Collaboration with York Theatre Royal

Details of our work with York Theatre Royal are now online, as are the tickets!




01 - 03 July 2010
Tales from Kafka
Directed by Juliet Forster

“I think you cope quite sensibly with the difficulty of living…We tremble in the balance, we don’t fall, we flutter even though we may be uglier than bats.”

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Franz Kafka. Drawing on a rich vein of early writing and less well-known short stories, this entirely new play presents a layering and interweaving of eerie dreamscapes. It is shot through with Kafka’s hallmark foreboding and alienation, absurdist humour and struggling humanity.

Episodes for Lancaster Conference

On the 31st March, Out of Character will be performing their new work for the first time, "Episodes" at the mhhe conference in Lancaster

This work has culminated from the recognition and development of our educational based work and is in reponse to a need to develop a performance which tells our experiences and challenges audiences whilst retaining a sense of theatre and sophistication.

As artistic director for the company I am very excited about the piece. Our work in progress show at the C4C Celebration event held at York St. John University gave us some useful feedback and I am relishing in the difficulty and uncertainty people had watching our performance. We've now looked in more detail and depth at the material and I hope we can expand on this and provide no easy answers for our new audiences, after all dark humour is now very much an Out of Character trademark.

A nod of appreication to Brecht, Forced Entertainment and the performers of Out of Character.

Out of Character: a brief history

January 2009: Hidden Histories, York

Reality and Other Nightmares

A short performance for a Hidden Histories seminar event held at York St. John University. This Performance focused on things we wanted to remember and things we’d prefer to forget.

May 2009: Create 09 Festival, York

Enchantment

'Enchantment' was developed over 12 weeks with the then newly formed theatre company, 'Out of Character'. The motivation for the development of the piece came from two key themes, a desire to 'do' Shakespeare and themes around identity, which are especially relevant as the company starts the journey of developing its own theatrical identity.
Shakespeare's, A Midsummer Nights Dream, lends itself to examining confusion of identity and allowed us to further develop ideas around identity, and identification in workshops which have formed the basis for the other scenes.

“I feel this is a timely piece, not only for the group, but for you the audience member. Now is the time to question what you know, what you thought you knew about your identity and your right to it. In a time where identity is confused in meaning, shifting in ideals and not always considered a personal right, who will you be and where will you belong?”

September 2009: Arts and Health Conference, Northampton

The Unusual Suspects

A collection of sketches some from our existing repertoire and others developed specifically for the conference, continuing the exploration of themes of identity.

2010: Ongoing and Upcoming Projects

Education

Out of Character use their shared experiences and their skills as theatre makers to create work which aids the education of students and raises awareness of issues relating to Mental Health. These performances are tailored to meet the requirements of the audience and typically also include an opportunity for Q&A or a facilitated workshop.

Our audiences for these performances include Occupational Therapy Students, Mental Health Professionals and others interested in the links between art and health.

In recognition of the development of this aspect of our work, Out of Character will prepare and devise new work which will culminate in a performance at a Conference in Lancaster. This new work will then be made available to audiences who have an interest in developing their understanding in this area.

Collaboration

York Theatre Royal

Juliet Forster will take on the task of directing Out of Character in a performance focusing on Kafka’s short stories and themes. This work will be performed 1st, 2nd & 3rd July at York Theatre Royal.

Summer School

This year we will again host a theatre summer school. Out of Character, along with 1 in 4 (a theatre company based in Leeds) will have the opportunity to perform aspects of their current work as part of this event.

Development of New Work

Out of Character’s members are committed to the writing and development of new work, we hope to be able to develop these ideas into an original piece of theatre later in 2010.

Finally.....a web presence for Out of Character

We have so much work coming up over the next few months and as we're still in discussions to get our website into development, it seemed only fair to give our new fans something to hold onto.

So here it is, a place to congregate and find out more about Out of Character....