University News Last updated 28 September 2009
Birmingham School of Acting (BSA), part of Birmingham City University, kicks off its 2009/10 performances in October with three very different Autumn Season shows, featuring the UK premiere of Milan Stitt's The Runner Stumbles. The Autumn Season not only provides an initial platform for the diverse talents of the School's final-year undergraduate actors, but also acts as a showcase for its staff.
Opening the Season in the Crescent Theatre's main house is William Shakespeare's classic comedy drama, The Winter's Tale, directed by Stephen Simms. Set in a contemporary art gallery, BSA's production explores the relationship between art and nature.
Director of the School of Acting, Stephen Simms recently returned from a sabbatical spent researching Shakespeare's works and the actor training techniques they demand. He states, "I now feel even more strongly that the experience of performing and watching Shakespeare is completely different to just reading it. Once an actor has absorbed the script, it is changed through the rehearsal process into something new. Performance doesn't just give us a version of the printed play, it transforms it into a completely new piece of art, with its own values and authority."
Running in the Crescent's Ron Barber Studio Theatre the same week is Christopher Hampton's guilty pleasure Les Liaisons dangereuses. The inspiration for the Hollywood film Dangerous Liaisons, it is directed by Danièle Sanderson, director of BSA's industry-accredited undergraduate acting course.
Les Liaisons dangereuses is set in 1780s France: while the poor rioted against heavy taxation to support French troops in America, the aristocracy led lives of decadence, with clothing, hair and make-up becoming ever more flamboyant. BSA's production draws parallels with the1980s - the decade when Christopher Hampton penned his version of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' novel of the same name.
In 1980s Britain, the booming economy created a top-heavy culture of excess, while rising unemployment gave way to social strife culminating in the riots in Toxteth and Brixton. Men listening to the New Romantics were wearing make-up, while women were power-dressing to compete in the boardroom. Britain experienced the ultimate in a woman playing a man's game in a man's world - the first female Prime Minister - while in the play the central character - the Marquise de Merteuil - acts just as ruthlessly and politically, but in an emotional domain.
The Autumn Season closes with a coup for the School and for Birmingham audiences: the UK premiere of Milan Stitt's critically acclaimed play, The Runner Stumbles. Milan Stitt, who died earlier this year, based the play on a real murder case from 1911, in which a Roman Catholic priest was tried for killing a nun in rural Michigan.
Although well-known for The Runner Stumbles - it succeeded on Broadway, was turned into a film and was revived Off Broadway two years ago - Stitt made perhaps his greatest impact as a supporter of young actors and playwrights. Founder and director of the play development programme at Manhattan's Circle Repertory Theatre, he also helped to start the Theatre's school for developing writers, actors and directors.
Befitting Milan Stitt's legacy, BSA's production of The Runner Stumbles will not only be given its UK premiere by aspiring professional actors, but will also feature original music by Andrew Ingamells, a third-year undergraduate composer studying at BSA's sister institution, Birmingham Conservatoire. Recorded by his student colleagues at the Conservatoire, Andrew's score assigns musical identities to important characters and events, whilst retaining a spare quality consistent with the emptiness of the Michigan prairie.
The Runner Stumbles is directed by Lise Olson, director of BSA's industry-accredited postgraduate acting course, and will be performed in the Crescent's Ron Barber Studio Theatre.
Bookings for all three plays can be made through the Crescent Theatre Box Office (T: 0121 643 5858 / www.crescent-theatre.co.uk). Tickets cost £7, with a concessionary rate of £5 available to over-60s, unemployed people and individuals booking in a group of five or more.