Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  Rhiannon
LINKS:
  • Home
  • About
  • Dates
  • Writing
  • Shows
  • Teaching
  • Gallery
  • Video
  • Physical Theatre
  • Dissidents
  • Flashmobs
  • News
  • Blog
  • Contact

An exciting 2019!!!

8/12/2018

0 Comments

 

via GIPHY

Camden People's Theatre have released details of their Spring programme and there is lots to look forward to on their programme and I am so excited to be part of it with The Promised Land in April! Wooohooo! It's so nice to be able to finally talk about it!

Scott Swinton will be joining me for The Promised Land.  We will lengthen the show from 35 minutes to an hour!  So it will be wonderful to do some more writing and add more detail.  I've had lots of lovely feedback from Dare Festival audience and you asked for more songs and more trauma!  OK, then..

Until then, check out the ticket website here and let me know if you have any fantastic fundraising ideas! :-)

R x


Thanks to ClickskaPhotographer for capturing the show so wonderfully in the images below.



0 Comments

Let's Talk about Post Show Blues

4/12/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Dissidents performing Voodoo Child

It is the same every time..you've been working on a show for, possibly months, and towards the end it gets really INTENSIVE.  There are more rehearsals and meetings and even when you are not rehearsing you are sorting costume and sorting your arrangements for the busy performance days.  The show literally..

takes

over

your

life.


The other cast members or members of the team have become more like family, in fact, you are spending so much time with them that you start to notice their annoying habits as well as their good ones.  In those days leading up to a performance, especially with larger casts, things can get fractious but even when this happens there is still a sense of solidarity as we are all in this together and the show must go on...

Before you know it, its the day of the performance and you are high running on an intoxicating combination of nerves and adrenaline.  You are  

                                      in the zone

and even the most annoying cast members with their bizarre dressing room rituals, which can range from some form of tai chi to yodelling (and sometimes a combination of both!) cannot and will not put you off.

via GIPHY

Once the performance is over you can ride high a little longer with after show drinks or possibly a last night party and maybe you are feeling very slightly relieved and that combined with alcohol is doing wonders for your mood.  So you have a great time with your long suffering loyal supporters and you make joyful tipsy plans into the wee hours about further
                                                         drinks,
                                               parties,
                                and shows.

The next morning you wake up and you are too exhausted to be sad but very soon it's Monday morning and you suddenly realize you have to face the week ahead without any scheduled rehearsals and no shows at all. 

Picture
Grace Kemp in Baby (2016)
 You had forgotten how it feels until the moment it strikes, but when it comes back you remember this oh so familiar feeling.  The despair, the will I ever perform again feeling, the is it all worth it mood and why do all the other performers have lots of work already and I'm just refreshing my inbox.

via GIPHY


Yeah, the blues are back and when we say blues, what we mean is a sadness that invades our life for a little while.  A sadness that things have come to an end and a sense of missing those people who we saw more often than our own family, for a short time anyway.  The point is we go from such intensity of rehearsals, tech, dress and then the performance days and then, well sometimes,





                                    N O T H I N G







We talk about post show blues and kind of laugh it off as something inconsequential but it is something that as a performer you have to learn to deal with.  For performers with mental health conditions, the highs and lows of an artist's life may need more careful consideration and support.

via GIPHY

However, I do need a bit of wallowing time, a space to evaluate why I am in this position and what I need to do next and to get over myself!
For me the nothingness of an empty space, a rejection, a failed funding bid,  countless e-mails that don't get replies, all of that which is negative, actually spurs me on.

via GIPHY

In 2013 I made a show with 40 volunteer performers from the Olympic and Paralympic games.  It was a massive show and was performed at The Place in January 2014, as part of Resolution festival. 


15,000 volunteers. 
4 Olympic/Paralympic ceremonies. 
Housewives, teachers, bankers, became drummers, dancers,
nurses, and workers of the Industrial Revolution.

40 ceremonies performers explore how they live on, now 2012 is over.

  
The Legacy was basically a show about post show blues on mass; as it was about how the volunteer performers felt after the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games finished.  Despite the joyous experience and community it was celebrating, it was a really somber show until the final closing moments.

For me, there was a beauty in exploring that dark place that exists when things come to an end and looking at what the experience leaves behind and what 2012's legacy was to the performers.

Tips for dealing with Post Show Blues

  • Plan for cast drinks/meetup a month after the show.
  • Use any free time to reflect on what you enjoyed or didn't about the experience and what you would like to do next. 
  • Start applying to do more creative things!
  • Enjoy the free time and relax, go shopping and calls friends you haven't called for a while, go to the cinema and make the most of it.
  • Focus on long term planning of your career beyond the next show.

Despite always feeling that you will never work again, before you know it, the next theatrical experience is upon you and the cycle is about to begin all over again!!

Do comment below and let us know about your post show blues experiences.   I would love to write more on this subject in future so do get in touch.

Links:
Some great books about dealing with the life of an actor/performer.

The Actor's Life: A Survival Guide
Actors and Performers Yearbook 2018
Overcoming Stage Fright: Discover How to Get Over Stage Fright in 5 Easy Steps
0 Comments

    Rhiannon's Blog

    Work:  The Promised Land (2018), Mr President (2018), Voodoo Child (2017), The Last Dance on Earth (2016), Baby (2016), The Legacy (2014) and She Walks in Beauty (2011). Performance maker and teacher.
    Rhiannon's Facebook Page

    Picture


    I am a Voodoo Child! T-shirt now available.

    Picture
    T-shirt shop
    https://dissidents.teemill.com/
    Picture
    Subscribe to my news!

    Subscribe to our mailing list

    * indicates required

    Archives

    October 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    September 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.