This is the second or third script I ever created with a CYT group, back in the mists of 2007. Even though the script says they go outside, we ended up having to drop it, it was just too time consuming, but everything else made it in. This group had some really kooky personalities in it, hence Gorgonzilla, Queen of the Cheese Dream Dimension, and other bizzaro characters they decided they wanted to be.
Even though I'm in the script, I was played by one of the young people, hence realising my dream to be portrayed on stage by a ten year old girl.
Onwards!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
the carnival rolls on all the same.
This is another circus holiday workshop, one I did with El Kirschbaum. You may note similarities between this one and the other circus workshop script Clown Town. The main difference between that one and this one is the Nigglesnush. What is a Nigglesnush? I don't think anyone knows, except for the girl that decided she would be a Nigglesnoosh. Also this one is named after a Mikelangelo & The Black Sea Gentlemen song. Actually, now that I look at it, this one is completely different to the last one. For whatever reason when I was writing for thirteen 7 - 9 year olds I decided it would be an awesome idea to write a ten minute script with about forty characters in it. What an idiot, Hadley.
Onwards, after the cut!
Onwards, after the cut!
Monday, August 16, 2010
a small Fairy Tale
Continuing adventures in making theatre with young people on this blog I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with and don't have the impetus to update with any sort of consistancy.
I created this one with an After School Workshop group. After schools are tricky, because you only have an hour a week, the age ranges can be a bit wacky (this group is like 7 - 12 or something) and the participants come straight after school, so are traditionally extremely haywire. This was a really long process of brainstorming, improvising scenes, cutting characters in and out, and it all went really well. In the end they got the script about three weeks before we went on, so they did an awesome job getting their lines down (mostly!). Before you ask: yes, the actor playing Grandma Slug was adorable.
Onwards, to a small Fairy Tale!
I created this one with an After School Workshop group. After schools are tricky, because you only have an hour a week, the age ranges can be a bit wacky (this group is like 7 - 12 or something) and the participants come straight after school, so are traditionally extremely haywire. This was a really long process of brainstorming, improvising scenes, cutting characters in and out, and it all went really well. In the end they got the script about three weeks before we went on, so they did an awesome job getting their lines down (mostly!). Before you ask: yes, the actor playing Grandma Slug was adorable.
Onwards, to a small Fairy Tale!
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Clown Town!
Next up, welcome to Clown Town!
Circus workshops can be tricky when you only have a week, and this script was devised with a group I worked with internationally renowned goof and Our Man In Africa, Pablo Latona. He focused mostly on clowning work, falls, tumbling, and gags such as the floating briefcase and other such silliness. This worked really well when combined with my bits and pieces of clowning such as double takes, stupid noises and walks, and bouffon.
As always we had a really solid group, and the idea of a town where everyone is a clown was probably the very first one we had. From there things spiraled out of control, as they invariably do, into a fast and funny mess of gags.
Anyway, onwards... to CLOWN TOWN!
Circus workshops can be tricky when you only have a week, and this script was devised with a group I worked with internationally renowned goof and Our Man In Africa, Pablo Latona. He focused mostly on clowning work, falls, tumbling, and gags such as the floating briefcase and other such silliness. This worked really well when combined with my bits and pieces of clowning such as double takes, stupid noises and walks, and bouffon.
As always we had a really solid group, and the idea of a town where everyone is a clown was probably the very first one we had. From there things spiraled out of control, as they invariably do, into a fast and funny mess of gags.
Anyway, onwards... to CLOWN TOWN!
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The Most Evil Granny In France: The Motion Picture
Right you are: the third and final (so far) installment in the continuing adventures of Herietta Raes, the most evil Granny in France. This is the most recent and was done with a CYT group of 10 - 12 year olds. The idea to tell the story of the story of the story of the Most Evil Granny In France was coined by one of my shining lights who will one day go onto be extremely famous while I am living in the gutter collecting cans so I can afford Famous Magazine.
This group had some participants with very keen comic timing and slapstic skills, which really kept the script, which is batshit insane, bounding along. There were early ideas that the entire play would be set in a toilet, and that there would be a dog playing a Judge. While the toilet and judge didn't make it through, the dog dig, as did an extremely important healthy eating message.
The Most Evil Granny In France: The Motion Picture
This group had some participants with very keen comic timing and slapstic skills, which really kept the script, which is batshit insane, bounding along. There were early ideas that the entire play would be set in a toilet, and that there would be a dog playing a Judge. While the toilet and judge didn't make it through, the dog dig, as did an extremely important healthy eating message.
The Most Evil Granny In France: The Motion Picture
Monday, July 12, 2010
Too Many Nannas
Next up, the continuing adventures of Henrietta Raes, the true life most evil Granny in France. This one was written with a slightly older group than the last one (below!), and is also insane. This was a bit of give and take between us -- most of the character names and Clouseau ripoffs are mine, but the Bingo Caller character was created by one of the young people, who knew exactly what part they were destined to play. There are some great moments that you just can't relay in a script, such as the slapstick business the French police got into, the magnificent gold cloak the lawyer wore, or that fact that The Waiter had rollerskates built into his shoes. This all happened some time in 2009, and the group were great fun to work with
TOO MANY NANNAS
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
The Case Of The Least Suspicious Granny In France
For whatever reason today I decided that this blog I haven't told anyone about is the best place to post up all of the plays I create with my CYT drama groups. To that end, this is first of three short plays written with different Canberra Youth Theatre 10 - 12 drama groups, based on a newspaper article about Henrietta Raes, "the most evil Granny in France". It was brainstormed, improvised, and finally scripted over a single week in the school holidays sometime in 2008.
THE CASE OF THE LEAST SUSPICIOUS GRANNY IN FRANCE!
Monday, May 10, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
my favourite thing to do is talk about myself.
The main reason I have decided to start a blog is to report on each day of The Majestic at the National Folk Festival. I figured I'd make it my own blog, because it seems like a good thing to keep up with.
I am Hadley. I do a lot of things, in Canberra. I work for Canberra Youth Theatre in all sorts of capacities. I started with them as a playwright and have kept writing shows for them as well as working in the office, painting and sweeping, and probably my biggest joy: as a drama tutor to 7 to 12 year olds, where I devise high speed, ridiculous comic scripts on topics including time machines, snake oil, trashy tabloid TV, evil French Nannas, politics, Daniel Radcliffe, and clowns that are also vampires. Some of the titles include:
Completely Normal Street
The Princess Pirates
In Hadley's Hair
Discombobulated
Freakshow Murder Mystery
GoGo McGoo's Ghoulash
Clown Town
The Least Suspicious Granny In France
Too Many Nannas
Stuff: The Musical!
Water: The Reckoning
Phineas T. Lilypad, Water Swindler
Zero Calory Water
One day I am sure I will publish them all to great and moderately confused acclaim. I have also worked with Erindale College to create BAD!JOY!HAPPY!PANIC! in 2008 which was great fun. I worked for the Messengers program working with teenragers for two years, and have also worked with people with intellectual disabilites, the visually impaired and young carers. I have run workshops at Gorman House, Tuggeranong Arts Centre, Lieder Youth Theatre, Belconnen Arts Centre, Belconnen Community Centre, National Museum of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Corinbank Festival, and the National Folk Festival. While that is all well and good, my focus always remains on devising work with 7 - 12 year olds, because it is always the best fun.
When I am a performance poet I call myself JACINTA! and become a beautiful woman, who is beautiful. I have twice represented The Canberra at the National Poetry Slam at the Sydney Opera House, and was the co-Slam Champion of Woodford Folk Festival in 2008. Last year Jacinta made her first appearance as a booked artist at Woodford Folk Festival and she had a great time, isn't that nice! I also co-host BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! on the third Tuesday of every month at The Phoenix Bar which may occasionally involve more verbal abuse and lettuce fights than poetry.
I am a story teller for a band called Mr. Fibby which I am in with my idiot friends (who I love) Sam, Emma & Grahame (not Spike). We have lots of fun bouncing all over the countryside screeching verbal abuse at each other in front of rapt audiences which are invariably 70% adorable dancing children.
I work for The Fool Factory, which is Canberra's premiere roving entertainment company. In my time with The Fool Factory I have been a very tall papparazzi, a normal sized butterfly catcher, a very tall French Chef, a very tall gardener, an Emu, Santa Claus, the White Rabbit, a very tall Canberra Raider's fan and the doomed, fictional explorer, Johann Ulrich Voss. This work is very fun and very exhausting, and who doesn't want to get paid to play dress ups and harrass the public?
My other job I am undertaking at the moment, which is why I decided to set this up, is that I am the artistic advisor to The Majestic, at the National Folk Festival. This job is fucking insane, and I am completely out of my depth, so obviously I am loving it.
The Majestic is a 'fringe' venue at the NFF, taking place in a circus bigtop in the middle of the oval. I have been frantically booking acts that range from Melbourne gypsy face smashers Rapskallion, to bloke folkers The Ellis Collective, to Mr. Fibby (booking my own band, how fucking awesome am I?), as well as bringing in Bad Slam, putting together a roving theatre troupe, MCing events, and performing every day at the Festival. I will most likely die, but I will die as I have lived: on fire and riding a motorcycle painted to look like a leopard.
This is all a lot of things to do, for someone who spends most of their time sitting on the couch, reading WHO Magazine, drinking heavily, abusing facebook, youtubing Beverly Hills 902010 and watching trashy awful VHS tapes from the tip. When the bedsores becomes too much and I drag myself out of my chaotic, claptrap filled swamp of a house, I can be found at The Phoenix, Essen, or The Front, doing pretty much exactly what I do on my couch.
I almost exclusively read comic books, old detective novels and fairy tales. I like to talk about myself a lot. I don't write as often as I should. I prefer Buster Keaton to Charlie Chaplin, Edith Piaf to Marlene Dietrich, Prince to Michael Jackson, old Andrew Bird to new Andrew Bird, Anna Nicole Smith to Pamela Anderson.
It's completely feasible that I will be frantically obsessed with this blog for a few days and then forget that I have it.
I am Hadley. I do a lot of things, in Canberra. I work for Canberra Youth Theatre in all sorts of capacities. I started with them as a playwright and have kept writing shows for them as well as working in the office, painting and sweeping, and probably my biggest joy: as a drama tutor to 7 to 12 year olds, where I devise high speed, ridiculous comic scripts on topics including time machines, snake oil, trashy tabloid TV, evil French Nannas, politics, Daniel Radcliffe, and clowns that are also vampires. Some of the titles include:
Completely Normal Street
The Princess Pirates
In Hadley's Hair
Discombobulated
Freakshow Murder Mystery
GoGo McGoo's Ghoulash
Clown Town
The Least Suspicious Granny In France
Too Many Nannas
Stuff: The Musical!
Water: The Reckoning
Phineas T. Lilypad, Water Swindler
Zero Calory Water
One day I am sure I will publish them all to great and moderately confused acclaim. I have also worked with Erindale College to create BAD!JOY!HAPPY!PANIC! in 2008 which was great fun. I worked for the Messengers program working with teenragers for two years, and have also worked with people with intellectual disabilites, the visually impaired and young carers. I have run workshops at Gorman House, Tuggeranong Arts Centre, Lieder Youth Theatre, Belconnen Arts Centre, Belconnen Community Centre, National Museum of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Corinbank Festival, and the National Folk Festival. While that is all well and good, my focus always remains on devising work with 7 - 12 year olds, because it is always the best fun.
When I am a performance poet I call myself JACINTA! and become a beautiful woman, who is beautiful. I have twice represented The Canberra at the National Poetry Slam at the Sydney Opera House, and was the co-Slam Champion of Woodford Folk Festival in 2008. Last year Jacinta made her first appearance as a booked artist at Woodford Folk Festival and she had a great time, isn't that nice! I also co-host BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! on the third Tuesday of every month at The Phoenix Bar which may occasionally involve more verbal abuse and lettuce fights than poetry.
I am a story teller for a band called Mr. Fibby which I am in with my idiot friends (who I love) Sam, Emma & Grahame (not Spike). We have lots of fun bouncing all over the countryside screeching verbal abuse at each other in front of rapt audiences which are invariably 70% adorable dancing children.
I work for The Fool Factory, which is Canberra's premiere roving entertainment company. In my time with The Fool Factory I have been a very tall papparazzi, a normal sized butterfly catcher, a very tall French Chef, a very tall gardener, an Emu, Santa Claus, the White Rabbit, a very tall Canberra Raider's fan and the doomed, fictional explorer, Johann Ulrich Voss. This work is very fun and very exhausting, and who doesn't want to get paid to play dress ups and harrass the public?
My other job I am undertaking at the moment, which is why I decided to set this up, is that I am the artistic advisor to The Majestic, at the National Folk Festival. This job is fucking insane, and I am completely out of my depth, so obviously I am loving it.
The Majestic is a 'fringe' venue at the NFF, taking place in a circus bigtop in the middle of the oval. I have been frantically booking acts that range from Melbourne gypsy face smashers Rapskallion, to bloke folkers The Ellis Collective, to Mr. Fibby (booking my own band, how fucking awesome am I?), as well as bringing in Bad Slam, putting together a roving theatre troupe, MCing events, and performing every day at the Festival. I will most likely die, but I will die as I have lived: on fire and riding a motorcycle painted to look like a leopard.
This is all a lot of things to do, for someone who spends most of their time sitting on the couch, reading WHO Magazine, drinking heavily, abusing facebook, youtubing Beverly Hills 902010 and watching trashy awful VHS tapes from the tip. When the bedsores becomes too much and I drag myself out of my chaotic, claptrap filled swamp of a house, I can be found at The Phoenix, Essen, or The Front, doing pretty much exactly what I do on my couch.
I almost exclusively read comic books, old detective novels and fairy tales. I like to talk about myself a lot. I don't write as often as I should. I prefer Buster Keaton to Charlie Chaplin, Edith Piaf to Marlene Dietrich, Prince to Michael Jackson, old Andrew Bird to new Andrew Bird, Anna Nicole Smith to Pamela Anderson.
It's completely feasible that I will be frantically obsessed with this blog for a few days and then forget that I have it.
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