Tea with Tamara

By Tamara Geisler 

 

Happy Friday!

Today we had a later start to the morning than usual and first on the docket was our small group tutorials. The tutorials are a chance for students to openly discuss any takeaways, questions and connections in our London experience thus far. My group discussed the excitement of learning new drama conventions and finding creative ways to implement previously used exercises. We ruminated on the realisation that Educational Theatre, as we know it, is a young discipline and that we are, at most, a generation away from the founding practitioners. In reality, we will be the new leaders of the praxis. What an exciting (and potentially daunting/intimidating) revelation/responsibility! 

 

After the tutorial I made my way to Covent Garden as we had a few hours break before our next workshop. I found a few cute vintage shops to explore.  All of a sudden, while at one called PICKNWEIGHT, (recommended FYI 😊) I heard alarms and several staff members running out the front door. A shoplifter had made a frantic escape! When I approached the door to snoop the action, I was promptly shooed away. ME! Shooed away in London! Talk about DRAMA!

“All sorts of shows for all sorts of kids!” 

We then had our main workshop of the day with Tim Webb, co-founder, CEO and artistic director of Oily Cart. A theatre company that “reimagines theatre to include all young audiences.” 

Oily Cart has become well known for making theatre accessible for very young children (under 2) and for individuals with complex learning disabilities (this seems to be the all-encompassing terminology for the UK). Webb and his team were the first to pioneer this type of work in the country. He shared images and videos of Oily Cart’s past production, which I found quite moving. The crux of the work is finding multi-sensory ways to engage different audiences. They are always looking for the kinaesthetic sense of the show; "the sense the body has to its position and movement in space".   The work is highly individualized. Oily Cart is constantly gauging their success by in-the-moment student engagement-- improvising and adjusting as the performance unfolds. “It becomes [the participant’s] show. We want them to feel that it is theirs. If they want it slower, faster, upside down, we would be flexible enough to do that for them”. 

Most importantly, everything is a choice for the participants. They only do what they want and feel comfortable with. 

"I split the check 11 ways..."

After the workshop a group of us ran over to “The Chambeli Indian Restaurant” for some Indian food!

After downing a delicious chicken tikka masala and some garlic Nan (and then breath mints) we made our way to the Royal Court Theatre to see “That Is Not Who I Am” by Dave Davidson. 

"A slippery new thriller..."

There’s not much I can say about the play that will make sense without seeing it. I will say that more people in our group bought the script for this play than any of the other 5+ shows we have seen thus far. I will also say that I believe plays like this are what theatre-making is all about. It was provocative, stimulating and subversive, making the audience question everything they know to be true. Do we get answers to our simmering questions? Tamara gives it a “highly recommended” or “must see”! 

Us spilling the tea 😉