Friday, June 19, 2009

And the winner is...

The last couple of days have seen the theatre foyer filled with excited groups of secondary pupils from schools across the city, who were competing in the Citizens Theatre Society's 2009 15 Minute Shakespeare Competition.

A judging panel of Directors and theatre professionals from the Citizens and TAG, were joined by two very special guests from Chicago, visiting artists, Meade Palidofsky and Khanisha Foster.


Back L-R: Roddy Macpherson (Citz Chair), Neil Packham (Community Drama Director), Louise Brown (Drama Project Worker). Front L-R: Kathleen Hamilton (Citizens Theatre Society), Meade Palidofsky (Visiting Artist), Jeremy Raison (Joint Artistic Director) and Khanisha Foster (Visiting Artist).

On Wednesday we welcomed students from S1-3 from the following schools:

Bannerman High School - Scenes from Macbeth
Hillhead High School – 3 scenes from A Midsummer Nights Dream
Jordanhill High School - Act 2 Scene 3 & Act 3 Scene 1 from Much Ado About Nothing
Saint Paul’s High School - Edited scenes from Act 2, scene 1, scene 2 and Act 3, scene 1 from A Midsummer Nights Dream



Lower Secondary Competitors

The prize was awarded to Bannerman High School. This is the second year running that Bannerman have won in this age group.


Bannerman High School collect their award

On Thursday we welcomed students from S4-6 from the following schools:

Knightswood Secondary School - Act 5, scene 1 from A Midsummer Nights Dream
Saint Margaret Mary’s Secondary School - Act 1, scene 2 from King Lear
Saint Paul’s High School – Edited scenes from Act 1 scene 1 and Act 3 scenes 4, 6, 7 from King Lear
Shawlands Academy - Act 1, scene 3 and Act 4, scene 1 from The Merchant of Venice


Upper Secondary Competitors with Baillie Liz Cameron

Judging was particularly difficult in this section, with the panel requiring extra time to debate the decision. The award was finally presented to St Margaret Mary's Secondary School.


St. Margaret Mary's - Upper Secondary Competition winners

A special guest Baillie Liz Cameron appeared for the Thursday competition and offered words of encouragement to all.

The standard of entries was excellent this year and we'd like to say a massive well done to all student and teachers involved.

Great work. We look forward to seeing you next year!

Hx

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

15 Minute Shakespeare Competition

Each year the Citizens Theatre Society run an annual secondary schools' competition called 15 Minute Shakespeare, where, guess what...each school performs any 15 minutes of any Shakepeare play they wish, either in one complete section or a number of scenes.

The winning schools in two age groups will be presented with a Quaich of Words. Both of last year's winners Bannerman High School and Knightswood Secondary School are back with a vengeance to compete again.



The final preparations will be well under way in each of this year's competing groups:

Wednesday - Lower Secondary School
(1st to 3rd Year)

Bannerman High School
Hillhead High School
Jordanhill High School
Saint Paul’s High School

Thursday - Upper Secondary School
(4th to 6th Year)

Knightswood Secondary School
Saint Margaret Mary’s Secondary School
Saint Paul’s Secondary School
Shawlands Academy

Good luck to all schools involved!
I'll post info about this year's entries later in the week.

Hx

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Liar wins CATS award.

TAG's production of Davey Anderson's Liar, won the award for Best Show for Children and Young People 2009, at today's CATS awards in Edinburgh. This co-production with Sounds of Progress was well represented with lots of the team present.



Well done to everyone involved in Liar, and to all the other nominees from the Citizens Theatre.

Brilliant!

Hx

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Museum of Dreams workshop photos

To accompany our production of Museum of Dreams we have had teams out in Primary Schools delivering lovely workshops about the show. The lucky students even got to make puppets. I think I'm going to have to go and find the puppet template to make it myself.





Hx

Thursday, May 21, 2009

4 stars for Museum of Dreams

Joyce McMillan from The Scotsman has given our new show 4 stars in today's Scotsman:

"MUSEUM OF DREAMS

True love certainly conquers all, though, in TAG's new children's show Museum Of Dreams, presented in a gorgeous little hexagonal space specially created in the main rehearsal room of the Citizens' Theatre. A curtain opens, and an excited audience of around 20 children are welcomed by a middle-aged caretaker (Keith Macpherson) who shows off his five exhibits, displayed in glowing old-fashioned glass cases around the walls. There's a chair, a violin and banjo, a pair of tap shoes, an old-fashioned gramophone, and a mysterious box; and after the keeper nods off to sleep, a puppet girl in a yellow dress emerges from the box, and dreams and reality – puppet world and real world – begin to merge in ever more exciting and magical ways.

Somewhere at the heart of this lovely show, there's a metaphor about friends or lovers finding one another despite coming from very different worlds. But whatever you make of the slightly sentimental happy ending, Ailie Cohen and Guy Hollands's production is an absolutely enchanting magic toybox of a show, a child's dream come true; and it makes a brilliant curtain-raiser to next week's Imaginate children's festival in Edinburgh, where it plays at the Brunton as part of the usual thrilling international programme for audiences under 16."




Photos by Eamonn McGoldrick

Read the full review which also features 4 stars for Ghosts (Citizens Theatre) here. Info about Museum of Dreams here.

Hx

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Award Nominations

Liar, our co-production with Sounds of Progress, written by Davey Anderson has been nominated for the Best Show for Children and Young People at this year's CATS Awards (Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland).







Photos by Eamonn McGoldrick

The Citizens Theatre is also up for the following:

Sub Rosa
Best New Play
Best Production
Best Director
Best Technical Presentation

The Sound of My Voice
Best Actor (Male) – Billy Mack
Best Design – Jason Southgate & Graham Sutherland

You can read full details of nominations here. Well done to all nominees.

Hx

Monday, May 18, 2009

Fixed

Our web designers/hosts assure us that all problems with our website have now been fully resolved.

If you are still seeing any warnings it's just because Google haven't yet re-trawled our site. This should right itself shortly.

All's well, that ends well.

Hx