now, the nerves are the nerves of getting ready for an audience, not the “omigod omigod are we ready?!” type.

Isolated the electrical problem to damaged wire connections, just before we opened the house. Previews have gone well – finding our rhythms onstage, chopping time off the show again. It’s become a tight, pretty slick ship now…quite some distance from the scruffy beastie we began with.

And so it’s onwards and upwards to the opening…

With just under a week to go before returning by popular demand to the Baxter, we have a number of awesome ticket prices, as well as a fantastic special offer for readers of this blog.

A quick run-down of the pricing structure -

• Mondays: Baxter Mondays (light meal + show) = R60
• Tuesdays: “Twos-days” – 2 tickets for the price of 1 = R75 (for two tickets)
• Wed-Thurs: R75
• Fri-Sat: R95

There are also discounts for block bookings, disability concessions, the Deaf, pensioners, students and scholars.

But…to cap it all off, we have an incredible deal for readers of this blog!  That’s right – for a measly R50, you get a ticket for any performance, other than the Monday and Tuesday specials…that’s a saving of up to 48% on the weekends.  Crazy! 

How do you organise this?  Easy.  Just contact the Baxter Box Office, and quote the code “CONSPIRACY OF CLOWNS’ et voila!  You are the happy owner of one of the hottest tickets in town! 

Pictures of You, 1-13 February at 20h15 nightly.  Don’t miss it!

Welcome to 2010 everybody, and apologies for the radio silence – the conspiracy has been resting, lying low, dreaming their dreamy little dreams…

This is gonna be a year to remember – there’s a great feeling about 2010 all round, and we are excited and buzzing with nervous energy!  Keep an eye on this blog ‘cos there’s some excellent news and special offers coming your way real soon.

But to kick start the year, we are overjoyed to welcome a new member to the  conspiracy…drum roll…introducing the dynamic and awesome Ms Emile Starke! A young theatre maker/designer/performer extraordinaire, Emilie is most welcome to the conspiracy and we are rubbing our hands together excitedly as we anticipate huge things from her and with her.  Read her profile here.

OK, keep an eye out for the next few days…there’s a cool special offer for Pictures of You coming your way.

Enjoy it guys.  2010…it’s gonna be a rush!

This from the BASA website for all writers and commentators on SA theatre:

Submissions are invited for a special edition of the South African Theatre Journal (SATJ) on “Movement and Physical Theatre in South Africa.”  The edition will be edited by Marié-Heleen Coetzee and Marth Munro.

Central Thrust of the special edition:
This edition is devoted to work that speaks to and engages with the domain of Physical Theatre as well as movement as it pertains to performance, the performative, the expressive and the aesthetic, in the South African context. Such a South African context can be seen as a geographical, cultural, historical, demographic, gendered or age related context. To this end the following sub-divisions are demarcated:

Sub-division one: Reading Movement and Physical Theatre
In this sub-division the contributions will speak to and engage with systems documentation, of analysis and of research in the field; philosophical and/or aesthetic considerations in such work; historical and/or developmental strategies in the work (both across time and in particular context), and related matters within the South African environment.

Sub-division two: Creating Movement and Physical Theatre
This subdivision is devoted to the reporting on and documenting of products and processes that arise out of Practice-led Research, Practice as research, Arts Based Research and related approaches and that engage with movement and Physical Theatre activities in South Africa.

Sub-division three: Training Movement and Physical Theatre
The central thrust in this section is around the Pedagogy and Methodology in the related areas and domains, including systems of training, development, applications in applied theatre contexts, the interface with educational prerequisites and strategies, and related matters, in the South African context.

General: There will be a general sub-division that will accept limited contributions based on related matters to the major edition theme but are not catered for in the first three subdivisions.

Performance Text: The journal also calls for submissions of movement-based performance texts that have been created and/or performed in South Africa, or about South Africa, wherever such performance texts fall in the movement/physical theatre continuum. These texts will be peer-reviewed.

Reports: Critical reports on current movement and physical theatre productions will be considered for publication in this edition.

Call for Peer Reviewers: An invitation is also extended to those who might wish to be considered as possible peer reviewers – If you wish to be considered as a peer reviewer, please submit your CV and your field of interest to the editors by 15th January 2010. Should you be interested in submitting material or to act as a peer reviewer, please take note of the foreseen timeline:
26 Feb 2010 - Final deadline for initial submissions
10 March 2010 - Submissions out to peer reviewers
30 April 2010 - Return first peer review reports to editors
17 May 2010 - Reviewed submissions back to authors to rework
12 June 2010 - Reworked submissions back to editors
30 June 2010 - Reworked submissions back to peer reviewers if necessary
15 July 2010 - Second round of peer review reports back to editors
1 August 2010 - Second round of comments from reviewers back to authors
15 September 2010 - FINAL deadline for reworked submissions
15 November 2010 - All material from editors to SATJ team for final check and submission to printers

Please note that all correspondence regarding to, and submissions for this thematic edition of the SATJ must be submitted to both of the following email addresses:
Marie-Heleen.Coetzee@up.ac.za
marth.munro@gmail.com

For the full text, including instructions to authors etc, go here.

Don’t you just love those brief moments of synchronicity that pop out of nowhere? 

So, Neil Coppen posts this on his FB profile, and cos he’s an all round visual and theatrical magician, of course that’s an open invite to watch…and then get struck by the echoes and similar themed images in the short film with what we’ve been doing with QUACK!

The Forest (conceived, written, directed, and animated by one David Scharf for his Diploma thesis at Augsburg University) tells the story of Antonia, a young sassy 12 year old girl who daydreams herself away into a magical forest to escape the hassles in the real world. 

Sound vaguely familiar?  Too right!  And you should check out the imagery in the film and see there’s an incredible overlap between some of the imagery we’ve been playing with – imagination/fantasy vs reality, sucking out brains/soul/life force, and a strong need for independence and individuality.  Love it.  Love synchronicity and shadows!

Fab theatre maker friends from Joburg have just released the trailer for their show High Diving which made such a big splash (ooh, is that a horrible pun?  I surely couldn’t have been the first to do that…) at National Arts Festival and also Hilton Festival, and have no doubt will rock all of SA.  Shadow puppets for the show were designed and made by Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year for Theatre, Janni Younge. 

To my shame I missed it at both festivals, but here’s hoping to see them in Cape Town real soon, or at very least to return to NAF next year.  Please?!

Jenine Collocot, Deborah Da Cruz, James Cairns, Toni Morkel, Roberto Pombo, and all behind the scenes – rock on!  Awesome trailer!