Lidless Theatre & our friends Living Pictures are excited to announce our Winter Urban Retreat. This is following the success of Living Picture’s Summer Retreat back in August, which was generously hosted on Coed Dylan, a plot of land in Wales run by Robbie Bowman and Elen Bowman (RNT, RSC, Living Pictures), offering a space for artistic development, self reflection, and a connection to nature.
We are now keen to further develop a space for artists to grow and share a sense of community. Our Winter Urban Retreat will be held at London Performance Studios, in South Bermondsey, London.
Retreat includes:
4 Days of Craft, Process, and Meditation
3 Meals Per Day
Evening Activities, developing community and connection
All our best,
Lidless Team
Deepening Craft. Developing Imagination.
Most actors, by nature of your work, have to live in a large city. London. New York. Berlin. This isn’t bad - the cultural nourishment and rich, constant opportunity for observation provides a fantastic offering for an actor looking to deepen their skills. However, this lifestyle also keeps us on the surface of ourselves, we move quickly and think even quicker, and rarely have the opportunity to slow down, and tap into our range as a human being.
Our bandwidth is narrowed. And that will narrow our work as well. In order to draw rich and complex characters, we need to be in touch with as much of ourselves as possible, with the greatest possible range available to us as much of the time as we can.
This isn’t some good idea that it would do just to think about. It’s an experience we must dive into. On this retreat, we’ll literally do just just that, retreat from our normal way of being, and enter a different mode, a mode which allows the mind to quiet, the heart to open, and our work to deepen.
ABOUT the team
Robbie Bowman
Robbie is co-director of Living Pictures. He is an Actor, most recently The Normal Heart (National Theatre), The Tempest (Wiltshire Creative), an Acting lecturer currently at RWCMD, WAVDA and recently at Central School of Speech and Drama . Robbie hosts the Living Pictures Acting Studios in London. He is a recipient of a Creative Wales Award 2016. Full biog here.
Elen Bowman
Elen was born in Swansea, South Wales and trained at RADA as an actor working with companies such as Shared Experience, Sherman Cymru and the NT. She trained as a director with Sam Kogan who was trained by Maria Knebel, Stanislavsky’s pupil. Shortly after finishing her training she assisted director Mike Alfreds at Method & Madness. During this time, Elen taught directing methods to directors at the Royal Court Theatre and became a personal tutor to Katie Mitchell, Ian Rickson and others.
Max Harrison
Max is a freelance theatre director. His work ranges from devised shows to new writing and revivals. After training as an actor at LAMDA he was mentored by Mike Alfreds and recently assisted him on Five Characters in Search of a Good Night’s Sleep (eSouthwark Playhouse). He is interested in process orientated rehearsals that centre around the actor’s creativity and imagination.
Professional directing credits include Leaves of Glass (Park Theatre), Tender Napalm (King’s Head Theatre), Moonfleece, (Pleasance Theatre), In Place of Fear (Pleasance Theatre) and Little Pieces of Gold (Southwark Playhouse). Alongside his professional work he also directs at drama schools, credits include Festen (East 15), Pillars of the Community (Bridge Theatre TC), and The Oresteia (East 15).
His plays have been nominated for 3 Best Lead Performer OFFIES and a Best Ensemble OFFIE.
Details
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Details 〰️
Venue: London Performance Studios
Dates: Thursday 14th Dec - Monday 18th Dec
Times:
Thurs 14th at 5.00pm - 9.00pm
Friday 15th 8.00am - 9.00pm
Saturday 16th 8.00am - 9.00pm
Sunday 17th 8.00am - 9.00pm
Monday 18th 8.00am - 9.00pm
The retreat will take place between these times each day, and participants will arrive each morning and return home each evening.
Cost: £175
Who For: Actors. Directors and Writers are more than welcome but please bear in mind this is primarily aimed at actors, and if you’d like to book, please note that you’ll be required to join in the exercises as an actor. If you’d like to speak to us about this, please email info@lidlesstheatre.com
Course Details
Meditation We will meditate and journal each morning, as a way to connect into our selves and as a process of reflection.
Robbie Will focus on deepening our awareness through Meisner and create a baseline sense of presence and openness, to our partner and to our own impulse. He will then look at how we can integrate NLP work into this baseline awareness in order to shift psychologically and emotionally towards character / given circumstance. This NLP practise can affect our work and our life.
Max will focus on techniques towards characterisation including Laban, Michael Chekhov and Grotowski.
Elen Elen will guide you through the process of understanding events as well as recognizing them in a play text. She will review the work from the summer regarding how objectives and long-term objectives grow from events and equip the actor with a rich source of context in each unit. There may also be time to field questions regarding your individual concerns about all things events and objectives.
important note about being on retreat
Retreats can be a very strong container for us to deepen and experience more of ourselves. They can connect us into a fellow feeling of community, generosity, and collective spirit. Lots of conditions help us do that, being without distraction, meditation, the work. A key factor within this, is each other; how we help each other to go deeper, and co-create a space that is supportive and challenging. In order to do this, we ask that you observe the following whilst on retreat with us:
Phones - We are operating a no phone policy on the premises. We also recommend that you keep your phones off during the whole time of the retreat.
Vegan Meals - all the food we consume on retreat will be vegan. Participants will be asked to cook one meal, at their own expense, for everyone else on the retreat.
Whole Retreat - We can only offer places to people who can attend the whole retreat, so there is unfortunately not the option to book for part of it.
If you feel that some of this may be difficult for you, then please email us at info@lidlesstheatre.com before booking, and we can discuss with you.
A note on what a retreat is for…
Please bear in mind that the retreat features extended periods of silence and the challenge of engaging with our minds, our habits and big themes within our lives. Although it is a very supportive environment, we cannot offer any therapeutic help, so if you’re in an emotionally unstable state and unsure how you’ll manage on retreat, please get in touch at info@lidlesstheatre.com