Theatre Arts Are Top Performing
19 February 2007
Masks expressing emotions formed part of the recent Geese Theatre workshop.
Theatre Arts has been achieving a very high standard of success since the single honours degree was launched three years ago.
”Ava Hunt
It’s been a busy time for Theatre Arts students at the University of Derby as they prepare for the curtain raiser to their latest productions.
This week, a number of final year students, who have formed a company called Outlandish Theatre Productions, present a play version of Babylon Heights at the Derby Playhouse Studio.
The show runs from tonight until Wednesday, from 7.45pm each night and centres on the lives of four actors from the Wizard of Oz film. Locked away in their squalid accommodation, the actors who played the part of the film’s Munchkins became the centre of rumours, bad press and urban legends.
The play focuses on one such legend; that of a deceased Munchkin actor hanged on the set, where it is claimed that if you look carefully on an earlier edition of the film, you can see the body hanging. The plot follows the actors as they interact, leading to the inevitable conclusion.
Later this week at the Playhouse Studio, from Thursday to Saturday, also at 7.45pm, are the rest of the third year Theatre Arts students, who have formed the group Just Desserts, and will be performing Moira Buffini’s modern play, Dinner, a sharp-witted dark comedy set during a surreal dinner party which takes a turn for the worse as the evening progresses.
It’s been a busy year for the whole course which prepares to move from its existing base at our Mickleover Campus to the new £20m Markeaton Street building in September. In order for the students to lay on public plays from next academic year, it will feature auditoriums, retractable seating areas and off-stage facilities.
Markeaton Street will form part of the new University Quarter being developed in the west end of the city, which will also feature Kedleston Road and Britannia Mill. Our provision at Mickleover is being sold for housing development.
University of Derby Theatre Arts Lecturer Ava Hunt said: “Theatre Arts has been achieving a very high standard of success since the single honours degree was launched three years ago.
“This has been achieved through a wide range of high quality and unique learning opportunities, and the last few weeks have been no exception.”
Elsewhere on the course:
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First year students on the course took part in a critical evaluation of the annual pantomime staged by Nottingham Playhouse. This year’s offering was Cinderella, and the students got the chance to work with actor and cast member John Elkington to critically evaluate the play.
Nottingham Playhouse spokesman Derek Graham said: “We have been working with the University of Derby to offer this pantomime evaluation opportunity for a number of years now and once again the standard of feedback and involvement was excellent. It provides a good opportunity for students to learn even more about life in theatre from the professionals.”
- Second year students recently took part in a workshop with Dr Dorothy Heathcote, a pioneer of using theatre in education. Dorothy received an honorary degree from the University last month for her pioneering work.
- Second year Playwriting students workshopped their plays for a week before excerpts were performed by first year students at Mickleover in January. The second years have started work on their production of Gas Station Angel which they will perform in the Darwin Suite at the Assembly Rooms in June – at the same time as the third years will present their Festival of New Theatre Writing, Under the Skin, at the same venue during the day.
- And third year students have also taken part in a workshop with Birmingham-based Geese Theatre, an organisation which lays on performances and skills-based workshops in prisons and other institutions housing offenders.
Tickets for Babylon Heights and Dinner are available from Derby Playhouse, on 01332 363275.
For more details about Theatre Arts opportunities at the University of Derby, visit www.derby.ac.uk/adt
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For more details contact Simon Redfern, Senior Press and PR Officer, University of Derby on 01332 591942, or email s.redfern@derby.ac.uk.
