'Theatrically Inventive' Drama St Mary's Production Receives Rave Reviews at International Festival

A graduate theatre company, formed at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, has returned from the Canadian International Theatre Festival having won two main fringe awards: pick of the Media; and pick of Staff awards. The theatre company, Dead Rabbits, performed The Dragon, a play adapted from a story of the same name by Jevgenji Shwartz, to audiences in Edmonton, Canada, where they received rave reviews. These included a 5 star review from Edmonton Journal reviewer Liz Nichols, who called the production, “…a wonderful, theatrically inventive way to tell a story. Fun and smart.” The company is comprised of graduates from the university’s BA and MA courses and its Artistic Director is Kasia Zaremba-Byrne, Programme Director for Drama and Physical Theatre programmes at St Mary’s. Patsy Gilbert, St Mary’s Academic Director for Drama said, “We are incredibly proud of what our graduates and academics have achieved in Canada. St Mary’s offers a university experience for students whilst giving them with the creative opportunities and vocational skills only usually found in specialist drama schools. This dedication to teaching really pays off when we see our students flourishing on the international stage.” “We also want to bring in the best students we can into theatre, that’s why, as part of our upcoming open days in September and October, we’re offering pre-UCAS auditions to support students as early as possible in their quest to become professional actors.” Kasia Zaremba-Byrne said, “Achieving such recognition for our company at the biggest festival of its kind in North America was completely unexpected but it was incredibly gratifying to get such support from both our audiences and critics. Our graduates captured physical theatre at it best, exploring difficult and at times very complex themes with clarity, humour and impact.” The play, a warning about misuse of political power, was written in 1950’s but carries a strong message in our seemingly more ‘comfortable’ times. It looked at how democracy and freedom become fragile when skilful manipulation of truth, mediocrity, and violence are being justified by politicians who only seek profit and power. In order to continue to grow young talent, St Mary’s is now offering young actors pre-UCAS auditions, the first one of which will be held on the University’s open day on September 17th. The aim of the auditions is for the academic team to conduct the audition and offer immediate feedback, if the audition is strong enough they are in the position to offer the student an unconditional place on one of the University’s actor training programmes for 2017. If more work needs to be done on the audition, the team will give tailored and constructive feedback, which will hopefully give the student a better chance of success, whether they’re at St Mary’s or not. You can find out more about auditions for St Mary’s auditions here: http://www.stmarys.ac.uk/drama/pre-ucas-auditions.htm.