We're at the fringe!

So, we've been up in Edinburgh for nearly a fortnight now. It feels like years since we started our mammoth rehearsal schedule for The House Above programme.

So far the fringe has been unbelievable. The space we've made is by far our favourite, the shows surpass anything we've done before and our company are made up of some of the hardest working actors and crew in the world -without them, this project would not exist.

The fringe audiences so far have been a delight - they're wonderfully playful thus year and have been making our flyering a lot easier by singing our praises to other festhoers (Belt Up is currently the most positively tweeted about theatre at the festival, second most positively tweeted about act!).

The House Party bar nights have also been great, with Dreamscapes making a welcome return. We're also becoming a secret celebrity haunt with a few famous faces turning up for a drink!

In short, if the rest of the fringe continues to be as great as this then this will be by far our favourite festival yet!

If you haven't already, grab your tickets as soon as possible - the shows are selling out with the smaller capacity shows starting to sell out far in advance.

One week in and the pre-shows begin...

We're now a third of the way in to our rehearsal schedule. Most of the shows now 'exist' in somewhat crude forms, everythings starting to take shape. We had a moment where the terror kicked in but that's now passed and (touch wood) we're going to pull of a huge programme of shows for this fringe - and they won't just exist, but they will be better than anything audiences have seen from Belt Up before.

There's still a way to go before the fringe begins though but some shows have technically already started - well the 'pre-shows' at least. The Surrealists from 'Lorca is Dead' have been unleashed on the world, you can meet and chat to them if you want on Twitter - they will remember you!

Our rehearsal process is influenced greatly by Keith Johnstone (get 'Impro' from here, you won't regret it!) and we spend a lot of time building up each character using mask and trance. Those of you who caught 'Lorca is Dead' at York Theatre Royal in May earlier this year will have met and even had conversations with some of the characters. Using Mask and Trance we essentially breed our characters, teach them to talk, walk etc so that when audiences meet them, the actor playing them doesn't need to worry about improvising or anything, they act on impulse in character - if anyone's seen 'Being John Malkovich' that's kind of what it's like from the actor's point of view. This sounds very odd but read Keith Johnstone's book, especially the chapter on 'Mask and Trance' and it will all become clearer. We use a variation of this technique to create all our characters which makes it incredibly exciting when developing new characters. With so many brand new shows, this means developing a lot of new characters, we have no idea what they'll actually be like (we can get vague ideas but will never truly know till we meet them). Quite often as part of this character development process we'll take the characters out on trips into town, to shops and such like which makes for a lot of entertainment. If anyone's in York this month then you may bump into some new characters getting ready for the Edinburgh shows!

The rehearsals so far

It's Day 5 of rehearsals...



Energy is still surprisingly alive and kicking amongst the members of Belt Up despite 12 hour day of mainly physical work. The excitement is still very much buzzing about the company and there's a real sense that the 9 shows taking part in The House Above are going to be the highest quality work we have ever done, both as a company and as individuals.

We began rehearsals with three days of workshops in which we played about with everything from voice and movement to a session entitled only as 'ballsiness'. The ballsiness workshops essentially consisted of getting rid of all fear and reservations through the use of trampettes and a couple of crash mats - we can pretty much all fly now, or at least fall with style.

The individual show rehearsals began on monday but there's not really much to say about these because we are all sworn to secrecy. All I can say is that there's been a lot of discussion in blogs and reviews about site-specific, interactive, participatory, whatever-you-want-to-call-it theatre having no depth or heart recently... This Edinburgh we're hoping we can prove otherwise... and judging from rehearsals so far we're looking set to achieve this goal.

So, that's a little round up from Belt Up Boot Camp so far, Odyssey and The Boy James are currently being rehearsed at the moment and then it's Metamorphosis after lunch and then Lorca is Dead after dinner - a very busy day but an incredibly exciting one.

Belt Up

p.s. As a little shameless self-congratulatory point, we were listed in the Guardian this week as amongst the 'must see' shows this Fringe - check it out at http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/jul/04/edinburgh-fringe-festival-preview-2010

The Origins of Belt Up

A number of people have been in contact recently asking about how Belt Up was set up and how we’ve got to where we are today. Here is a potted history of Belt Up…

We were set up in January 2008 after a little meeting in the foyer of York Theatre Royal. As part of the drama society at the University of York we were about to collaborate in a production of Steven Berkoff’s ‘Metamorphosis’ so we thought we should have a go at using this as a launch pad to start a theatre company. This production went on to the National Student Drama Festival where it received a lovely load of attention and awards and spurred us on to attempt an ridiculously ambitious project at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe that summer. This manifested itself as ‘The Red Room’, an immersive environment that hosted a huge programme of shows and secret-catch-them-if-you-can events. ‘The Red Room’ went on to win the ThreeWeeks Editor’s choice awards and the Edinburgh International Festival award 2008. Then throughout our final year at Uni we experimented more and used the Drama Society venue, The Drama Barn, as a developing house before returning to the Fringe in 2009 as a professional company with our second immersive environment, ‘The Squat’. This hosted our productions of ‘The Tartuffe’ and ‘The Trial’ as well as a late night bar. These two shows transferred to York Theatre Royal (where we were made a company in residence) before heading to the Southwark Playhouse for our proper London debut.

That then brings us pretty much to the end of 2009, the previous post outlines what we’ve been up to in 2010 so now documented for all to enjoy is a brief history of Belt Up.

Our production timeline so far...

Metamorphosis (Steven Berkoff') - York/NSDF - Jan/Mar 2008
Morbid Curiosity (Dominic J Allen) - York - May 2008
The Grotesque Tea Party - Shunt, London, June 2008
A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess) - York Theatre Royal - June 2008

THE RED ROOM - Edinburgh Fringe - August 2008:
The Tartuffe (James Wilkes after Moliere)
The Park Keeper (Nikolaus Morris)
Volpone (Dominic J Allen after Ben Jonson)
Women of Troy (James Wilkes after Euripides)
Macbeth (William Shakespeare)
Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare)

William & Octavia (Alexander Wright and Jethro Compton) - York - October 2008
The Pitchfork Disney (Philip Ridley) - York - November 2008
Instinct (James Wilkes) - York - December 2008
The Oresteia (Dominic J Allen and James Wilkes after Aeschylus)- York Theatre Royal - February 2009

The Tempest (William Shakespeare) - RSC Dell - July 2009

THE SQUAT - Edinburgh Fringe - August 2009
The Tartuffe (James Wilkes after Moliere)
The Trial (Dominic J Allen after Franz Kafka)

The Tartuffe and The Trial then transfered to the York Theatre Royal in September 2009 and then to the Southwark Playhouse, London in November 2009.

The Atlantis Project (in collaboration with Punchdrunk Enrichment) - NSDF - March 2010
Lorca is Dead (Dominic J Allen) - York Theatre Royal - May 2010
The Tartuffe (final performance, James Wilkes after Moliere) - York Theatre Royal - May 2010
A Midsummer Night's Dream (William Shakespeare) - Rowntree Park, York - June 2010

Halfway through 2010...

It’s been a busy 2010 so far for Belt Up Theatre but life is about to get a hell of a lot busier at the end of the week when we enter our boot camp style rehearsal process for our ‘The House Above’ shows this coming Edinburgh.

It’s about half way through the year and so we thought we’d do a little bi-annual review of everything we’ve been up to so far...

1. A GHOST WALK
Our first official show as residents of York Theatre Royal, playing throughout February on the very cold streets of York. This intimate play, based in the context of a traditional haunted walking tour, accidentally became our most controversial show with about two complaints per night (out of an audience of 20). The reason being that a lot of people weren’t aware it was a play and thought it to be just a normal Ghost Walk. When the main character had a mental breakdown over the recent loss of his father, audience members complained to the York Theatre Royal for making this poor man work in such an unstable state of mind – often people refused to believe it was a play even when they were told.

2. COLLABORATION WITH PUNCHDRUNK ENRICHMENT AT NSDF10
In 2008, Belt Up debuted at the National Student Drama Festival with a production of ‘Metamorphosis’ (a new revamped version of which with a brand new adaptation is returning with Belt Up to The House Above) and two years later we were invited back to the festival as visiting artists. We were set the task of collaborating with Punchdrunk Enrichment’s Peter Higgin to devise a durational piece that demonstrated an alternative form of theatre. The result was the Bensalem B&B otherwise known as ‘The Order of Atlantis’. The premise was that 14 or so weird and wonderful characters had arrived in Scarborough as a sort of a waiting area before passing on to a mythical world. Throughout the week they would meet and chat with the festgoer’s (those brave enough to approach them) and the lucky ones were invited to the Bensalem Bed and Breakfast to learn more about the Order. The really keen audience members ended up spending a great deal of time in the ‘B&B’, a huge, beautiful empty Victorian house learning about the intricate stories connecting these strange characters. It was received extremely well with audience members immersing themselves almost entirely in the world we had created – one audience member possibly solved time travel in a bid to uncover the villainous Professor Higgs...

3. 'LORCA IS DEAD: OR A BRIEF HISTORY OF SURREALISM' AT YORK THEATRE ROYAL
As a Research and Development period for ‘Lorca is Dead’ (one of the shows heading up to Scotland for ‘The House Above) we inhabited the York Theatre Royal studio and foyer for most of a week at the beginning of May. The purpose was to experiment with audience interactivity and how they can best gain agency over a piece of theatre. This involved many talkback sessions, four public performances, open rehearsals and lots of hanging around York as the Paris Surrealist group. The result was a transformation of the play that we performed at the beginning of the week; ending up with a show where the audience could be accommodated to do whatever they wanted, even play the protagonist. This period was vital in the shows development and certainly means that audiences in Edinburgh are in for quite an incredible experience come August.

4. OPENING OF JOSEPH ROWNTREE'S NEW SCHOOL
In mid-May, we had the delightful task of coordinating the opening ceremony of the new Joseph Rowntree school building in York. This involved working with almost 100 secondary school pupils towards a spectacle of song, dance, singing and of course some Belt Up style grotesquerie.

5. THE FINAL TARTUFFE
The Tartuffe was performed a handful of times in 2010 in everywhere from Bude to Great Wyrley, South Staffordshire though it received its final performance in the York Theatre Royal main house on the 25th of May. In the previous post is a more detailed farewell to the show. The final performance saw the main character, Orgon Poquelin, head of the anarchic troupe kick the bucket onstage in an incredibly self indulgent (within the context of his character of course) death scene set to ‘Zadok the Priest’. 600 screaming fans and a handful of disgruntled people expecting Moliere were present to see the end of a Belt Up era.

6. THE NISDA CONFERENCE- PINOCCHIO

As part of the National Independent School’s Drama Association conference in June, we were invited to be the resident practitioners working with the NISTC (National Independent School’s Theatre Company) towards a short performance at the end of the weekend. This was a lovely process in an extremely sunny Warwick with a brilliant troupe of actors. The end product was a meta-theatrical and interactive production of Pinocchio performed by a group of ghostly performance types ranging from puppeteers to 60s rock gods.

7. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
In what has now become a Belt Up tradition (if two years running can be called a tradition?) we assembled a huge company of actors to perform an outdoor family friendly Shakespeare in the sunshine. This year’s was A Midsummer Night’s dream directed by Marcus Emerton (Tartuffe in ‘The Tartuffe’, Andre Breton in ‘Lorca is Dead’) who also took on the role of Bottom. The show was a wonderful success with beautiful sunshine in York’s Rowntree Park and very enthusiastic audiences. A perfect summer’s day out!

That brings us pretty much up to date for 2010. Now we’re preparing ourselves for 12 hour work days and a month of rehearsal... It’s going to be worth it though. There’s no place like our home.

‘The House Above’ programme begins on the 4th of August in C Soco as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Rest in Peace Orgon Poquelin

So, on the 25th of May, Orgon Poquelin died spectacularly onstage. This followed a relatively successful revival of his fictional ‘career’ in which his life story was performed to over 6,000 people across the past 3 years by a troupe that eventually totalled around 20 actors.

Belt Up was sad to see ‘The Tartuffe’ receive its final curtain call but everything must come to an end.

As a little goodbye we thought we’d put together some of our favourite audience moments and responses because these were the moments that really brought the show to life. Thank you to every single audience member who has helped make this show what it is, without you it would be just a group of actors titting around as French people…

Here are our top ten moments:

10. Mr Leach’s Email.

We performed ‘The Tartuffe’ at Dominic J Allen’s (Orgon Poquelin) old high school – Great Wyrey Performing Arts High School – to a very enthusiastic audience who loved the show. The following week we received a rather damning email from the head teacher about the shows content, the use of teachers onstage and climbing on seats etc. This is a fond memory as ‘The Tartuffe’ deserves a bit of controversy and this was essentially our equivalent to the Church banning Molière’s original. It’s important to note that Mr Leach, didn’t actually see the show he just heard from staff the next day – out of context I imagine the show sounds a lot more controversial than it actually is - but of course that is the nature of most complainers…

9. Doc Brown/Doc Martin

In the re-write for the Southwark Playhouse run of ‘The Tartuffe’ the second time Madame Pernelle appears in the play, she was played by an audience member. This led to some of the most hilarious audience contributions and a number of this top ten is comprised of them. One of the highlights was an old man who was the spitting image of Doc Brown from back to the future. When he came to say his ‘lines’ it also turned out that he also sounded just like him, until he started attempting an Irish accent, clenched Orgon and said in the creepiest whisper “I’m your mother”. We of course made a big thing of the fact that he had a fake Doc Brown onstage during which Rachel Finnegan who was playing Dorine repeatedly referred to him as Doc Martin who is a character from a Sunday evening drama starring Martin Clunes.

8. The Mormon Minor

Those of you who saw the production for ‘The Red Room’ may well have been molested or even ridden by Danie Linsell’s French character, Margaret. One performance she befriended a whole group of young American school children, the youngest of which she chose as her ‘pet’. Towards the end of the show she chose to ride said boy across the stage whilst his friends laughed hysterically and announced he was a Mormon. He seemed to enjoy himself nevertheless.

7. The 50 person water attack

During ‘The Squat’ production of The Tartuffe, there was a bit where an audience member ran up to throw a glass of water in Orgon’s face. This progressed to several audience members which in turn led to Orgon retaliating. One performance towards the end of the run saw the entire audience orchestrated to throw water at Orgon; in a bizarre act of divine intervention, not a single drop hit Orgon…

6. Phil Collins’ cameo

Again, an audience member dragged up to play Madame Pernelle became a highlight. This particular incident resulted in the entire cast corpsing horrendously. The said audience member was the spitting image of Phil Collins which had been addressed throughout the show. He was dragged up as Madame Pernelle, in turn shouted at by Orgon and then screamed off the stage. As he exited, with an old lady’s trolley and dressed in a nightie he enthusiastically but rather out of tune belted out ‘In the Air Tonight’.

5. “I’ll fuck him”

Over the years there have been over 80 different audience members dragged up to play the part of Valere. They all respond in different ways, some are terrified, some are cocky but there was one which stands out as our favourite. In one performance of the show at the Southwark Playhouse included a Valere that was not intimidated at all by being onstage. He was a tall man who looked a bit like Triple H from WWE and when Dorine was explaining how the family needed to work out a plan to bring down Tartuffe he calmly volunteered with “I’ll fuck him”

4. ‘Mother please calm down’

During the long runs at the Edinburgh fringe, to keep things fresh and alive, each cast member was given a secret challenge to complete during the show. One of these challenges was “The original Molière includes an assistant character to Madame Pernelle called Flipote. Please cast this role” and so Jethro Compton as Renard cast this sweet middle aged woman. There was no stopping her from this point. As soon as she was onstage she was talking French, dancing around and generally confusing the entire cast which naturally led to her being berated by Orgon. When Madame Pernelle returned late on in the play, Dominic Allen entered from behind a curtain. This lady took this as her cue and so when Orgon, as Pernelle emerged out from behind the curtain he was confronted by this eager woman saying “Mother, Please caaaaalm doooooooown”. This led to Orgon corpsing for a very long time.

3. The Frasier Reunion

Throughout the show numerous audience members are brought onstage to deliver props or play roles. In one performance at the Southwark Playhouse, through sheer brilliant coincidence a moment of magic happened. A woman brought on to deliver a telephone looked identical to Daphne from Frasier. The audience member playing Valere looked like Nialls and an audience member delivered a prop whilst imitating a dog. When the audience member was brought on to play Madame Pernelle we noticed that he looked a lot like Frasier Crane. This then made us realise that Valere looked like Nialls and then we remembered the Daphne-a-like and then rounded it off with the punchline of the dog reprising his role. In a bizarre domino effect of realisation we ended up with an impromptu Frasier reunion.

2. Neil Gaiman’s stage debut

A lot of performances included the troupe singling out celebrity look a likes and so this was a regular occurrence throughout the shows life. This is why during a performance in ‘The Squat’, Niamh Walsh (Mimi/Mariane) didn’t think anything of Dominic J Allen’s suggestion that she pick a Neil Gaiman look a like to play Valere. When Niamh (who is a huge Neil Gaiman fan) had to ask her Valere his name, he of course said ‘Neil’. Her face dropped and with a look of awe she told Orgon ‘Neil…his name is actually Neil’. We can now proudly hold the claim that Neil Gaiman has acted in a Belt Up show.

1. Orgon’s death

Nothing throughout the show’s history compares to the audience reaction to Orgon’s eventual death at the end of the final performance. As Orgon’s body was lifted into the air by the troupe like Christ, confetti billowed down and ‘Zadok the Priest’ kicked into that amazing choral bit, the audience reaction at that point was phenomenal. Everyone was on their feet (admittedly they’d been asked to rise out of respect) cheering and the moment was an amazing way to kill off the lead and say goodbye to the show.

These are just a handful of the many fond memories that the company has of this show and nearly all of them are the responsibility of the audience members who made the show what it was. For this we are eternally grateful and to use a cliché, it couldn’t have happened without them.

‘The Tartuffe’ has been put to bed now but we are all gearing up to another epic Edinburgh programme. We look forward to seeing you in the audience for them…

Rest in Peace, Orgon Poquelin

The Final Tartuffe

For one night only. For one final performance. For one final farewell.

Belt Up Theatre bring their critically acclaimed adaptation ofMoliere's classic comedy to the York Theatre Royal for its final everper formance. After two sell out runs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and acclaimed runs in York, London's Southwark Playhouse and Cornwall, York Theatre Royal's company in residence bid a fond farewell to a show that has entertained thousands of people.

Blending clowning, farce, satire, mime and egotistical actors into a bizarre cocktail of meta-theatrical choreographed chaos – Moliere purists should leave all reservations at the door. Those that don’t like to be interacted with? Drop your guard because the haphazard troupe will grab you if they need you. By the end, they’ll have to shout at you to sit backdown.

An indefinite number of years after a career destroying scandal, lost luvvie, Orgon Poquelin presents a theatrical representation of his fall from grace at the hands of the sinister conman – Tartuffe. Assisted by his troupe of faded French variety act vagabonds, Orgon attempts a performance to truly exorcise the demons of his past.

A dizzying spectacle of theatrical pandemonium. Before you know it, you’ll be dragged up to understudy a missing troupe member or deliver a forgotten prop. Whether from itching to get onstage or from terror at being picked on, The Tartuffe will leave you on the edge of your seat; this adaptation shatters the fourth wall and happily chucks the broken fragments in the face of convention. A hilarious celebration of the very concept of theatrical performance.

After three years of the production the meta-theatrical mythology surrounding the play within the play has blossomed into an epic story of its own with characters befriending audience members who in turn come to the show again and again and become as involved in the performance as much as the troupe.

For one night only, see the 'play outside of the play' receive its final curtain call as ageing actor Orgon Poquelin prepares to say goodbye to the stage accompanied by the twenty or so troupe members who have been part of The Tartuffe in its numerous guises. Whether he'll achieve it with as much sincerity as he intends remains yet to be seen. Whether you've experience the calamity of the show before or are simply a fan of Moliere and have no idea what you're getting yourself into, this will be a performance not to be missed.

Tickets available from http://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/

Book now to avoid disappointment!