#nicholas ridout

[htr2a]

Benjamin Tod | Wyoming

Well men like me probably die alone With some broken dream on a dusty road And it may be sad but so is everything that’s true

"I wrote this song over a decade ago with all the nihilism and despair that came with my youth. It was recorded on an older Lost Dog EP with my late friend Nicholas Ridout accompanying me. It made it back onto ‘Songs I Swore I’d Never Sing’ being the realest example of the title. This song has been requested more than any other at shows or around the fire, but it never feels right to play without Nicholas. I thought the only appropriate placement for its return would be an album like this. It’s cyclical I suppose, given that this song probably inspired the concept of this album. The subconscious is a dark and mysterious place. I really couldn’t tell you either way."

[notesonopera]

"This ambivalence certainly characterizes my own relationship with the theatre. Theatre, being queasy, makes me queasy. That such queasiness is widespread, that we find theatre uncomfortable, compromised, boring, conventional, bourgeois, overpriced and unsatisfactory most of the time, is I think not only generally accepted as true, but also generally accepted as part and parcel of the whole business. Theatre’s failure, when theatre fails, is not anomalous, but somehow, perhaps constitutive. What I want to argue here is that it is precisely in theatre’s failure, our discomfort with it, its embeddedness in capitalist leisure, its status as a bourgeois pastime that its political value is to be found.

Theatre is a privileged place for the actual experience of a failure to evade or transcend capital."

– Nicholas Ridout, Stage Fright, Animals, and Other Theatrical Problems

[ubbim]

the last one

I’m gonna be totally honest here: I don’t think I understand postdramatic theatre. But at the same time I don’t think postdramatic theatre wants to be understood. If I’m just supposed to feel, why bother picking at the choices?

Nicholas Ridout’s reaction to Tragedia Endogonidia is so spot on to how I feel about so much of radicalized theatre. He’s watching the show, shaking his head, and thinking, “No. This is the no that dare not (quite) be yes, because what this actually expresses is that yes, I will go along with this” (Ridout 8). I think thru this course I’ve discovered is that I’m a words person. When I feel something, I really want to say how I feel. I chose to watch Avignon and I genuinely didn’t understand any of it. All that happened was at the end of watching it, I felt angry. But do I feel angry just because of the piece or because as a writer, I don’t understand how someone comes up with that. I understand that postdramatic theatre is supposed to somehow transcends “our own individual concerns” and make us feel “alongside, and among others,” but after watching Avignon, I felt alienated (8). However, I did show a clip to my roommate and while watching it with her, I did feel less alone. Theatre really isn’t the same without an audience.

From the plays we’ve read, I get the sense that tragedy is a reflection of what people are afraid of. Sophocles feared the government so he wrote Antigone and showed the world or anyone who would watch an extreme. That makes complete and total sense. Where I feel hazy is in the process of adapting. It seems like the people who create postdramatic theatre must be very much in tune with their gut reaction.

[littl3-willi3]

“And now I know there is two ways to be, live in love or die in misery”

Nicholas Ridout

[londontheatre]

London Musical Theatre Orchestra: A Christmas Carol

With the London Palladium re-establishing itself as the West End’s pantomime venue in the festive season, there are seasonal alternatives elsewhere in town. One of them is A Christmas Carol The Musical in Concert, which is a bit of a mouthful, but it is what it says on the tin. The 32-piece London Musical Theatre Orchestra, or LMTO to its followers, provides a relatively rare treat (these days, anyway) by performing a musical score with a sublime symphonic sound – and without a synthesiser in sight. Their principal conductor, Freddie Tapner, appears to have boundless energy, or at least a relentless one, enthusiastically driving proceedings with dynamic flair.

London Musical Theatre Orchestra: A Christmas Carol

Robert Lindsay reprises his Ebenezer Scrooge from last year. He is utterly suited to the role – well, roles, for the chief antagonist is (figurately) reborn: he puts on the ‘bah humbug’ persona as though the script was originally written with him in mind to play the part. It’s not often, for instance, that a singing child gets told to “shut up” in such a way that endears the audience further to what was still, at that point in the proceedings, a miserable man. The concert format necessitates the use of the audience’s imagination, though there were moments when I wished I was looking at a fully staged production, just to see how a choreographer would have tackled the big song-and-dance numbers.

The storyline is straightforward, and while a synopsis is provided in the programme, in any event, the plot is graspable for anyone who just so happens to not have encountered the story created by Charles Dickens before. Indeed, this concert would be a good way to introduce anyone, young or old, to this famous tale. There are no major surprises (or even minor ones, for that matter) and the familiar happy ending is a springboard to a joyous musical conclusion to send the audience out with warmth and positivity.

The sound levels were well adjusted from my dress circle vantage point, and some imaginative lighting accentuates the compelling performances. Sophie-Louise Dann’s Mrs Fezziwig came across as a tad over the top; overall, however, the casting was nothing short of admirable. Most vocally appealing were Lucie Jones as the Ghost of Christmas Future, and Nicolas Colicos as Fezziwig – the former simultaneously haunting and powerful, the latter filling the auditorium with likeable authority. I was also impressed by Cameron Potts as Fred Anderson, with excellent stage presence and a pleasant singing vocal that I only wish we could have heard more of.

The child performers do a sterling job. Jonathan (Aaron Gelkhoff), a boy in Scrooge’s neighbourhood, drew much laughter from the audience in his astonishment at Scrooge’s change of heart. Sylvie Irskine, playing Grace Smythe, and Ivy Pratt, doubling up as Fan and Martha, are given opportunities to shine. Perhaps inevitably, though, Tiny Tim (Tobias Ungleson, reprising the role from last year) is given slightly more prominence. All, commendably, deliver their lines with clarity and confidence.

I certainly enjoyed it the second time around more than I did the first. I wonder if this production could become a regular seasonal feature, building on previous performances year after year, as The Snowman does over at the Peacock Theatre. A marvel and a delight.

Review by Chris Omaweng

After a sell-out five-star concert production of A Christmas Carol last year, London Musical Theatre Orchestra returns to the Lyceum Theatre for two performances only on 11th and 18th December.

The show stars critically acclaimed multi-award-winning actor Robert Lindsay (My Family, Oliver!) as Ebenezer Scrooge. He is joined by Olivier-nominees Sophie-Louise Dann (The Girls, Made in Dagenham, Lend Me a Tenor) and Michael Xavier (Into the Woods, Sunset Boulevard). The cast is completed by Glenn Carter (Jersey Boys, Jesus Christ Superstar), Nicolas Colicos (The Bodyguard), Lucie Jones (2017 UK Eurovision entrant), Rebecca Lock (Mary Poppins), Hugh Maynard (Miss Saigon) and Gemma Sutton (Gypsy).

Charles Dickens’ classic gets the full Broadway treatment by the award-winning team of Alan Menken (Beauty and the Beast), Lynn Ahrens (Ragtime) and Mike Ockrent (Me and My Girl).

Cast: Glenn Carter, Nicholas Colicos, Sophie-Louise Dann, Lucie Jones, Robert Lindsay, Rebecca Lock, Cameron Potts, Hugh Maynard, Gemma Sutton and Michael Xavier.

The concert includes the LMTO Chorus comprising of: Paul Bradshaw, Christopher Cameron, Lucy Carne, Elissa Churchill, Beth Clarence, Rhiannon Doyle, David Fearn, Owen Gardiner, Austin Garrett, Barry Keenan, Laura Messin, Terri O’Ryan, Rebecca Ridout, Tim Southgate, Charlotte Vaughan and David Zachary.

CREATIVE TEAM  Conductor: Freddie Tapner Director: Shaun Kerrison Sound Designer: Nick Lidster for Autograph Lighting Designer: Mike Robertson

London Musical Theatre Orchestra presents A Christmas Carol Lyceum Theatre 21 Wellington Street, London, WC2E 7RQ 11th Dec 2017 and 18th Dec 2017

http://ift.tt/2Ac8cnU London Theatre 1

[cristinacusani]

Fraction is very pleased to announce Fraction 98.

Nine years ago, Fraction launched with the simple idea of showing the best work in emerging, contemporary photography. Ninety-eight issues later, we push on with just that; the best work.

It is truly important to thank those who make Fraction possible every month and I would also like to send our sincerest thanks to all of the photographers who have appeared in Fraction over they years: thank you for trusting in Fraction and letting us show your beautiful, thought provoking work.

For the 9th anniversary issue, we bring you 98 photographs from more than 1700 that were submitted. We hope you enjoy them.

David Bram Editor-in-Chief

The 98

Patricia Ackerman, Samin Ahmadzadeh, Ben Arnon, Anne-Laure Autin, Fatemeh Baigmoradi, Andrew Beckham, Dave Bennett, Giulia Berto, Michael Borowski, Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin, Johnny Brian, Barney Britton, Greg Brophy, Jessie Bruah, Pablo Charnas, Tony Chirinos, Troy Colby, Xavier Cortial, Cristina Cusani, Zsuzsa Darab, Jack Deese, Benjamin Dimmitt, Alex Djordjevic, Nina Weinberg Doran, Aaron Dougherty, Rebecca Drolen, Sean Du, France Dubois, Meghan Duda, Julia Dunham, Leah Dyjak, Yorgos Efthymiadis, Enrico Markus Essl, Sarah Fahlin, Barry Falk, Nicholas Fedak, Matthew Finley, Daniel George, Juan Giraldo, William Glaser, Conner Gordon, Kris Graves, Elizabeth Greenberg, Amanda Greene, Pepe Guinea, Tytia Habing, Liz Hickok, Jamie Ho, Kevin Hoth, Sarah Jamison, Jocelen Janon, Ellen Jantzen, Sandra Jetton, Ron Johnson, Kevin B Jones, Svetlana Jovanovic, Rachel Jump, Jason Koxvold, Ashley West Leonard, Kuba Los, Kon Markogiannis, Anne Arden McDonald, Dimitri Mellow, Nicholas Meyer, Diego Morena, Laura Noel, Samantha Obman, Suzanne Revy, Jeff Rhode, Tom Ridout, Ilisa Katz Rissman, Lissa Rivera, Fabio Miguel Roque, Denis Roussel, Shawn Rowe, Catie Colvin Sampson, Andi Schreiber, Jeanene Scott, Mankichi Shinshi, Nick Simko, John Steck Jr, Deb Stoner, Michael Sullivan, Jane Szabo, Jennifer Timmer Trail, Txomin Txueka, Preston Utley, Joesphe Vitone, Ira Wagner, Nichole Washington, Rebecca Webb, Sandra Chen Weinstein, Vincent Wern, Wendell White, Emily Wiethorn, Julia Wilson, Peter Ydeen, Hajime Yoshida

[stressfm]

  "But having made it my Business to get the best Information I could in a Matter of this Moment, I find that the Trunk-maker, as he is commonly called, is a large black Man, whom no body knows. He generally leans forward on a huge Oaken Plant with great Attention to every thing that passes upon the Stage. "

The notion of the public sphere, as famously put forth by Jürgen Habermas, is commonly tied to a certain idea of 18th century Western Europe - of merchants and the bourgeoisie hanging out in coffee houses rationally discussing the politics of the day, either face to face or through the emergent written news and literate media. 

One of the protagonists of this historical account is The Spectator, a daily London publication which at its height may have had an extremely wide audience and whose influence is crucial to the emergence of Europe as we have come to imagine it.

"It has been observed, his Blow is so well timed, that the most judicious Critick could never except against it. As soon as any shining Thought is expressed in the Poet, or any uncommon Grace appears in the Actor, he smites the Bench or Wainscot. If the Audience does not concur with him, he smites a second Time, and if the Audience is not yet awaked, looks round him with great Wrath, and repeats the Blow a third Time, which never fails to produce the Clap. He sometimes lets the Audience begin the Clap of themselves, and at the Conclusion of their Applause ratifies it with a single Thwack."

  Dr. Nicholas Ridout, whose work is concerned primarily with a political understanding of the theatrical event as an instance of cultural production, delivered an astounding and sharp account of another kind of imagining of the European public sphere at the final Keynote Session of the Indirecções Generativas / Generative Indirections international performance studies meeting, in Montemor-o-Novo, this September 2013.

Taking as a premise one of Joseph Addison's texts in The Spectator, Nicholas Ridout points to the presence in the text of an important anomaly, a strange attractor, the figure of the Black trunk-maker-turned-theater-critic who makes an appearance at the very heart of the mythology of the European white and middle-class public sphere.

Connecting this analysis with the Epistemologies of the South which have framed the meeting, Dr. Ridout shed light on and wondered about the many paradoxes and mysteries of the historical accounts of Europe and its hidden multiplicities.

[punkrockdoll]

My favorite busker in Pike Place...something I miss dearly about living there.

This man and his music can keep me glued to one spot...something that this restless soul enjoys once in a while.

[jacobwren]

McKinnie points out that the theatre is an economic subsector in which work is clearly alienated. Picking up on this perception one notes how the employee’s time is regulated with rigorous force by bells and curtains, how both the rehearsal process and the nightly routine of performances are dominated by repetitive activity, how wage levels are set in structures of extreme differentiation, how these are maintained by a huge pool of surplus labour which renders effective industrial organization impossible, and how the core activity itself is both a metaphor of alienation and alienation itself: the actor is paid to appear in public speaking words written by someone else and executing physical movement which has at the very least usually been subjected to intense and critical scrutiny by a representative of the management who effectively enjoys the power of hiring and firing. The actor is both sign and referent of the wholly alienated wage slave.

Nicholas Ridout, Stage Fright, Animals, and Other Theatrical Problems

[jacobwren]

This ambivalence certainly characterizes my own relationship with the theatre. Theatre, being queasy, makes me queasy. That such queasiness is widespread, that we find theatre uncomfortable, compromised, boring, conventional, bourgeois, overpriced and unsatisfactory most of the time, is I think not only generally accepted as true, but also generally accepted as part and parcel of the whole business. Theatre’s failure, when theatre fails, is not anomalous, but somehow, perhaps constitutive. What I want to argue here is that it is precisely in theatre’s failure, our discomfort with it, its embeddedness in capitalist leisure, its status as a bourgeois pastime that its political value is to be found. Theatre is a privileged place for the actual experience of a failure to evade or transcend capital.

Nicholas Ridout, Stage Fright, Animals, and Other Theatrical Problems

[notesonopera]

"McKinnie points out that the theatre is an economic subsector in which work is clearly alienated. Picking up on this perception one notes how the employee’s time is regulated with rigorous force by bells and curtains, how both the rehearsal process and the nightly routine of performances are dominated by repetitive activity, how wage levels are set in structures of extreme differentiation, how these are maintained by a huge pool of surplus labour which renders effective industrial organization impossible, and how the core activity itself is both a metaphor of alienation and alienation itself: the actor is paid to appear in public speaking words written by someone else and executing physical movement which has at the very least usually been subjected to intense and critical scrutiny by a representative of the management who effectively enjoys the power of hiring and firing. The actor is both sign and referent of the wholly alienated wage slave."

– Nicholas Ridout, Stage Fright, Animals, and Other Theatrical Problems

[londontheatre]

Glenn Carter

London Musical Theatre Orchestra have announced the full casting for the 2017 production of their spectacular concert version of A Christmas Carol, which returns by overwhelming popular demand to the Lyceum Theatre in London after a five-star sell-out performance last year, with two performances of the festive favourite at 7.30pm on 11th and 18th December. Tickets are on sale now.

Now confirmed to star alongside previous names announced are: Olivier Award nominee Sophie-Louise Dann (Lend Me A Tenor / Made In Dagenham / Bend It Like Beckham The Musical / The Girls) as Mrs Fezziwig, Glenn Carter (Jersey Boys / Jesus Christ Superstar) as Marley, Nicholas Colicos (Kiss Me Kate / Mamma Mia! / The Producers) as Mr Fezziwig, Rebecca Lock (Mary Poppins / Mamma Mia!) as Mrs Cratchit and new-comer Cameron Potts as Fred Anderson / Young Scrooge.

Alongside the newly announced cast members, multi-award-winning stage and screen actor Robert Lindsay (Citizen Smith / My Family / Wimbledon / Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) returns to the role of Ebenezer Scrooge. Robert will be joined by Lucie Jones (2017 UK Eurovision entrant / Les Misérables / We Will Rock You) as Emily / the Ghost of Christmas Future, Hugh Maynard (The Lion King / Miss Saigon) as the Ghost of Christmas Present, Gemma Sutton (Gypsy / The Go-Between) as the Ghost of Christmas Past and Olivier-nominee Michael Xavier (Prince of Broadway / Into The Woods / Sunset Boulevard) as Bob Cratchit.

The concert includes the LMTO Chorus comprising of Paul Bradshaw, Christopher Cameron, Lucy Carne, Elissa Churchill, Beth Clarence, Rhiannon Doyle, David Fearn, Owen Gardiner, Austin Garrett, Barry Keenan, Laura Messin, Terri O’Ryan, Rebecca Ridout, Tim Southgate, Charlotte Vaughan and David Zachary.

Charles Dickens’ classic novel gets the full Broadway treatment by the award-winning team of Alan Menken (Beauty and the Beast / The Little Mermaid / Aladdin), Lynn Ahrens (Anastasia / Ragtime / Seussical) and Mike Ockrent (Crazy For You / Me and My Girl). This joyous musical extravaganza ran every Christmas for ten years at New York’s Madison Square Garden, where The New York Times called it “a tonic for adults, and for children a transfixing journey”.

The London Musical Theatre Orchestra is conducted by founder Freddie Tapner, who said: “We’re delighted to announce our full cast today. I’m particularly excited that real-life husband and wife, Nicholas Colicos and Sophie-Louise Dann, will play Dickens’ famous married couple, Mr and Mrs Fezziwig. In total, there will be a company of over 60 performing this gorgeous Alan Menken score on the Lyceum Theatre stage. I can’t wait for our audience to hear the show – just three weeks to go!”

CREATIVE TEAM Conductor: Freddie Tapner Director: Shaun Kerrison Sound Designer: Nick Lidster for Autograph Lighting Designer: Mike Robertson

Listings Information: Dates: 11th and 18th December 2017 Show: London Musical Theatre Orchestra: A Christmas Carol Venue: Lyceum Theatre Address: 21 Wellington Street, London WC2E 7RQ Time: 7.30pm (2 hrs – including 20-minute interval)

http://ift.tt/2zsXflj London Theatre 1