Shakespeare 4 Kidz News

THERE will be fairies, fun, romance and magic when a child-friendly version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream visits Worthing Pavilion Theatre this winter.

The play has been given a transformation by Shakespeare 4 Kidz, who have created a musical version of the story in which a duke is set to marry his Amazonian queen, two sets of lovers elope into the woods, and the audience meets feuding fairies and a naughty sprite called Puck whose mismanaged magic causes hilarity.

Audiences can look forward to laughs when Puck’s pranks leads to a donkey’s head on Bottom and fairy queen Titania awakes to find herself madly in love with the creature.

The group’s innovative approach has earned Shakespeare 4 Kidz a host of celebrity fans including Dame Judi Dench, who played Titania in Kingston this year.

She said: “I am happy to support any approach that helps children understand Shakespeare’s plays and to realise that they are about emotions that we all share – love, jealousy, anger, etc – all of which can be found in The Dream.”

Every Shakespeare 4 Kidz show uses the whole Shakespearean plot but uses only the most famous original lines and slots them into modern language so everyone, including the youngest primary school children, can understand.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream takes place at the Pavilion Theatre, in Marine Parade, on Thursday, November 11, and Friday, November 12, at 1.30pm daily.

There are additional showings on Thursday at 7.30pm and Friday at 10am.

Tickets: adult £16.00, child/senior £10, parties £10 per ticket, one free teacher per 10 students.

Box office: 01903 206 206 or online at www.worthingtheatres.co.uk

CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS ARTICLE ON THE LITTLEHAMPTOM GAZETTE WEBSITE

We're sad to announce that Alice Wilding, Helena in our first ever production, has died after an illness.

Alice was Helena in S4K's a Midsummer Night's Dream in our first season at the Barn Theatre, Oxted in the summer of 1997, when she also played Lady Montague in S4K's Romeo and Juliet. Her Helena was memorable for her histrionic weeping, wailing and snivveling - and some of the gags she introduced still survive to this day. In R&J she also doubled as Paris's page and made the "It's spooky out here!" line a 'moment de theatre'.

Alice Wilding as Helena tries to woo Demetrius in the 1998 production of S4K's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Alice went on to play Viola in S4K's Twelfth Night and Lady Macbeth, opposite Jez Worsnip, in S4K's Macbeth.

Her funeral is on Monday 1st Nov, 1.45pm at St Peters Church, Lords Mead, Chippenham.

The family have requested that attenders don't wear black and donations (TBA) as opposed to flowers. we will publish more details here as soon as we have them.

All of us at S4K send our sincerest condolences to her family.

Playing a Wall doesn’t sound the most exciting role for an actor…not much room for expression, one would have thought.

But it’s turned out to be quite the opposite for Stevie Smallwood.

He’s currently touring the UK with Shakespeare 4 Kidz playing workman Snout the tinker in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As all fans of the show know, Snout has to dress up and look rather ridiculous as Wall in the play-within-a-play Pyramus and Thisbe, holding up his fingers to form the “chink” through which the lovers maintain their courtship.

Stevie, 35 and a regular with the company, has previously appeared in five of the six S4K titles: as Demetrius in The Dream, Horatio in Hamlet, Antonio in The Tempest, Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet and Malcolm in Macbeth.

Hardly surprisingly he’s having a ball playing Snout and loves it when the kids in the audience bellow “Bring on the Wall.”

“Snout is a great character to play, but also a challenge,” says Stevie.

“The Mechanicals have very physical comedy, which is more like the roles I played before I started working with S4K. The only difference with this is that there are six of us in our little group and so timing and co-ordination are even more important.

“Snout only has a few lines and very little is written about him, so when I was creating the character the world was my oyster, which at times made it hard as there was almost too much choice.

“Although Snout doesn't have much to say, he definitely gets stuck in!  I've made Snout a very boisterous, bouncy character who gets excited about the littlest of things.

“In A Midsummer Night's Dream everyone changes in the woods and comes out a different person.  Snout comes out a little more grown up... he moves from acting like a bouncy six year old to being a mardy teenager. 

“I love it when Snout plays the Wall in the workmen's Pyramus and Thisbe.  He is a bit star-struck with the royals and can't stop staring at them which, of course, gets him into trouble and he can't quite understand why his chink-in-the-wall makes people angry.”

Stevie loves touring. Born and raised in Birmingham (he went to St James C of E and Light Hall, Solihull Sixth Form College and Birmingham School of Speech and Drama), he now lives in London’s Kentish Town but enjoys seeing the different parts of the country that S4K takes him to.

“Touring with S4K is like having a second family.  The producers (Julian and Carolyn Chenery) are very good at putting a company together that works like clockwork and gets on with each other.

“I've made so many good friends from the different companies in the five years I've been working for S4K.  Everyone mucks in and works hard to create top notch shows that all ages can enjoy.  Everyone has such pride in S4K. No-one else does what we do in the way that we do it.

“Audiences have been great on the tour so far.  Both schools and family audiences have come away buzzing from the show.  Obviously Puck and Bottom are favourites but it always makes me really happy when I hear things like "The Wall Rocks!" coming from the audience. I don't remember a year when we've had so many standing ovations. It makes us all very proud.”

See Wonder Wall Stevie on tour: check the list of venue dates on this site.

For more about Stevie visit his website www.steviesmallwood.moonfruit.com

FROM THE SURREY MIRROR & CROYDON ADVERTISER

Bringing the Bard home

SHAKESPEARE 4 KIDZ
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Dorking Halls, 1.30pm and 7.30pm on Thursday October 7 and 10am and 1.30pm on Friday October 8. Tickets: 01306 881717 or online at www.dorkinghalls.co.uk
Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon, November 3 at 1.30pm and 7.30pm and November 4 at 10am and 1.30pm. Tickets: on 020 8688 9291 at www.fairfield.co.uk

Croydon actor Gary Roe is bringing Shakespeare 4 Kidz to Dorking Halls and the Ashcroft Theatre

Graduate of Croydon’s famous BRIT School, Gary Roe, 23, has just landed a dream role.

He is playing funny workman Robin Starveling the tailor in the UK tour of the Shakespeare 4 Kidz musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which brings him to his home town and the Ashcroft Theatre next month.

Gary, who still lives in Shirley Park Road, went to Edenham High School in Monks Orchard and attended the Brit School from 2003-2005. He then studied further at the School of Musical Theatre.

He’s worked professionally in such shows a The Wizard of Oz, Treasure Island, The Sword in the Stone and Cinderella (as an Ugly Sister!) as well as getting under the skin of Daisy the cow in Jack and the Beanstalk.

Regulars at the Railway pub in West Wickham may also recognise Gary:  he’s worked there as a barman.

And he’s also worked at the Ashcroft Theatre and the Fairfield Concert Hall; “I was selling ice creams then!” he laughed.

On tour with S4K for the first time, we grabbed a minute with him as he went to go on stage in Sunderland.

“I absolutely love it – it’s very hard work, but I do get to see parts of the country that I’ve never been to.

“Also the feedback from the audience is fantastic. The shows have a sort of panto feel and the kids absolutely love it.

“In fact it’s just like they’re at a pop concert. They really love it. It’s very cool,” he added.

Fairies and fun, royalty and romance, magic and misunderstandings: A Midsummer Night’s Dream has them all and more. So, little wonder this enchanting play is one of the most popular ever written.

The Bard’s comedy gets a magical transformation from Shakespeare 4 Kidz, whose musical version has proved a huge hit every time it has toured.

The show is produced by Julian Chenery and Carolyn Chenery for the Shakespeare 4 Kidz Theatre Company. It is designed by regular S4K Creative Team member Jaimie Todd and directed/choreographed by Joseph Fowler. Joseph has worked closely with Julian as Co Director and Assistant Director on S4K’s Macbeth and S4K’s The Tempest.