Research

Performing Arts Research

Vanessa and Virginia - Research & Practice

An exciting collaboration involving research and practice is taking place between the Department of English and the School of MPA, with playwright and Senior Lecturer Dr. Elizabeth Wright and director and Senior Lecturer in Drama Emma Gersch. Based on the novel by Susan Sellers, Wright’s new play Vanessa and Virginia captures the complexity and beauty of the relationship between the sisters Virginia Woolf and her artist sister Vanessa Bell. With kind permission from Henrietta Garnett and Charleston House, the production features an original moving backdrop inspired by the paintings of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.

The cast includes recent Performing Arts Graduate Sarah Fullagar and part time movement tutor Kitty Randle. Emma’s Gersch’s theatre company, Moving Stories, has produced the play, which has also employed Theatre Production graduates George Seal and Luke Cheater.

The project was awarded an AHRC funding grant for knowledge transfer, with a particular focus on the employment of a recent graduate. It marks an innovative leap in straddling the academic and practice-based spheres, with the production being engaged at a series of conferences and events in the UK and abroad throughout 2011. The show opened in September 2010 at the 21st Annual International Conference on Vanessa and Virginia at the 21st Annual International Conference, Université de Provence, Aix-Marseille III and was received with great acclaim by an audience of Woolf scholars from all over the world:

“I thoroughly enjoyed Vanessa and Virginia. I think its fluidity is remarkable and completely absorbing. The transition from girlhood to Vanessa in her shawl at the end was astonishing in its economy and I found the whole thing totally convincing and moving.”

(Professor David Bradshaw, Woolf Scholar, Oxford University)

Owing to its success at the conference, the play was booked to play at conferences and theatres in Germany, Poland, Greece, Glasgow, Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Emma Gersch was also invited to present papers and give workshops throughout the tour.

Bloomsbury Conference at Bath Spa

Dr Elizabeth Wright held a highly successful conference event at Bath Spa University in May 2011 with the performance of Vanessa and Virginia as the centrepiece.

Vanessa and Virginia at Illuminate Bath

The play was also performed as part of the Illuminate Bath Cultural Olympiad festival in November 2010 at the Bath Royal Institute for Literature and Science on Queen Square.

The Play

Vanessa and Virginia are sisters, best friends, bitter rivals, and artistic collaborators. As children, they fight for attention. As young women, they stake their claims on bohemian Bloomsbury, creating new lives and groundbreaking works of art. Through everything — marriage, lovers, loss, madness, children, success, and failure — they remain the closest of co-conspirators. But they also betray each other. A love letter and an elegy from Vanessa Bell to her sister,Vanessa and Virginia is a stunning portrait of sibling rivalry and an imaginative triumph.

The Cast

Vanessa: Kitty Randle

Virginia: Sarah Fullagar

The Creative Team

Director: Emma Gersch

Designer: Kate Unwin

Playwright: Elizabeth Wright

Composer: Jeremy Thurlow

Lighting Design: George Seal

Projection Design: Samantha Simmonds,

Projection Design: Keeley Major

Stage Management: George Seal

Assistant Director: Hannah Quigley

Photos (click to view larger)

(Photographs kindly supplied by designer Kate Unwin)

Playwright: Dr Elizabeth Wright (Bath Spa University)

Elizabeth Wright is Senior Lecturer in English and European Literature at Bath Spa University. She penned her first play, an adaptation of the novel Vanessa and Virginia by Susan Sellers, in 2009. The play is now touring to a number of exciting and unusual venues across the UK and Europe. Elizabeth is currently teaching literature courses on early 20th century European drama and female modernist writers; working on a book about amateur dramatics at the turn of the nineteenth century and thinking up ideas for her next play.

Novelist: Professor Susan Sellers (University of St Andrews)

Susan Sellers is author of the novel Vanessa and Virginia, published in the UK by Two Ravens and in the US by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Mariner Books. The novel has also been translated into several languages (including Swedish, Dutch, French, Spanish, Turkish and Korean) and is available as an audiobook. Susan is a professor of English at the University of St Andrews and an internationally acclaimed scholar on the work of Virginia Woolf. She is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, general editor of Virginia Woolf’s Writings for Cambridge University Press, and volume editor of Woolf’s novel The Waves (also for Cambridge University Press). Susan has also written a number of books on literary theory and criticism, and has translated the work of the French writer Hélène Cixous.

Vanessa Bell: Kitty Randle (Bath Spa University)

Kitty trained at Bretton Hall. Her theatre credits include: ensemble in West Side Story at the Minack Theatre, Prince Edward & Mistress Shore in Richard III, Electra/Chorus in Orestes: Re-Examined at the Southwark Playhouse, Duckling in Fleet, Bernarda Alba in The House of Bernarda Alba (Rondo Theatre Bath), Violet in Heresies (Bristol Old Vic Studio), Ophelia in Hamlet (Bath Shakespeare Festival and the Minack Theatre), Liz in Becoming Giants (PQTC regional tour), Susanna Walcott in The Crucible (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield) Praying Girl inIphigenia (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield), Sheryl in The Russian Soldier Who(Babbling Vagabonds Regional Tour) as well as extensively touring with CragRats Theatre. TV and Film credits include: Crime Watch (BBC) and Rain(Suited and Booted).

Virginia Woolf: Sarah Fullagar

Sarah graduated from Bath Spa University in 2009 with a first class degree in Performing Arts and made her professional debut with Vanessa and Virginia. Previous work includes Rebel Orestes Re-Examined (Southwark Playhouse), ensemble Beast (The Rondo Theatre), Storyteller Old Man and the Sea (The Egg, Theatre Royal Bath) and Guide Moving Stories (Southwark Playhouse). Sarah is an Associate Artist for Moving Stories Theatre Company.

Director: Emma Gersch (Senior Lecturer in Drama, Bath Spa University)

Emma is Artistic Director of Moving Stories Theatre Company, whose debut production is Vanessa and Virginia. Most recently Emma directed West Side Story for the Minack Theatre in Cornwall. Emma trained at the University of Hull and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and has worked as an actress, director and teacher in the UK, Europe and the USA. Acting includes work with Howard Barker and the Wrestling School. Directing work includes The Tempest in New York, Judith in London. For Full Tilt Theatre Company, Emma has directed major site-specific and reinvention productions including Hamletand Macbeth for the Bath Shakespeare Festival and Minack Theatre, and The Comedy of Errors, which toured across USA and Canada. Emma is Senior Lecturer in Drama at Bath Spa University. Emma also works as a freelance director and teacher at Mountview Theatre Academy and ALRA in London.

Composer: Jeremy Thurlow (Cambridge University)

Jeremy Thurlow is a composer, writer and pianist. His music has been described as 'seductive, innovative, full of freshness' by Henri Dutilleux. It has been performed by the BBC Philharmonic, Rolf Hind, the BBC Singers, the Endymion Ensemble, Yundi Li and the Fitzwilliam String Quartet, among others. Recent projects include a video-opera for voices, video and electronics created in collaboration with writer Alastair Appleton; a new quartet for the Fitzwilliam String Quartet, a dance-piece That Second Realm, written in collaboration with choreographer Susie Crow, and a Keats setting Unbidden Visions. In 2007 he won the George Butterworth Award. His book on composer Henri Dutilleux is published in French by Millénaire III and he has also written about Messiaen. Jeremy also broadcasts frequently on BBC Radio 3. He enjoys playing chamber music, most recently in performances of Winterreise with tenor Phillip Conway-Brown. Jeremy Thurlow is a Fellow of Robinson College, University of Cambridge.

Lighting Design and Technical Stage Management: George Seal

George Seal is a recent graduate from Bath Spa University having studied Theatre Production, specialising in Lighting Design and Stage Management. Credits include How to Disappear Completely & Never be Found... (Lighting Design, Ustinov Studio) The Pillowman (Lighting Design, NSDF 2010), Romeo and Juliet Unzipped (Technical ASM, Salisbury Playhouse) Breakfast with Mugabe (ASM Theatre Royal Bath) Orestes Re-Examined (DSM, Southwark Playhouse) and Around the World in 80 Days (Takeover DSM, Theatre Royal Bath). George is also the Deputy Studios Technician for the Theatre Royal Bath’s Ustinov and Egg theatres and is an Associate Technician for Moving Stories Theatre Company.

Acknowledgement and Thanks

Bath Spa University and Mountview Theatre Academy for support and rehearsal space, Denise Goldman for production photographs, Mr and Mrs Wright, Matthew Wright, Kirsty Roberts, Victoria Watson, Clare Parr, Lucie MacKinlay, Caroline Elliker and Kerry Bradshaw for sponsoring the set for this production, and the AHRC for funding.

For further information

On the rehearsal process:www.vanessaandvirginiaresearch.blogspot.com

On the theatre company: www.movingstories.org.uk

Palatine Development Award: Cross-Cultural Exchange & Drama Pedagogy

Senior Lecturer in Performing Arts & Drama, Mary Steadman, received a Palatine Development Award for her Cross-Cultural Exchange & Drama Pedagogy project in October 2009.

The aim of the research has been to investigate the value and benefit of cross-cultural exchange for students in UK HE institutions. The research methods entailed an online survey, as well as one-to one interviews with staff in HE institutions who have been involved in cultural exchanges outside of the Erasmus scheme.

Mary also undertook a case study of students and their work while it was performed at a range of Student Theatre Festivals and interviewed the students involved about their experiences. She focused upon the student piece Red Room, based on The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, which is a physical piece of theatre involving eight students from Bath Spa University and which has been performed at the following festivals:

UniFest in Russia, May 2010 www.studiomaneken.ru - where student Lauren Gauge won the Best Actress award.
Teatralny Koufar 7th International Student Theatre Festival, in Minsk, Belarus, September/October 2010, www.theatre-fest.bsu.by where Mary won the Best Director award and the production won the grand prize of Best Production. Mary has also been invited to take another performance to the festival next year.
TITU - the International Student Theatre Festival in Liege, Belgium, in March 2011 - where they were invited to perform by Robert Germay, one of the founders of IUTA, the International University Theatre Association, www.aitu-iuta.org.

Mary was also a delegate at the IUTA 8th International World Congress: Theatre and Pedagogy where she delivered a paper entitled: Getting off the Island: Cross-Cultural Exchange & Theatre Pedagogy. This paper has since been submitted for publication and, if it is successful, will be published in the trilingual volume Theatre & Pedagogy published by IUTA press.

Red Room Cast & Crew

Suneil Bolton

Rose Creighton-Balfour

Joshua-Ellis Barnard

Matthew Ferdenzi

Megan Fitzgerald

Lauren Gauge

Andrew Toynbee

Rachel Wilson

Director: Mary Steadman

Costume Design: Cathy Kelly

Lighting Design: George Seal

Red Room in Minsk (click to view larger)

Famous and Divine

Mary Steadman is also currently developing practice as research projects with her performance company Famous and Divine, alongside co-founder and joint Artistic Director Dr Amanda Price (University of Bedfordshire).

Here, Mary talks about the company: "Famous & Divine create devised work which explores the hidden, secret, and silenced areas of women’s lives in contemporary society. Our work seeks out that which is unspoken, inexpressible, transgressive in the experience of being a woman. Our first piece, Last Night I Dreamt My House was Leaking…, entered the realm of women’s masochistic sexual fantasies where we returned again and again to metaphorical landscapes in which the dead and the living co-exist. Phantom women return to the scene of their murder, they are haunted by their ancestors, or haunt spaces that are forgotten by the living. In this piece, the audience were confronted by an undiscovered ‘crime scene’ in which a murdered woman’s unquiet spirit hovered between the living and the dead, creating an abject space filled with the detritus of destructive desire."

Performances:

Bath Spa University: Bath Spa Live, November 15th 2008

ScriptBeds Festival of New Writing, The Place, Bedford: February 28th 2009www.scriptbeds.org

Sprint Festival: Camden People’s Theatre, London, 16th and 17th June 2009www.cptheatre.co.uk

Monstrous Media/Spectral Subjects Conference, Lancaster University, 21st July 2009 www.monstrous-media.com

Performance Art Depot, British Performance Festival, Mainz, Germany, September 25th/26th 2009 http://www.pad-mainz.de/

Conference Paper: Creating the Zone, Tapra, Leeds 2008

Ongoing: Submit proposal for a paper/performance to the Theatre & Ghosts Conference at the University of York, July 2011

Fugitive Songs

"In our new piece, Fugitive Songs, two women succumb to their obsession with a particular piece of music and find themselves drawn into a landscape of desire and fantasy, fugitives from their everyday lives."