The Hamlet ProjectThis is a featured page

hamlet skull
hamlet skull
This project is The Factory's inaugural production and started rolling on the 3rd January 2007. It has taken up every Wednesday night since and a 4 week summer residency with The Centre of Excellence for Training in Theatre at The Central School of Speech and Drama.

The purpose of The Hamlet Project was to allow a collective of actors and various directors to explore Shakespeare's Hamlet in ongoing regular workshops culminating in a production.

This 'Rolling Rehearsal' allowed the actors to explore, study and play without the pressure of a fixed rehearsal period, or approaching performance dates. Only once it became clear that the group would benefit from such pressure and an audience was desired did The Factory make moves to organize public performances.

These are now taking place every Sunday in many venues across London and soon, perhaps, a wider area.

This project is the brainchild of director Tim Carroll.

In 2006 he directed a production of Hamlet in Budapest. Other than the part of Hamlet, every actor learnt at least two parts. The audience and chance-selection dictated the different casting permutations each night. The only props used were items brought in that night by the audience members, who could sit anywhere they chose in the space. The result was a production that was free-moving, fresh, and entirely different every evening.

As standard methods of staging are obviously not applicable to such a production, we wanted to see what can be gained from working with a variety of directors, and encouraged an environment where the work could be explored from any angle and was open to a variety of different styles and working methods, particular to each individual collaborator.

All work undertaken was done so on the understanding of all collaborators, that any direction / rehearsal that occurs was done so for the deepening of the group's experience of the play, but in all likelihood may not / will not make it to any 'final version' of the production in performance, as in essence there is no 'final version'.

Essentially we are talking about a piece of work that is free from traditional devices such as blocking and allocated casting, yet by no means aims to disregard the work of rehearsal with any director, but simply allows the discoveries and knowledge gained through the process as a whole to inform each individual and unique performance that will inevitably occur each evening.

Tim Carroll instigated and led the primary workshops . Various directors and collaborators visited to explore with the company before TC oversaw the transition to public performance in September '07.

The nature of this undertaking allows all actors to maintain an ongoing relationship with the project, but takes into consideration the real-world priorities of paid-work.

All involved see this as an opportunity to engage on an ongoing basis with work of high quality, with some of the best actors and directors around; and greatly enjoy being part of an entirely free and malleable company of actors which regularly perform a fascinating piece of work of a unique nature.





TimEvans
TimEvans
Latest page update: made by TimEvans , Jul 29 2009, 3:25 PM EDT (about this update About This Update TimEvans Moved from: FactoryMember - TimEvans

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