Fourth Monkey Annual Report 2014
FOURTH MONKEY Annual Report 2014 2014 has been a successful and significant year for Fourth Monkey, releasing our first graduate year of Two-Year Rep actors into the industry. This following a number of highlights both in training and production throughout the year, culminating in the successful application for ACE funding by our fledging graduate company Fourth Monkey Ensemble to support their national tour of Elephant Man. With another sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe, three OffWestEnd nominations for our transferred production of The Peculiar Tale of Pablo Picasso…and a significant increase in audition applications and interest in our training programmes, 2015 looks very bright indeed.
BBC
ITV
Alumni success !
78%
Marlowe Theatre
The Old Vic
*correct as of December 2014!
The Globe
Sketty Productions
O2 Commercial Theatre Temoin
of graduates entering the industry have worked professionally since completion of their training. !
Brockley Jack
Leicester Square Theatre
Andrex Commercial
Maverick
Graduate films
Lazarus Look Right Look Left
Tobacco Factory
The Imitation Game Iron Shoes Canal Cafe The Etcetera Bristol Old Vic Numerous online web series’ & commercials Fourth Monkey Ensemble Tristan Bates Theatre Old Vic New Voices Absence of Apathy Soho Theatre Oval House Antic Disposition Camden Fringe Site Specific MacBeth Mr.Selfridge Smoothed Faced Gentlemen Human Zoo Theatre Company The Brewery The Crucible Vienna’s English Theatre Hurricane Productions Glasshouse Arcola Theatre Sea Urchin Films Derby Theatre People’s Theatre Company Channel 5
IPA Productions
Shrink Theatre
Propeller Productions
The Spanish Theatre Company
The Lion & Unicorn Rich Mix
Tis Pity She’s a Whore 1
Fourth Monkey Annual Report 2014
Recent Graduate Highlights…!
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• Two Year Rep graduate Sam Adamson was nominated for best supporting actor OffWestEnd awards for The Glasshouse at the Tristan Bates Theatre! • Three former monkeys, Hannah Hutch, Lauren Lyle & Daisy Waterstone were part of The Crucible cast at the Old Vic! • Critical acclaim and sell-out houses for the graduate Fourth Monkey Ensemble tour of Elephant Man, selling out at the Derby Theatre, Prema Arts Stroud and the Cheltenham Everyman! • Recent Two Year Rep graduate Natalie Allison assistant produced at The Arcola, working alongside Philip Ridley! • New Alumni company Shrink Theatre have been selected to take part in Theatre Madness festival in December 2014, creating new site specific work on a large scale.! A number of our students have also gone on to form their own companies with significant successes since graduation:! Human Zoo Theatre Company! Absence of Apathy ! Shrink Theatre ! Natalie Allison Productions ! Students from our one-year programme, seen by some of our intake as a foundation training programme prior to undertaking further training, have gone on to continue their training at various institutions including our Two-Year Rep programme with their successful audition rate in excess of 90%. We take great pleasure in following their continued growth and success at the following institutions:! RADA, Central School of Speech and Drama, Bristol Old Vic, Drama Centre, LAMDA, Royal Scottish Academy, Mountview Academy, Rose Bruford, East 15, Oxford School of Drama & LIPA. !
Fourth Monkey Ensemble! ! We pride ourselves in being able to employ our two-year rep graduates to perform in our touring company, the Fourth Monkey Ensemble. Currently five recent graduates are employed on equity contracts, thanks to ACE funding on our production Elephant Man, described as “searing and uplifting” and awarded four stars by The Stage. The production continues it’s tour in the new year, taking in a three week run in London, The Marlowe Theatre Canterbury, Hereford, Wolverhampton, Bridport and Dorchester. ! The Ensemble are also delighted to be employing alumni for workshops and outreach work in schools, colleges and higher education institutions as the company continues to embolden it’s commitment to provide employment opportunities for their graduate actors as a means of supporting them at the outset of their careers. Coupled with this a significant aspect of the Fourth Monkey training programmes commitment to it’s students is to offer a bursary for the development of new work, this work is currently in pre-production under the Ensemble banner offering yet another professional industry opportunity in support of our graduates actors. ! 2
Fourth Monkey Annual Report 2014
National & International Partnerships
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Fourth Monkey has a number of links both nationally and internationally. One of the main highlights in the 1st year of the Two Year Rep course is the month long residency in Italy, training under Commedia dell’Arte maestro Antonio Fava. This gives the students a first hand, in depth look at the historical art form and the archetypes that form the base of Fourth Monkey’s physical performance style and training. ! We have also had the pleasure of hosting international producers from Russia, Germany, Austria and Holland (most notably in our sell out, site-specific version of Alice in Wonderland, Alice, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2014) with a view to establishing both training and professional links. ! As well as these international links, there are many theatres and organisations within the UK we have formed strong and collaborative relationships with, these include Told by an Idiot, Theatre Re, Theatre Temoin, Complicite, SmallNose, All In and Sketty Productions amongst many others. Additionally we continue to build exciting links with venues and programmers both with our training company and our graduate Ensemble. At the start of 2014 our second years on the Two Year Rep delivered, in association with the Marlowe Theatre Society and Told by an Idiot, three Christopher Marlowe productions as part of the Marlowe 450 festival at The Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. The professional graduate ensemble company will be returning to the Marlowe with the touring production of Elephant Man in February 2015, developing those established links further and in a professional context. This development is one Fourth Monkey is actively looking to develop and grow with other venues as the company continues to build it’s reputation nationwide. ! Additionally, the link with the theatre in Canterbury has continued beyond the performances and we now have practitioners from the theatre actively employing and working with our students and graduates in London and Canterbury, as well as inviting Fourth Monkey to host workshops in Canterbury for local schools and colleges and at the University of Kent, another partner organisation we have and continue to collaborate with. ! As previously mentioned, one of the strongest links outside of the training company is with our professional touring company formed solely of Fourth Monkey graduates, The Fourth Monkey Ensemble. As well as the touring element of the company, one of the things Fourth Monkey offer is a £1000 bursary for students to take work started whilst in training to develop it further - ultimately into a professional show. The bursary is awarded to the scratch piece that has the most potential when they perform it as part of their Experimental Fringe module held at The Etcetera Theatre in Camden at the end of the first term of the second year. For this unit they must pitch and create their own 15/20 minute piece of original work which ultimately leads to the development of the project. To include production and stage management of the shows themselves as well as devising, writing and directing them. ! 3
Fourth Monkey Annual Report 2014
Outreach Work ! One of the main points of developmental focus over the coming months will be to continue to work with our ensemble in furthering our educational outreach programme, specifically targeting schools in the inner cities with a view to introducing students to the company’s way of working and indeed physical ensemble performance as a whole. These workshops and sessions are currently being offered free to schools and offering a form of employment to our alumni as they outreach to institutions in delivering the work, this philosophy is central to the principles of the training company. ! The intention of this work is multi-fold. Firstly to offer schools and educational institutions the opportunity to work and ultimately collaborate with the company on projects and educational programmes whilst also actively pursuing opportunity to unearth talent to whom the company can offer scholarships to train with them, thus actively playing a significant role in the de-gentrification of actor training, something the company believes passionately in. ! A workshop programme has also been running along side our production of Elephant Man which has been performed in a number of colleges and accompanied by a complimentary workshop.! Beyond this initial phase the ultimate objective of this strand of the company’s work is to form a central creative hub whereby we can provide support to the wider community looking for space/and or collaborators to work with. This hub would also serve as affordable space (something that is of a premium in London) to give our alumni companies as well as other young companies to create and develop exciting new work. !
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Fourth Monkey Annual Report 2014
! Awards and reviews! With an established and formidable Edinburgh Fringe track record with our graduating company Fourth Monkey continues to deliver work to critical acclaim with highlights in 2014 including 5 star productions such as Alice, The triple OffWestEnd nominated (including Best Ensemble) The Peculiar Tale of Pablo Picasso and the Mona Lisa which transferred from the fringe in 2013 to the Brockley Jack in 2014 and our sell-out Marlowe450 season in Canterbury in the spring of 2014. ! Awards! Our Edinburgh site specific production of Alice was awarded a Fringe Sell Out Laurel for 2014 and a variety of 4/5 star reviews. ! Our London transfer of The Peculiar Tale of Pablo Picasso and the Mona Lisa at the Brokley Jack has received OffWestEnd Nominations for ‘Best Ensemble’, ‘Best Design’ & ‘Best Costume’! Elephant Man was long-listed for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award! Press! “vividly imagined & cleverly conceived” The Stage on The Peculiar Tale of Pablo Picasso! **** “searing and uplifting” The Stage on Elephant Man! ***** “This piece is exceptional and deserves to be seen by thousands” Everything Theatre on The Peculiar Tale of Pablo Picasso and the Mona Lisa! **** “An immersive midnight spectacle” A Younger Theatre on Alice ! **** “Fourth Monkey’s reputation is definitely maintained” The Public Reviews on Lysistrata ! **** “highly talented bunch of graduate actors” Remote Goat on The Kitchen ! For all reviews please see http://www.fourthmonkey.co.uk/productions/past/!
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Fourth Monkey Annual Report 2014
Our Students ! The Fourth Monkey student is an individual and that individual’s individuality is central in retaining our unique ensemble training environment. We celebrate the diversity in our workshop rooms in all it’s variable forms, our students are drawn from all over Europe and the UK and bring with them a broad range of life experiences and backgrounds which in itself creates a rich learning environment. We believe in building on the individual and celebrating their uniqueness, we do not believe in breaking down to rebuild and this is something our students appreciate and celebrate in both their work and their feedback. Against a supportive background focusing on ‘playing’, ’exploring’ and ‘failing gloriously’ our actors in training are free to express themselves and truly discover themselves as performers without prescription or design. Our training is founded in the principles of Lecoq, Wright and Grotowski, yet not exclusively so with the objective being to provide our actors in training with a rounded toolkit to enable them to adapt to the various rigours and demands of the industry and to enable them to work in any professional room. We feel this approach enables the actor to remain an individual whilst at the same time acquiring the knowledge and skills to enable them to work and thrive within the contemporary industry. !
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Every august Fourth Monkey’s training year ends with a visit to the Edinburgh Fringe for the duration of the entire festival, with both our one year and two year courses concluding at the end of the fringe. The festival offers an inspiring fishbowl experience for those about to embark on their professional careers and is a fantastic springboard to launch them headlong into it often with opportunities, contacts and work borne directly from the experience; either by association or directly as has previously been the case with the transfer of Fourth Monkey’s work to professional settings in London and beyond. !
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Fourth Monkey’s reputation at the fringe has grown year on year since the company’s inception and following three sell-out productions, numerous award nominations and four and five star reviews aplenty, our graduating students can be assured of a challenging but ultimately fulfilling fringe experience to end their training. The 2014 season saw another fringe sell-out run for Alice, a new site-specific and immersive adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland at the Space UK with our two year students and critical acclaim for the one year productions of Bernarda Alba and Treasure Island. In addition, as with the previous years success The Peculiar Tale of Pablo Picasso and the Mona Lisa, which ultimately transferred to London, there has been both national and international interest in Alice with the view to further the production in the future. Watch this space in regard to 2015!!
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Fourth Monkey Annual Report 2014
Quotes! “After only two and a half months as a Monkey, it’s safe to say that there’s something very special about this course. From the very first day, I walked out of the room inspired to improve and most of all, ready. Ready to learn, but also ready to enjoy the year that lay ahead of me. Because at the end of the day, isn’t that what this is all about? Our creative director, Steve Green, gave us some amazing advice on that day. Most notably, ‘don’t be afraid to fail’. That may sound crazy to some people, but for someone who always has been scared of being wrong, it was a massive eye-opener. For the first time, I realised that I don’t have to know everything – if I did, then I wouldn’t be here. You learn by making mistakes and I have lost count of the amount of mistakes I’ve made since I’ve been here. Which, in the words of Will Pinchin; ‘it’s great, it’s perfect, it’s you’. At Fourth Monkey, you are not wrong, you don’t need to be ‘stripped back’ (as some others might say) and you don’t have to be like everybody else, you just have to say ‘yes’. Don’t be afraid to fall flat on your face; you can only come out better on the other side.”! Hayley Clark (year of the monkey student)!
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“Wow what a year! I wanted to write and tell you how grateful I am for giving me the opportunity to work with Fourth Monkey. I have learnt so much throughout the year, it has been a truly wonderful experience. I have developed enormously, not just as a performer but as a person. I have learnt the joys of working in a company and the discipline required to succeed as an individual and as an ensemble. Most of all Fourth Monkey has inspired me to carry on and never give up, because this is what I want to be doing forever. I have now got the confidence to see that through.”! Georgia Kerr (Fourth Monkey Alumnus now represented by Hamilton Hodell)! “My training with Fourth Monkey is a mad mixture of challenge, hard work, growth, a lot of play and a lot of fun. It’s a safe place to both fail as well as triumph as the ensemble mentality is very prevalent. We have been taught to always “tickle the space” and to “step over the threshold into a warm, safe, playful world” before we start work. This means that the training is freeing, but also very intense, visceral and full on. The practitioners we work with are knowledgeable and experienced and push us to move out of our comfort zones which makes for a lot of self-reflection. So far, I am loving every minute!”! Giulia Eve Flores (current Two Year Rep student)!
Auditionees
Intake across all courses
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Fourth Monkey Annual Report 2014
Other Successes! Through partnership with The Stage in 2014, Fourth Monkey were pleased to be able to offer two halfscholarships for new students on our Two Year Rep actor training programme and we are delighted to have signed up to the scheme again for our 2015 applicants. Additionally, funded by the Emrys Johns Scholarship award another talented student’s training is supported and enabled to train with the company on the Two Year Rep actor training programme where elsewhere it may not be possible for them to do so.! Through an innovative partnership and mentoring programme with a number of our partners, most notably Told by an Idiot, Fourth Monkey has been able to offer our students some of the best contemporary directorial talent to work with whilst in training, one example being current RSC director Justin Audibert who directed The Jew of Malta with our Two Year Rep students during our Marlowe450 season prior to undertaking the same project with the RSC this Autumn. Others include Theatre Temoin’s Ailin Conant, Sketty Productions’ Toby Clarke, the Marlowe Theatre’s Andrew Dawson, Simone Coxall and award winning All In’s Stephen Sobal whilst 2015 promises another collaboration with Told by an Idiot as well as the prospect of Shunt’s Gemma Brockis, Blind Summit’s Tom Espiner and The Spanish Theatre Company’s artistic director Jorge De Juan. !
! Onward ! As Fourth Monkey steps towards 2015 and it’s fifth year of intake in the September, the company looks forward to the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead with the clear goal of continuing to develop it’s ensemble rep training programme further and to reach wider audiences with both it’s work and training ethos. We very much hope to see you along the way! ! For those who have supported our work over the last calendar year, we thank you and to those who have worked with us and for us we are sincerely indebted to you for your talent, commitment and belief in our training philosophy. As we say to our students, ‘once a monkey always a monkey’ and we extend the same to you. !
! Yours sincerely,!
! ! ! Steven Green! Artistic Director
www.fourthmonkey.co.uk!
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@fourthmonkeyTC ! !
office@fourthmonkey.co.uk ! 8