Directors Acting: Process and People - The Trainers

Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale are the Joint Artistic Directors of Shared Experience Theatre Company. Shared Experience is known the world over for its imaginative and highly visual productions combining the power of the spoken word with daring theatricality.

Actress/Director/Teacher of the Meisner Technique

"The Meisner Technique is a valuable tool for unlocking impulse and spontaneity on the stage. Kate Maravan is a first rate teacher; encouraging, specific and methodical in her approach. When I studied with her I felt that within a short space of time, I had a clear grasp of all the basic principles of Sandford Meisner's process."

Dominic Cooke - Artistic Director Royal Court Theatre

Meisner described acting as 'Living truthfully under an imaginary set of circumstances'. The core exercises of Meisner technique aim to develop a moment to moment truth in performance, enhancing the actors ability to listen and respond. It encourages an increased capacity for spontaneity and a discovery of what lies beneath and beyond our habitual responses to the environment and the other. A Meisner Technique directing course gives directors the opportunity to step into the actors shoes and experience an introduction to the technique with a focus on the primary Meisner exercise 'repetition'. This will then be applied to work with text. The emphasis will be on learning to be present in the moment, listening and resisting the need to 'act'. Unseen texts will be used in order to make discoveries in the doing, avoiding pre determined decision making.

Kate Maravan trained at RADA and works as an actress and writer. She trained as an actress in Meisner for many years and started teaching Meisner seven years ago. She teaches regularily at the actor's centre and has taught for Living Pictures and at the Institute of performing Arts in Paris.

Mike is the Founder of Shared Experience Theatre Company and Method and Madness Theatre Company. He is an award winning director with seasons at the RSC, RNT and Globe Theatre amongst many others.

Mike takes directors through a process that aims to (a) encourage the actors to meet the world of the play experientially and (b) to allow them the greatest possible creative freedom within it. The work is shared through physical exercises and analytical work using one of Chekhov's plays. Mike's new book: Different Every Night is now available from Nick Hern Books.

Christopher Heimann is a theatre director, acting teacher and workshop facilitator. His stage plays Food and 100 (which he directed and co-wrote for his company theimaginarybody) both won the prestigious Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Festival and have been invited to theatre festivals around the world. Christopher has directed productions at the Young Vic in London and the Traverse in Edinburgh. He teaches acting and improvisation at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and has run workshops in a wide range of settings incl. Big Issue Foundation, Young Vic, Actors Centre London and Brunel University. His work in corporate facilitation includes events around communication, behaviour, creativity and team building, for clients including HM Revenue & Customs and Orange.

Christopher's teaching work focuses on improvisation and the Michael Chekhov acting technique. The improvisation work aims at rediscovering the actor's natural playfulness by connecting with the body, the imagination and our acting partners - while also looking at the blockages that can get in the way of the natural flow.

The Michael Chekhov technique (developed by Stanislavski's master student and lead actor at the Moscow Arts Theatre, Michael Chekhov) is an intuitive approach that gives the actor practical tools to engage the body and imagination in the creative process. Given that Chekhov's own background was with Stanislavski, this approach complements the Stanislavski technique very well.

Bella Merlin is an actor, writer and trainer of actors. She studied at the State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow under the tutelage of Albert Filozov (Moscow Art Theatre-trained), Vladimir Ananyev (Moscow Theatre of Clowns) and Katya Kamotskaya (now at Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama). The bias of Bella's work is Stanislavsky's Active Analysis and psycho-physicality, whereby the script, characters and scenarios are investigated through the absolute attention to each actor's movements and inner processes without ever taking the script on to the rehearsal room floor.

Acting work includes THE PERMANENT WAY, SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER and ALAUGHING MATTER, all co-productions between Max Stafford-Clark's Out of Joint company and the National Theatre.

Books include BEYOND STANISLAVSKY: THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL APPROACH TO ACTOR-TRAINING (Nick Hern Books 2005), KONSTANTIN STANISLAVSKY (Routledge Performance Practitioners, 2003),and THE COMPLETE STANISLAVSKY TOOLKIT (Nick Hern Books, 2007).

Bella has run workshops for actors, directors and teachers at the Actors Centre in London, the National Theatre, various schools and universities, and in Poland, France, Australia and Japan. She has also lectured in Drama at Birmingham University, and currently teachers SPOKEN TEXT IN PERFORMANCE and THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL ACTOR at Exeter University. She is also a singer-songwriter.

Bella introduces directors to psycho-physical aspects of acting processes drawn from Stanislavski, Michael Chekhov and Jerzy Grotowski to build a strong ensemble and a sense of play. The latter half of the week takes various dialogues to explore Stanislavski's rehearsal practice of Active Analysis. This practice is improvisation-based, and aims to produce interaction between actors which is vibrant and honest. This is a challenging, but playful approach to text and performance.

Upcoming projects: Now or Later by Christopher Shinn, Wig Out! By Tarell McCraney (Royal Court Theatre autumn season 2008).

Royal Court Theatre: (Artistic Director 2007 - present) Fear & Misery and War & Peace by Mark Ravenhill (part of the Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat Cycle of Short Plays),The Pain and the Itch by Bruce Norris, Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco in a translation by Martin Crimp. (Associate Director 1998 - 2002) Identical Twins, This is a Chair (co-directed with Ian Rickson), The People Are Friendly, Plasticine, Fucking Games, Redundant, Spinning Into Butter, Fireface, Other People.

RSC: (Associate Director 2002 - 2007) Noughts & Crosses (RSC), which Dominic also adapted from the novel by Malorie Blackman, Pericles, The Winter's Tale, Postcards from America, As You Like It, Macbeth, Cymbeline, The Malcontent. Season Director of New Work Festival 2004 and 2005. Assistant director 1992-93.

Other theatre includes: By the Bog of Cats (Wyndham's); The Eccentricities of a Nightingale (Gate, Dublin); Arabian Nights (Young Vic/UK and world tour/New Victory Theatre, NY); The Weavers, Hunting Scenes From Lower Bavaria (The Gate); The Bullet (Donmar); Afore Night Come, Entertaining Mr. Sloane (Theatr Clwyd); The Importance of Being Earnest (Atlantic Theatre Festival, Canada); Caravan (National Theatre of Norway); My Mother Said I Never Should (Oxford Stage Co/Young Vic); Kiss of the Spider Woman (Bolton Octagon); Of Mice and Men (Nottingham Playhouse); Autogeddon (Assembly Rooms Theatre).

Opera includes: The Magic Flute (WNO); I Capuleti E I Montecchi, La Bohème (Grange Park Opera).

Awards include: Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director 2006 for The Crucible; Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival 2006 for The Crucible; TMA Award 2000 for Arabian Nights; Fringe First Award 1991 for Autogeddon; Manchester Evening News Award 1990 for The Marriage of Figaro.

Katie Mitchell is an Associate Director at The Royal National Theatre. Her training has been in classical theatre and The Stanislavski System. Katie's workshops concentrate on textual analysis, research and the preparation of practical exercises for rehearsals. Initially participants will be learning Katie's method as actors. Following this participants will have an opportunity to try out the work as directors and will be asked to direct a piece of text/exercise which Katie will observe and give feedback on.

John co-founded Trestle Theatre Company and directed most of their work until 1992, when he co-founded Told by an Idiot. His many productions include Aladdin, Don't Laugh it's my Life, On the Verge of Exploding and Hamlet, Richard III and The Changling (Third Party Productions). His awards include Hong Kong International Festival Best New work award for Shooting Sons, Time Out Award for The Edge and the Guardian and Sunday Times Awards for She'll be Coming Around the Mountain.

Approaching the Text - is about exploring the text before learning it and Evolving a Text - exploring ways of making a play and evolving that text. You will learn and practice techniques that John uses in his work, look at approaches to a modern text, to a Shakespeare text and devising new work.

His Book - Why is That so Funny? Can be found at Nick Hern Books.

Lilo was born in Switzerland and is a resident of England and France. She is a European actress, director and teacher having worked in England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Greece and amongst her freelance projects she collaborates with Peter Brook.

As an actress she has worked with such directors as Katie Mitchell, Richard Oliver, Simon McBurney and Peter Brook. She is best know for playing Lucy Cabrol in Complicite's internationally acclaimed production of The Three Lives of Lucy Cabrol directed by Simon McBurney, for which she won the Dora Canadian and the Manchester Evening News Best Actress Awards.

Her workshops aim to find the playfulness in theatre. Children express their emotions (anger, joy, sadness, love) openly and fully. When you see children from different countries meeting for the first time, you realize how they immediately create their own language, their own code. They talk and play with each other through their new found rules and through their physicality. Via games and improvisations we aim to re discover the child in us and the openness to dare again. A teacher of Lilo's once said: 'The physicality is like the body of a king and the text is his crown'.

Lilo is a long-term member of Complicite and as an actress/collaborator she has been involved in nine productions which include; The Visit, The Street of Crocodiles, Help I'm Alive, The Winter's Tale and Lights.

For the last five years she has been collaborating with Peter Brook and his Company at the Theatre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris. Her work there includes; playing Gertrude in Hamlet, as a collaborator on Fragments (based on the texts of Samuel Beckett) and as an assistant director on WARUM WARUM (in German)

Her most recent work as a director FISH LOVE in Paris (from Chekhov's short stories) was a huge success - 'It's the most enchanting thing on the Paris stage. Baur brings the staging and physical style of acting, which brilliantly captures the charm and the atmosphere and an authentic Chekhovian fragrance.' Bloomberg press April 7 2008 ****

Her other directing work includes - I SVENIMIENTI in Rome- (3 short Chekhov plays in versions by Meyerhold), Une Puce A L'Oreille, The King Stag, Cuina i Dependencies (an adaptation of Cuisines et dependences) for the Theatre Micalet of Valencia, Spain, Roi Cerf, De Carlo Gozzi and Shakespeare's Winter's Tale for the Theatre Amore of Athens.

She has also worked as movement director on Simon McBurney's The Chairs, The Caucasian Chalk Circle (RNT)

Other work includes: the Narrator in the Saint Sebastian by Debussy with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In France, Honorée par un Petit Monument, Alice in Wonderland, Pleure Pas Gilbert! (Avignon's Festival)

Her work in films and television include; Justin Chadwick´s Bleak House, Peter Yachts' Don Quixote, David Yates´ The Way We Live Now, Fredi Murder's Vollmond, The Devils Arithmetic by Donates Deitch, To the Wedding and Crazy Night for the BBC and the film Bridget Jones' Diary.

Ian was Artistic Director of the Royal Court Theatre between 1997 and 2007. In that time, he directed a series of new plays by writers including Joe Penhall, Jez Butterworth, Conor McPherson and Rebecca Gilman. He has recently directed Beckett's KRAPP'S LAST TAPE with Harold Pinter and Chekhov's THE SEAGULL.

In July, his production of THE HOTHOUSE by Harold Pinter opened at the Lyttelton Theatre, and it was from this play that he worked during the week, sharing some of the processes and exercises he uses in rehearsal.