Kristin Linklater's List of Vocal Dos and Don'ts: Blog 56

Good Morning!  

Oooh its very cold this morning, and I can't find my scarf. Not good to set off the day walking in the bitter cold without having something warm around your neck! My mum would nag - and she will!  And to boot, the day I had planned has been cancelled! I was due to spend some time visiting an unusual hospital in Kent for the NHS project we are currently developing. Its a shame, especially as it means that I now have to confront a complicated grant application today that I have been putting off! 

Cicely Berry

Since starting this blog at the beginning of January I have written a lot about theatre practitioners whose work has influenced me, from Brook, Grotowski, Steve Rumbelow to my early drama teachers Joyce Ashton and Jenny Evans. 

When it comes to voice training I am a great fan of Cicely Berry's work as voice coach with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her books are excellent practical work books for the actor, which I have used consistently over my years as an actor and director. If you don't already know them her books include: 

Voice and the Actor (1973)
Your Voice and How to Use It
The Actor and his Text
Text in Action
Word Play: A Textual Handbook for Directors and Actors

My personal voice inspiration though since I was a student is Kristin Linklater. Kristin is a Scottish vocal coach, dialect coach, acting teacher, actor, theatre director and author. I have never met her but I feel as if I have! 
She is currently Head of Acting in the Theatre Arts Division of Columbia University. Her book Freeing the Natural Voice is my bible for voice. Its among those 10 or so seminal and  precious books that have been my companions throughout my career, and to which I turn for a chat, refreshment and inspiration.So I thought I would share Kristin's list of vocal Dos and Don'ts this morning which are fundamental for actors and directors. Enjoy!

'Know your voice—it's strong, it's sensitive, it's resilient, and it's you, so be good to it' 

Dos for the Healthy Voice

• Do get lots of sleep. Rest relieves the vocal cords, for obvious reasons.
• Do try to persuade your director not to set your play in a sandpit. Sand can seriously mess with your voice.
• Do a 20-to-60-minute voice and body warm-up as close as possible to the start of every rehearsal and performance. A long, slow warm-up in the morning and a short, quick one in the evening work well.
• Do fall in love with your breathing. It's you. It's your emotions. It's your voice. It's not a machine.
• Do open your body down to your pelvis, into your belly, and round to your back for many deep-down enjoyable sighs.
• Do pant loosely, often, and happily, like a puppy. This is to awaken your breath.
• Do yawn a lot. The idea here is to open your throat—and smile as you yawn.
• Do stretch the middle of your tongue out of your mouth, placing the tip of the tongue down behind your bottom teeth.
• Do laugh out loud, and do cry if you feel like it. If you feel like it a lot, set the alarm and give yourself a deadline to stop and do something else.
• Do sing in the shower. Singing is good, helpful. Join a choral group for weekly singing.
• Do practice tongue twisters.
• Do lie on the floor and whisper all of your text to yourself before each rehearsal and performance. The point is to relax and let thoughts be freely in touch with your breath.
• Do drink plenty of water. One of the many reasons is that water reduces the viscosity of mucus, making it thinner and less likely to adhere to the vocal folds and interfere with movement. If you are using a decongestant medication, be sure to drink lots of water, as decongestants will dry out your tissues.
• Do consider mucus helpful. Regard phlegm as a friend. You don't want to strip the folds entirely of mucus, because it does lubricate. Eat fruit, because mild acid helps clear phlegm. Also, fruit adds a bit of natural sugar energy.

Don'ts for the Healthy Voice

• Don't smoke. Smoking is bad for your vocal cords and your lungs. It also tranquilizes your emotions, so it's bad for the art of theater.
• Don't drink alcohol of any kind. Alcohol acts as a diuretic and can dehydrate you. It also interferes with your liver's ability to filter germs. If you do drink any alcohol, follow up with lots of water.
• Don't drink caffeinated drinks. A caffeinated drink will act as a diuretic. If you do drink them, follow up with water.
• Don't stay up late. When you do, it often means shouting over the noise in a bar.
• Don't spend your afternoon yelling at a football match or the like. This is a temptation, especially during championship seasons.
• Don't do imitation Broadway belting at a karaoke bar.
• Don't eat chocolate or cheese. These foodstuffs are particularly harmful to the vocal cords.
• Don't drink milk before a show. See previous "don't" for the effect on the vocal cords.

Do's and Don'ts for the Afflicted Voice

• Do, if you strain your voice, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.
• Do get lots of sleep. Rest is an obvious tonic.
• Do hum gently in whatever clear bit of your voice you can find. Lip trill like a baby up and down your range.
• Do relax. Get a massage.
• Do, if you have to perform, rely more than usual on clear articulation. The sore throat that comes with a cold will not necessarily affect your vocal folds. You may sound a bit funny, but there's no need to lose your voice
• Do, if you develop laryngitis, go to the doctor. Laryngitis is an inflammation of the larynx that causes swelling in the vocal folds and is induced by stress or a virus. If absolutely necessary, find a very good throat doctor. 
• Do, if you are experiencing postnasal drip, use a neti pot. Warm salt water is good for the throat, but honey may not be, as it can congest further. Slippery elm is soothing to the throat. Osha root—also called "singer's root"—is ideal for viral infections of the sinuses, throat, and upper and lower respiratory systems. It helps bring out respiratory secretions and relaxes smooth muscle, making it beneficial for coughs and asthmatic breathing difficulties.
• Don't use decongestants! Nasal irrigation with salty water is a great alternative to decongestants, but do it earlier in the day. Don't try it just before a performance. That's because salt water can, if there is reflux inflammation already present, further irritate your vocal folds and larynx.

Memo: Do remember that all work and no play make Jack and Jill a dull boy and girl.

Over and out for today  - have a good one and keep well wrapped up! 

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee: Blog 55

Good morning!
I hope you all had a good weekend. 

Posting as usual now resumes after my little blog holiday!

I had the pleasure of being invited to see a show at the Broadway Theatre Catford on Saturday. I have never been to Catford before. I caught the train from Charing Cross to Catford Bridge and followed signs to the theatre. I walked through the curved street full of little shops leading past the Town Hall and to the theatre. According to Wikipedia the town boasts some notable residents past and present including Doris Stokes, Spike Milligan and Mica Paris to name just a few.  

This Broadway couldn't be more different from its familiar namesake in Barking which is a fabulous hard edged open glass design.This Broadway is a stunning Grade 11 listed  Art Deco building (1932). Most of the original internal features are preserved including beautiful glass windows and doors. The entrance and stairs to the small studio theatre have wonderful wall lights and perfectly evoke a feeling of the thirties.

This is an example as I couldn't find any Broadway interiors

On entering the small studio theatre I was greeted by an actor who appeared to be taking audience members names in order to drum up contestants for the Spelling Bee (for those of you who might not know - this is a popular Spelling competition for children in the US). I like to think of myself as a reasonably good speller and a bit of a scrabble fan, so I happily said yes having no clue what I was actually letting myself in for! 

This piece is by William Finn whose Elegies I was recently introduced to by Tim and Phil. I understand that this is the first time the show has been staged in this country. 

Anyone who knows me well will know that I am no aficionado of the musical, but since working on Cinderella I have come to understand and appreciate the form much more. Olly has written a number of children's theatre pieces with original songs that have a feel of mini musicals, and I loved directing them. I have also really enjoyed many of the musicals I have seen but had not fully appreciated that I had been unconsciously influenced by an inherent snobbery about them in certain theatre circles. Making Cinderella challenged this and took me right into the form which is exhilarating and to which I am deeply drawn in new ways.

To get a feel 

So thinking I might be asked to do a bit of audience participation (which I have to shame facedly admit I hate!) I took my seat. That didn't last for long as within minutes I was asked to come and take my place as a contestant, which I did dutifully only to find myself "in" the show for much longer than expected. I didn't use my real name, so at least the embarrassment was limited! 

We were told emphatically not to act or try and join in the songs! (no fear of the latter believe me!). I sat with two of the female characters who chatted to me as the competitors were called to spell on a small dais with microphone. It was hilarious to be inside the show and not have a clue what they were going to do next, but to be assured that I would get my instructions as and when I needed them. After a few minutes I relaxed and really enjoyed myself!

This is amongst the most anarchic theatre pieces I have seen. Its as if William Finn has just got out of bed one morning and downloaded his internal stream of consciousness monologue and turned it into a musical that day with no edits (I imagine there is a bit more to it than that! ) Its originality is breathtaking with characters that touch and delight and make you roar with laughter. It was a great success on Broadway and won two Tonys.

I was particularly moved by The I love you song sang by a mother and father to their talented spelling daughter - you can hear the original Broadway cast here - 

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the%20i%20love%20you%20song. 

Quite poignant on the eve of Mother's day. 

The quality of this production was fabulous with some very strong performances, most of the actors are also instrumentalists. Their vibrancy and energy was excellent. The intimacy of the 80-seat studio lends itself well to the show, and even with only 30 people in the audience it packed a punch. 

I ended up being in the show for about 20 minutes, with my first challenging spelling being 'cat'. I did eventually get buzzed out from misspelling 'How" (how?) - given a big hug and a carton of apple juice, and was allowed to return to my seat. I would have been quite happy to stay in the show actually much to my surprise - I don't get to tread the boards these days and got something of a remembered pleasure from it! 

This show is as good as anything in the West End in terms of performance quality - and its a little gem hidden in the basement of a 1930's building in the middle of Catford. One to definitely get tickets for before it closes on March 24th. 

http://broadwaytheatre.ticketsolve.com/shows/873488538/events

Yesterday I spent the evening over dinner with my beautiful daughters Grace and Phoebe for Mother's Day and that was a lovely finish to the weekend. My favourite tulips look beautiful and I look forward to reading Caitlin Moran's book: How to be a Woman. (Might be a bit late?)

Have a great day. 

Blog weekend holiday: March 8 - 11

Hi all

Mullered is out on the road and being well received. I caught some of the last performance on Wednesday at Eastlea School in Newham. 

Natalie in action talking to pupils with drama teacher Ailsa McPhee

Lovely school and fabulous welcome from drama teacher Ailsa McPhee. I am very proud of the team and the show is looking good. Great feedback from the school where we have performed a number of times recently.

Team Mullered with Year 8 pupils at Eastlea School

I will be taking a short blog holiday now until Monday 11th. 

So wishing you all a lovely weekend and a happy Mother's day - catch up on Monday! 

Mullered Leaves Home: Final Rehearsal: Blog 54

Jordan Barrett and John Rayment

Morning All!

So Mullered by Clifford Oliver took its first steps in this iteration yesterday into Kingsford School in Newham. I missed the first shows unfortunately but hope to see it at Eastlea school today.Natalie reported that all went well.

Final rehearsals were a blast on Monday. The last day always has to be carefully timed, so that the piece is just reaching boiling point, a little bit over and its spoilt, a little under and it doesn't set! It really is like cooking, and indeed we often use culinary language when making a performance, its not unheard for us to say "its really cooking now!". 

Nat, John, Jordan and Karl have created a lovely feel in their team. They operate as an intimate tribe that has a real mix of warmth, humour and seriousness. I like that. Walking in to the studio to see them going through their practice points together is great, not least because as they work together in this way they coach and share new ideas and ways of seeing.

My day was enriched too by the arrival for lunch of my new friend and unexpected director Tim Major. Those of you who read this blog regularly will have met Tim pretty much as the same time as I did. (Accidental Conversation with Director Tim Major: Blog 25, An Accidental Meeting: Director Tim Major: Part Two. Blog 32). 


When I describe Tim as an unexpected director I ought to explain that he is not so to himself of course - he's just unexpected to me. And its not that I didn't know that Tim was a director, of course I did. I saw him for two years going down the corridor to his panto rehearsals (his company made the panto for the Broadway for five years). He always looked to me in those days a bit like the white rabbit scurrying toward his rabbit hole! Always deeply intent and focused on the day ahead. We hardly passed the time of day then, each bound in our own creative bubbles I guess. We met but we didn't really meet.

But following a number of enlightening exchanges with Tim about process etc; I invited him to join me for a coffee on Monday to carry on our conversation a bit more. Well as it transpired the timing of our rehearsal had gone a bit astray earlier and when Tim arrived we were just about to warm up and do a run through. I invited him to watch and more importantly to be a critical eye for me. I must point out here that directors are generally pretty precious about their rehearsal space for all the reasons I have touched on in other blogs. But this also means we are not really that great at sharing practice - which is a bit odd as we all want to make the best work we can but feel very exposed too in the time of making. Its a delicate and vulnerable area. But my intuition about Tim is such that I knew he would understand the context and space and indeed my ways in. As such I even asked him to make notes - not a usual practice for me.

We started our warm-up with further Truth Stick exercises, again about locating emotion and transmitting and transforming it. And then to a full run through. Boiling point in a show is interesting and pretty much like cooking. Its very visible and erupts from calm most exquisitely. But if you let it just boil of course it will quite quickly evaporate or burn depending on its density. This performance was the penultimate, so "coming to boiling point". 

Karl Jackson and Karl Jackson's Image

After the run through, I gave my notes, and much to my own surprise, and to Tim's I think I invited him to give his notes directly to the actors. He didn't have many, but they were specific, precise and astute. I think John in particular appreciated them and the one or two for him were added and adjusted later in the afternoon. Its so refreshing to get that outside but experienced eye looking at your work. An infinite joy!

A quick lunch at the Galleon Cafe with Tim where we carried on our conversation and then for me back to the studio for the full dress at 4pm.It went well, although I stopped it ten minutes in as it had got off to a slow beginning.
But after that false start we were on our way. 

Natalie Dacosta and Jordan Barrett

 It was where it needed to be before being served to the students at Kingsford yesterday.Well done Team Mullered. I will see the show today and let you know how it went.

Have a good one.

Ps: Sorry to John Rayment for calling him John Raymond in my last blog - you would think I would know our actors names by now! I have changed it John!

What Part Theatre in the Alchemy of Health? Blog 53

Namaste!

A lot of things have come together synergistically for me this weekend around some key challenges and questions that were posed to me last week. 

On the surface an invitation from a transformational NHS leader to a conference hosted in the building of an international drug company may not seem to connect too directly to making theatre! And yet of course, our health is at the centre of our lives and the arts are in there too in our well being. Its a natural marriage.

Its perhaps only when we suddenly or unexpectedly find ourselves or a loved one debilitated by a disease or a diagnosis that we understand the very thing we have taken for granted until that point - our health. I include in this of course both physical and mental health. These moments change us forever. 

My dear friend Amari teased me last week about the blog about the NHS being boring in parts! I cannot disavow her of this, but its often these apparently disconnected and possibly apparently unconnected experiences in every day working life that in fact give rise to new creative ideas for our work. Her prompting of course did what it always does and got me thinking in different ways about hospitals, GPs and the whole experience of being a patient. As a health professional Amari has shared a few of her observations and experiences of the Health system with me over the years and I have a few recent ones of my own. Not all very positive.

By chance I also spent some time yesterday talking to a dearly loved relative who is currently in hospital following a bone marrow transplant. I sent him a text to check in and he called me back from his isolation ward. 

We had our usual style of conversation, based on growing up together, years of closeness and a certain shared poetic geekiness when we were kids. We have always laughed a lot and yesterday was no exception in spite of the darkness of his situation. Our conversation ranged from talking about the chemotherapy and the 25 horse pills he has to swallow every day to an article about Chekhov's sexual proclivity he was reading in the Guardian review! 

Peter (not his real name) had his bone marrow infusion 12 days ago and at the moment has no white blood cells. His donor was a 23 year old German man. Apparently in Germany the Health Service is very proactive about marrow donation and he was able to get a good match.

He also happens to be a GP, so his understanding of what he can expect in his treatment is acute. He is hoping that the stem cells will take and that his white blood count will increase from 0 to 2 over the next few days. 


Having explained this to me, he went on to describe the nature of his days, a lot of sleep and walks up and down the corridor. In a matter of fact manner he says the medication is pretty grim and makes him feel sick much of the time. But he also tells me that he is never bored in spite of being stuck in a sterile room. He reads a lot  - a great deal of poetry as he always has. His mind is active and he takes solace from entering deeply into his own internal creative landscape and interior life.

Peter would possibly be called brave by most people. I am not sure he would relate to such a label. He is just where he is and is still curious and deeply in love with life of course. So we travel from poetry to food. He regales me with stories of school dinner type meals, smells that make his nausea even worse. The lack of vitality in the food is hard to tolerate. So with great love Peter's wife cooks wholesome and alive food for him. She brings it in when she can. Sadly she has had a cold for the past three weeks so has not been able to visit him. As we finished our conversation, he was excitedly looking forward to her imminent arrival laden with home made soup and other sensual goodies. 

So although I had no expectation of this Peter gave me the insight that I needed to think about how we can make some theatre work that tells this type of human story in the context of the NHS.

People in extremis are too busy getting through every day, dealing with the pain and uncertainty - abrupted in theirs lives for a period, and not sure if life will ever be the same again. But we as theatre makers have the gift to take such an experience and forge a new work with it. I am so grateful to Peter for his candour and humour. I plan to visit him this week.

There is a curious synergy here too, as I have been listening intently this week to the William Finn Elegies which invite us into those private human moments of love and loss. These stories about mortality and the uniqueness of each human being are simultaneously close and at a distance. Life is such of course that if we haven't already been so, we will all be touched personally at some time by such experiences. 

 Talking to Peter and Amari - I now have a sense of the work we might begin to make around this for the NHS. Also by beautiful symmetry I am going to dinner tomorrow night with a dear friend who is also a GP. I suspect that I might be paying!  

Sober post to start the week - but for me also uplifting thanks to my Sunday chat with Peter. 

Have a good week.

Tracking Down Maciej: Blog 52

Maciej Suszynski

Good morning.

Its over 25 years since I last saw Maciej in New Hampshire in the US. A few months ago he found me on Facebook and we had a flurry of messages as you do when you first reconnect with an old friend. But then what do you do?  Do you go on and meet up again? Well for me, only if there is a new project or purpose, or I guess maybe a bit of genuine curiosity! Its fun to get a snapshot of where life has taken people, and indeed to see their images, photos and preoccupations. 

Anyway - after sharing my blog with Maciej (in which I have talked a few times about my time in Poland) we got to talk on Skype last Sunday. I suppose at its basic level it was two old friends/colleagues reconnecting, which is great for us, but would be deeply boring for anyone else of course. But niceties out of the way our attention turned to talking of how we record our own theatre history. 

We worked with Triple Action Theatre, which was a controversial physical theatre company in the '70s and '80s led by the maverick director Stephen Rumbelow. Maciej and I were on the tail end of the company's life. I dipped out in 1983 and returned home from Chicago, where the company carried on for another year or so. 

Our conversation turned to how we might make a record of the heady days of theatre making in the early eighties, and the huge Polish influences and exchanges. Much of this is lost. We promised ourselves that we would start to record the detail for a theatre archive. As I mentioned the other day Peter Hulton wrote a Theatre Paper about the company in his fourth series. But much of the work that we were involved in in Poland is not recorded anywhere, and its an interesting story for students of theatre, not least because of the stark challenges and dangers of making theatre in a military state. It was a highly fertile time in Poland's art history.

I mentioned earlier in January that I have been exercised by the fact that my previous blog about our Cinderella at the Broadway is still getting over 500 pageviews a day, mostly from Poland! I couldn't really understand why a local pantomime in East London would be of interest to Poles. I asked Maciej what he thought - and he was as curious as me. I thought maybe it was to do with the importance of the core fairy tale - but I don't think that's a very convincing reason. It certainly doesn't satisfy me.

Pradeep Jeyaratnam

But I think I may have got the answer I needed  from my dear friend (and Arc Associate Artist) Pradeep, who cooked me a lovely dinner a few days ago. He and his partner Caroline and I were discussing a number of things including Pradeep's recent show House on The Edge by the dance company State of Flux. He was sharing the enjoyment he had in a new experience of working with older dancers, and the challenges of bringing dance and theatre together.

A bit later I posed the Polish question. Without a moment's hesitation Prad told me that the answer was obvious wasn't it? Not to me I reiterated.

He said the simple answer was nothing to do with the fairy tale but quite straightforwardly the blog tells the story of the making of a new show from beginning to end, and all the quirky and strange challenges on the way, including the full process and the detail from the rehearsal room. He assured me that the consistent flow of hits on the blog is most likely to be from theatre students. And theatre studies is a very popular course in Poland. I suspect he's possibly right - and I hope so too. It was a very 'warts and all' account of the creative and practical process of making a piece and the collaboration between the creative team. And of course the 'characters' become familiar and develop through the story. 

I plan to check in with Maciej to test Pradeep's theory - as he may have a few thoughts on this and is familiar with the specific theatre courses in Poland. So thanks to Maciej, Prad and Caroline for their wise counsel.

So Maciej and I are about to embark on a similar exercise for those early years of making work in Eastern Europe. I think our memories might be a little challenged, but between us we may be able to excavate enough to capture much of it to share with those same students in Poland and the US who are the other large cohort of the Cinderella blog followers.

I feel like I may have a bit of a better understanding now.

Have a lovely Sunday 

Mullered Rehearsals Day Two: Transmitting emotion: Blog 51

My Truth Stick

Good morning.

Its that time for music and blogging! I am currently listening to the William Finn song cycle Elegies. Having just been introduced to them recently I find myself listening to them a lot. They are definitely worth a listen.

I find myself repeatedly going back  to one called Infinite Joy. The songs are about love, death and loss, but are hugely uplifting. I plan to use them in rehearsal on Monday as an emotional stimulus.

Yesterday's rehearsals went well. Natalie was concerned that I hadn't posted an image of my 'actual' Truth Stick - so here it is now on the studio floor. Happy now Natalie? 

Natalie Smith rehearsing Mullered by Clifford Oliver

Following a brief and heated discussion about the difference between the disciplines of musical theatre actors and straight actors - the morning began with an 'emotion transmission' exercise using the truth stick as the focus of intention. 

This is a slightly new exercise in this particular format. I begin by asking the actors to stand in a circle. In turn they hold the truth stick. They are then invited to place their hand randomly on a part of their body without thinking about where. They rest their hand there and allow their imaginations to open to an emotion that suggests itself from that emotional centre. I then ask them to stay with whatever comes up without editing or end gaming. As the images are created in their imaginations I invite the actors to expand their energy and to begin to 'broadcast' their images and emotions through the truth stick to the person next to them who is holding the other end of the stick.  The exercise requires total attention, stillness and receptivity. The 'receiver' of the emotion and image can choose to verbalise the images as they receive them, but importantly they should not speak unless they have a strong sense of image, emotion or sound. 

The exercise is focused on opening and accessing the actor's physical and emotional instrument. 

John Rayment playing Thomas Briggs

The power of a team that has worked together in this way before means that there is an established trust that allows an authentic and truthful exploration of emotional, sound and image landscapes. The value of such focused exercises is again the ability to 'sing' through an emotional scale, to change emotional state at will. This can be very challenging as if the imagination has evoked a physiological reaction you will then 
have to deal with the reality of adrenalin pumping through your body. And as anyone knows who has tried to combat flight and fight, its no mean feat. But there's the rub.

Karl Jackson plays Louis

Appropriate preparation exercises mean that you save a lot of time later as you 'work' each scene. The non-verbal connections are open and therefore the imagination and heart is expanded which encourages creative links and frees energy. 

Thanks for a great day Team Mullered. I look forward to all the lines being there on Monday too! 

Have a lovely weekend everyone! 

Jordan Barratt sharing some great insights! 

Post rehearsal de-brief: How did it go?