Our Kids (1976)
by Improvisation
Where Are You Going, directed by Val Elliot Bi-Focus, directed by Mary Mawby & Mike Mawby
Performances: 28th & 29th May 1976, Prompt Corner
Contents
Introduction
OUR KIDS has evolved from the Saturday Workshops the majority of the company have attended since September, but the show has only been in rehearsal for the past two months.
What Are You Doing? is a set of extended exercises & Bi-Focus contains two separate improvisations. The dialogue has remained unscripted throughout.
Focus One - The men of the village are out hunting. The women await their return.......
Focus Two - The complex consists of scientists who set up experiments with varying balances of men & women in an earlier age. In City 483, the women rule & the men's faces are covered.
Thanks to our kids for their enthusiasm & loyalty & to their parents for their co-operation.
Cast
- Sharon Cobb, Susan Cobb, Denise Gerrow, Shirley Gerrow, Nikki Godman, Zoe Isaacs, Danny Kelly, Philip Parker, Kirsty Semple, Peter Tompkins, Sarah Tripp & Lesley Woodhouse
Crew
- Lighting Designer - Peter Boon
- Lighting Operator - George Batterick
- Sound Recording - Geoff Potter
- Sound Operation - Mike Mawby
- Set Design - The directors
- Props - The company
- Dance sequence - Alva Semple
Reviews
Some review quotes go here
WHAT THEY WERE DOING Not least of the virtues of South London Theatre Centre's Prompt Corner is its flexibility. Anything that might attract an audience is welcome to its turn: talks, wandering minstrels, plays traditional and experimental, even student exercises. At the weekend eight to 12 year olds of the Saturday Workshop took over giving a two-part show consisting of exercises from the sessions and two playlets based on improvisations. "What Are You Doing?" was a group of exercises directed by Val Elliott, and its title derived from a sequence in which the children in turn would ask the questions, whose answer would determine the next exercise. There was some vivacious work here, highlighted by a series of circus acts in mime, each one introduced by one of the two boys (the other ten performers were girls). There were creative representations of lion tamer, magicians, etc., but I thought more might have been done with the several appearances of the clowns. "Bi-Focus" directed by Mike Mawby, was an enactment of a pair of midget dramas whose subjects were worked out by the children themselves. In the first, the worshippers of the god Rahaa, preparing for battle, stage a content with staves (shades of Robin Hood) to decide who shall be chief. This piece, with colourful masks, was staged with a high degree of commitment, and the fight was hard and vigorous. Afterwards came a short piece set in a matriarchal society called The Complex. Again a leader is being chosen, but this time by election. The two candidates are each allowed a speech of one minute to urge their respective cases, but the second is assassinated before she can begin. The fate of the assassin is then decided by popular verdict. I liked the grim imagination of this piece, though I felt it did not quite succeed in involving the audience in the affairs of City 483. However, the evening as a whole admirably showed the scope of Saturday Workshop's activities. D.M. Presumably Donald Madgwick
Gallery
Reminiscences and Anecdotes
Members are encouraged to write about their experiences of working on or seeing this production. Please leave your name. Anonymous entries may be deleted.
After Medea (1975), I joined the SLTC's Saturday Workshop, aged 10. On Saturday mornings, my mum and I would walk from Streatham Hill to West Norwood. I loved the sessions, which lasted all morning - at least 2-3 hours I would guess. We did breathing and other drama exercises, and did bits of improvisation and drama. We worked in the big studio on the first floor, over the main stage - it was full of light, with windows on both sides. On the way home, we passed, and popped into, a sweet shop and a second book shop - which are lodged in my memory alongside SLTC. As well as Our Kids (1976), we also did a production in Prompt Corner in 1978 with Val Elliott, Mary Mawby and Mike Mawby and my memory is that we also did a another performance with these three in the open air at the Rookery on Streatham Common (I can't remember the year, perhaps 1977). I loved working with Val, Mike and Mary who were unwaveringly kind and supportive to us. My only real memories of this production, by which time I was 11 years old, are that we did a dance movement which was set to Bach's Third Brandenburg Concerto (as I later identified it), and I remember using wooden staves for the fight scene in "Bi-Focus". Philip Parker (cast member)
See Also
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Or add anything that is related within this site. The author's page for instance or other plays with a similar theme.
