St Edmund Hall Masterclass Award supports student’s drama training programme

Postgraduate student Faidra Faitaki (2017, DPhil in Education) is one of the recipients of a St Edmund Hall Masterclass Award this year, to support a programme of advanced drama training. The awards are open to all students at the College, for individuals who have already reached a high level of achievement in an extra-curricular activity and are now seeking funding for additional coaching to develop and hone their skills. This can be in a wide range of areas, such as writing, drama, music, art and sport. Each student can apply for up to £1000 support in any one academic year, and applications can be made each term. Current students can find more information here about how to apply.

Thanks to Faidra for the following article explaining how the funding has helped her.

In 2010, I started taking acting lessons at Aktis Aeliou Art Theatre in Thessaloniki, Greece. These lessons allowed me to delve into the world of theatre and, when I left Greece to pursue undergraduate studies in the UK in 2011, I was more fascinated with acting than ever. Thus, I joined UCL’s Drama Society and participated in numerous productions, including Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Avenue House (London, 2013) and Euripides’ Bacchae in Bloomsbury Theatre (London, 2013) and the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation (Athens, 2014). The latter production was selected for inclusion in the UK’s National Student Drama Festival, and featured in the Ancient Greek Drama Festival and the British Museum’s event ‘The Cult of the Bacchae’.

Despite the success of the Bacchae, moving to Oxford to read for an MSc in Applied Linguistics left me no time for drama activities. Yet, I soon realised how much I missed theatre – the strenuous and fun process of the rehearsals, the exhilarating feeling of being on stage, and the warmth of the audience’s applause at the end of the show – and, in 2017, I decided to (re)start my acting training. I completed a series of lessons at Drama Classes London under the guidance of Konstantinos Kavakiotis as well as two workshops at Theatre Lab Company (TLC), delivered by TLC’s artistic director Anastasia Revi.

The two TLC workshops introduced me to a new technique of acting that I found liberating and worth exploring further. TLC’s practice draws from Jacques Lecoq’s method, which is based on three pillars: le jeu (French for ‘the play’ or playfulness), complicité (‘complicity’ or collaboration) and disponibilité (‘availability’ or openness). This method urges actors to tell stories by (re)discovering their inner child, working as an ensemble, and being receptive to personal, collective and extraneous stimuli. TLC’s technique equips actors with tools – tempo, space and imagination – that allow them to engage (and involve the audience) in visual and physical storytelling. Using its technique, the company has presented a wide range of atmospheric and cinematic productions of both classical and contemporary texts that have been praised by spectators and reviewers alike.

Towards the end of 2017, Anastasia Revi decided to begin a three-year training programme, and I was honoured to join a group of 10 new, talented actors from around the world who were as keen as I was to learn more about theatre. Between September 2017 and June 2018, we were trained in TLC’s technique and ‘language’. Our first year of workshops culminated into a production of A Respectable Wedding by Bertolt Brecht, at Playground Theatre in London. This production allowed us to showcase our work in London’s West End – and, importantly, it was also great fun!

After the completion of our showcase, we were all cast in TLC’s English-Greek bilingual production of Six Nights on the Acropolis, by Nobel Laureate George Seferis, in The Hellenic Centre in September 2018. This production was a unique experience; in addition to being our first professional collaboration with the company, it gave us the chance to perform with live music, as the Greek composer Stamatis Kraounakis was playing the piano and acting with us on stage.

Having gained valuable experience from acting in two shows, we all successfully progressed on the second year of the training programme (September 2018 to June 2019). Currently, our core group (with some excellent new additions) are in the process of exploring the texts of classical authors – ranging from Molière and Ibsen to Lorca and Beckett – in the light of the TLC technique. During this series of workshops, we have the opportunity to hone our abilities by working on monologues, duologues and small scenes from each author’s plays. In the forthcoming third year of the training programme (September 2019 to June 2020), our group will be engaged in the process of devising: we will work together in order to create a play and bring it from the rehearsal space to the stage.

I was fortunate to have received St Edmund Hall’s Masterclass Award to complete both the first and the second year of TLC’s training programme. Without the funding, I would not be able to participate in (all) the workshops and, thus, I would not have learnt as much about theatre as I did. In addition to developing as an actor and becoming acquainted with TLC’s unique technique, the workshops have allowed me to gain confidence, improve my presentation skills and develop my creative thinking – traits which I find beneficial in my life and doctoral studies. I look forward to completing the second year of training and, of course, to welcoming some of the College’s students and staff to our annual showcase. I am grateful for St Edmund Hall’s continuous support and would like to thank the Masterclass Award committee for allowing me to continue and expand my journey in the mesmerising world of theatre.