Leaving on a jet plane

I'm off to South Africa tomorrow to join Cape Town Opera on their national education tour around the country. I'm flying into Cape Town then driving 507km to Beaufort West, then onto De Aar, then Kimberly, followed by Johannesburg then Polokwane and finally back to Johannesburg where I fly home. I will be travelling a total of 2217km in just over a week, plus the flights there and back.
I'm sure it will be an adventure!
I'll be observing and assisting with CTO's workshops in the schools. There is even time for me to squeeze a few shows in whilst I'm there.
I will documenting the trip with diaries, photos and videos so once I'm back I'll tell you all about it.

On another note I just wanted to say thanks to anyone who came to see any shows in the Weston Studio last financial year. We've just been doing some figures and it shows that 14,716 people came from April 2010 to March 2011 which is fab. That means that 76,466 people have been to the Weston since we opened. Let's keep it going, the next few months are looking really exciting in the studio with Unity and Blysh, as I always say, if you've not tried it before just give it a go, you might like it.

See you in two weeks!
Lou

6 hours...

What do you do on a train for 6 hours? There's only so much news you can read without reading the same story over and over again, and a quick flick through Heat Magazine will take approx. 5 minutes. It's not looking good kids. Thankfully I'll have my Galaxy Tab with me (it's a poor man's ipad), so I'll probably spend the journey listening the the 99 most essential pieces of classical music (not all of them obviously) or catching up with Facebook. Sorted.

Why 6 hours? I'm off to Hull #silence...

The last time I was in Hull I was performing with Hijinx Theatre, many many years ago (I had hair back then). I seem to remember that Hull reminded me of Swansea, my home town. As my performing days are behind me (encore I hear you shout!), instead tonight I'll be voyeur and experiencing Slung Low's new offering Mapping the City.

The piece, in part, is written by Wales based writer Matthew David Scott. We follow the characters around the streets and inside various buildings in the city. The audience wear headphones, so we're able to hear what they're saying... it sound's like a bit of an adventure doesn't it? (must wrap up warm).

I've been following Slung Low for some time as they're a truly exciting young company, but I've never had the opportunity to see their work first hand. It just so happens that I ended up working with their producer Laura while on my secondment to Sadler's Wells... It's all very incestuous isn't it? So we'll have a bit of reunion too... I'll let you know how it went as I'd love to be able to create something similar - a Cardiff site specific piece of theatre - I really hope it goes well.

By the way, I know we haven't blogged for a while (naughty producers) but we do have a lot of exciting things coming up to tell you about so hopefully you won't be able to shut us up.

Toodle pip... x