Et Tu: Sebastian & Petruchio @ Briefs!

Thank you to everyone who was involved with our very successful live performance of Et Tu: Sebastian & Petruchio at Briefs XVI. It was an incredibly fun experience for us from writing, through casting, directing, rehearsals and performance.

One of the hightlights was working with the exceptional actors: George Turner and Jonathan Edward Cobb. Absolutely cracking!

Here are some great photos (by Shaun Kitchener) from the dress rehearsal.

(Note the socks).

(Well, love often needs a drink)

(You’re still talking? Still here? Well fine. We’ll sort it out then…)

This was a bit of an experiment for us, playing with how in a new writing night how this work would fit but the feedback we got was great – including people who didn’t necessarily know the characters.

Thanks to Shaun and West Avenue Theatre Company for producing the evening and all those lovely people we had in the audience. It was an experiment well worth doing and we enjoyed the journey as much as the outcome.

Both of us are still bubbling with warm and fuzzies.

Stay tuned for further Et Tu news and developments!

xx

First Rehearsals for Et Tu!

Here, enjoy some sneaky pictures of rehearsals for Et Tu: Sebastian & Petruchio.

The first of which started our new favourite hastag #SociallyAcceptableManspreading!

Also featuring in this rehearsal – a director with script fanned out across the floor in an appropriate manner and a writer who used hers as a plate for biscuits.

Such intensity!

Thanks to Jon and George for a wonderful first rehearsal – it was a joy to see these characters leap off the page and onto the floor.

Don’t forget you can see them on stage next week (April 5th Waterloo East Theatre in #Briefs).

 

The Ides! The Ides! The Continuing Relevance of The Soothsayer.

Don’t want to stress you out but this it’s the Ides of March and you’d better beware of your besties and their swords if you’re a general with eyes on a greater throne. Listen to your people.

The Soothsayer In Souliloquy from In Souliloquy on Vimeo.

And then reflect.

Does this piece have more meaning at this time of year? Has our shifting political context given new understanding to these words? Where does this voice sit in our collection?

The continuing relevance of your work is something we writers of theatre think a lot about. There is a tendency in the ‘New Writing’ scene (particularly in London) to write contemporary, immediate and responsive work to the world we are currently experience – which is great. But the cute satirical short play ‘Flood’ I wrote a couple of Australian Prime Ministers Ago doesn’t really belong on a 2017 stage.

I’ve been lucky enough to have had the same work performed more than once and it’s fantastic. I LOVE IT. ‘Fresh Legs’ was produced in both 2015 and 2016 and was an absolute joy to watch develop with both production teams. I think a writer should embrace the form and part of the form is for a work to exist in many different ways.

Theatre is also is about revisiting texts. It’s about rediscovering the new in performance and about interpretations. Nothing is fixed and it can and should exist in many forms. We are looking to explore how this can manifest digitally (see Snout!).

With Shakespeare we get a lot of productions of a lot of texts. This of course means we get snooty critics getting hot under the collar about casting or people getting political about the use of lighting in a traditional space – but it also means we can do ALL of this and more. There are post-colonial versions, queer reinterpretations, puppetry – we might be celebrating 401 years this year but these texts are so alive.

So are ours. We hope. Not just on the Ides.

This year alongside making new work well be revisiting some of our existing texts #InSouliloquyRevisited and continuing to play and develop what Digital Theatre can mean.

Meantime rewatch Chris Rogers’ great performance as the Soothsayer and think about that lost Empire and what we live now.

x Tilly x

 

 

#ShakesHead – A New Selection!

AHA what have we here – a brand new selection of our rather silly and rather cute instacomic #ShakesHead

To big?

Just right!

Shared pain.

How many references do you need to hit the joke?

We are having a lot of fun with this – come follow us on @insouliloquy and contact us if you have any ideas.

x

Four Cycles Down!

For the past few months I’ve been re-releasing our Souliloquies on my personal blog with some notes on the writing, performance, process etc. It’s nice to take the time to not only share a bit more of the process but also think back and reflect on the intensity of production and how far we came across the four cycles.

Today I shared Don John our final souliloquy from the 4 2016 Cycles – it feels appropriate to mark the occasion with a reflective blog because it is pretty momentous. We produced 24 original new pieces of writing in 6 months! From the idea right through the writing, casting, direction, filming, editing, release and all the associated social media and admin – that is a lot of work. It’s quite satisfying as a writer!

You can check out the blog about Don John here  – and click on through for other insights about the other characters across our 4 cycles – they’re all there!

Interestingly, Don John was a character I had expressed an interest in writing way back in Cycle 1 but he kept getting bumped down our spreadsheet. He doesn’t say much and the productions I had seen pitted him as a very panto villain but we were determined to do him at some point and this was last chance saloon.

Boy does he kick down those doors and hold you up!

Thanks to everyone who has watched our 2016 Cycles – here’s another chance to dive in and sample a few more – discover new sides to loved characters or find out about someone you didn’t know existed.

Tilly x

 

Introducing #ShakesHead and @insouliloquy on instagram!

As part of our continuing management and growth of this platform we have diversified our social media to instagram – we have the same handle as our twitter @insouliloquy and are already busy posting #behindthescenes photos, stills and various bits and pieces from existing and new work.

Both of us love instagram. It’s a platform we enjoy as well as twitter – so please come check us out. One of the key pieces of new content we are launching on this platform is #ShakesHead – a talking heads doodle web comic with Shakespeare’s bust and Yorick having a rather one sided conversation. It’s pretty simple but totally cute.

#ShakesHead One.

At the moment it’s very low tech, non-fancy but we shall see how it develops as we potter along. #ShakesHead is a little ambitious – certainly in terms of zines.

We will be cross posting, some of the content here to the blog – collating a (optimistically) weekly #ShakesHead blog post for example. In the mean time – we’d love to see you there!

xx

In Souliloquy – 2016 by Numbers!

When people ask us about 2016 and what we achieved it’s often quite overwhelming to communicate the scale of In Souliloquy and the amount of work we actually did across the year. This started as a little project and has evolved into anything but that – although at it’s core it remains essentially what we set out to do. To celebrate Shakespeare, his work and to reclaim the voices of characters lost in the plays and time since.

We’ve grown too, as producers and artists. Our vision has opened up and we are very excited to bring new creations to you in 2017.

Thank you to everyone who has collaborated with us this year, your time, talent and work has been essential to the ongoing success of this project. Thank you to those who voted on that terrible website, supported by viewing our videos and put up with us talking Shakespeare all the time. We are pretty chuffed with your support and confident we can reward it by continuing to make good art (hat tip Neil Gaiman) this new year.

Big love and a whole lot of gratitude,

Tilly and Victorine xx
(V&T)

 

Snout Updates & Festive Greetings!

Important news to share in for our ongoing Snout project and how you can be involved. What initially started as a one off cycle has expanded into an ongoing project. Thank you so much for your support and enthusiasm!

We are:

Making a stop motion animation with the penguin above. Wilston as he is known is our worldly representative from Antarctica. As much as we anticipate working with people from all over the world (yay!) – we thought we’d cover the big ice-y south continent.

Having said that if you know someone working down in Antarctica, or living anywhere who is a performer who might be interested in contributing to our #WallForAll – we would LOVE to be put in touch to continue building this project. We are looking for more collaborators and people interested, the more diverse and varied the better.

Our next batch will be released in early 2017 but we are looking for people interested beyond that.

This project was always about connecting people but we are now actively pitching it as a narrative disrupting-art-winning-unite-the-world thing. What better way to continue the celebration of Shakespeare’s work than to make new work inspired by one of his most beloved characters that links us all in new ways.

Big love for the holiday season!

xx

Tilly and Victorine.

 

Snout In Souliloquy – Gui Agustini – New York.

Snout In Souliloquy – Gui Agustini – New York from In Souliloquy on Vimeo.

A Wall for All. Built by Gui Agustini, New York, USA.

Snout In Souliloquy (after William Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream).
Written by Tilly Lunken
Produced by Victorine Pontillon and Tilly Lunken

Performed and self filmed by Gui Agustini.
Music: MY INSPIRATION by AShamaluev.

Gui Agustini was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. His father, a plastic surgeon, is Peruvian and his mother is Argentinian. Some unusual accomplishments in his life were: being nationally ranked Top 80 as a tennis player and getting a tennis scholarship in the US; getting a 4.0 GPA in his Freshman year; learning French in 4 months; as an actor, being nominated to the Irene Ryan’s Award for his role of Hal in Picnic – his first play in America. Gui speaks fluently 3 languages – Portuguese, Spanish and English – and knows the basics of French.

He began his professional career as an actor and model in Venezuela, while also being projected to the neighboring countries such as Colombia and Ecuador. He trained as an actor at the Miami Acting Studio for 2 years, and at the Tom Todoroff Conservatory in NYC.

Snout In Souliloquy is a continuing international digital theatre project celebrating artistic connection and collaboration across the world. #WorldStage

Snout In Souliloquy – Christina Jolie Breza – New York.

Snout In Souliloquy – Christina Jolie Breza – New York from In Souliloquy on Vimeo.

A Wall for All. Built by Christina Jolie Breza, New York, USA

Snout In Souliloquy (after William Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream).
Written by Tilly Lunken
Produced by Victorine Pontillon and Tilly Lunken

Nicasio Zanetti: DP
Hannah Rose Deflumeri: AD
Gui Agustini: Editor
Song: Vivaldi Four Seasons (Winter)

Christina graduated from University of North Florida where she earned her AA degree in English, then went on to graduate from Florida Atlantic University with a Bachelor of Arts Magna Cum Laude in performance, combat, and make-up design. Christina has extensive training in across the board acting techniques. She recently graduated from a two-year acting conservatory in NYC. Christina has also been honored and blessed to have studied intensively under Aaron Speiser, Lenard Petit a Michael Chekhov specialist, Andrew Wade, Anthony Meindl, Chuck Cooper in a Musical Theatre Workshop, Tim Carroll and Daniel Davis for Shakespeare Technique.   

She has put her training to good use by starring in multiple indie films, producing indie shorts with her husband and starting their production company “PowerCouple Productions” She has also performed in the off-Broadway Traveling Company of “Tony and Tina’s Wedding.” Other stage work includes, Sylvia in “Sylvia,” Columbia in “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and Sister Prejean in “Dead Man Walking.” Christina is an all around actor with a broad range of abilities including choreography, combat, and makeup design. She has a passion for fashion with her costume design and deep knowledge of dramatic history.

Snout In Souliloquy is a continuing international digital theatre project celebrating artistic connection and collaboration across the world.