Katie Mitchell is a British theatre director whose work has received various different opinions and reviews. According to The Guardian, Mitchell “has been hailed as the closest thing British theatre has to a genuine auteur: a director with a strong, uncompromising vision of how theatre should be” (Oltermann). Her exceptional directing style and methods have attracted both positive and negative feedback from her audiences and critics, reaching past the unknown and creating a new artistic style for the theatre. Whether watching a performance of one of her shows, or reading her directing book entitled “The Director’s Craft: A Handbook for the Theatre”, new and seasoned directors have much to learn from Katie Mitchell’s distinctive directing style. …show more content…
Biography Katie Mitchell was born in 1964, and grew up in a small village of Hermitage, Berkshire.
She studied English at Magdalen College in Oxford. Her theatrical career began when she served as a production assistant at King’s Head Theatre in 1986. Only a year later, Mitchell moved on to serve as the assistant director at Paines Plough, and became the assistant director of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1988. She became the founder of her own theatre company in 1990, entitled Classics on a Shoestring. While there, she directed numerous productions of well-known plays such as Women of Troy and Bernada Alba, all of which received exceptional praise and accreditation (Liptrott).
Mitchell has also served as an associate director at the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal National Theatre, and the Royal Shakespeare Company. At the Royal Shakespeare Company, she directed The Phoenician Women, which led her to receive the Evening Standard Award for Best Director in 1996. During the year of 1997, Mitchell programmed the Royal Shakespeare Company’s black box space, also known as The Other Place
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(Liptrott). Throughout her career, Katie Mitchell has directed a bounteous amount of works, ranging from classic works to devised theatrical performances. Some of her noteworthy theatrical productions include 2071 and Night Songs at the Royal Court Theatre, The Cherry Orchard at the Young Vic, A Woman Killed with Kindness and The Seagull at the National Theatre, The Trial of Ubu for Hampstead Theatre, and Henry VI Part III at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Mitchell has also directed for film and television, working on projects such as The Turn of the Screw and Mrs. Holroyd. She has also directed operas through the English National Opera and the Royal Opera House (Liptrott). Directorial Training In 1989, Mitchell received a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship to support her directorial studies in Eastern Europe. She spent five months in Poland, Russia, Georgia, and Lithuania, watching productions and classes at all of the major theatre companies in the areas. It was in Lee Dodin’s introductory directing class that Mitchell was first exposed to Stanislavsky’s methodology. Through his extreme attention to detail and observations, she grew to respect Stanislavsky’s direct and specific approaches, and adopted many of his own techniques and practices into her own directing style and methodology (227-228). A decade later, Katie Mitchell began taking private directing classes with Tatiana Olear and Elen Bowman in the United Kingdom. Tatiana Olear received her acting training from Lev Dodin, while Elen Bowman received her acting training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and directed at London’s School of the Science of Acting. Both of these women taught Mitchell their own variations of Stanislavsky’s method, providing her with many new tools to use in the rehearsal process. Many of their exercises are included in Mitchell’s directing book “The Director’s Craft”, published in 2009 (230). During her final stages of training, Mitchell took part in a Fellowship from the National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts in 2003. Through William James’ study “What is an Emotion?”, she found herself drawn to the idea of working with emotions by physically recreating their shape or situation. These discoveries led her to Antonio Damasio’s book entitled The Feeling of What Happens, which analyzes emotions as a means to understanding consciousness. This redefined her approach to directing emotions completely, helping her weed out unrealistic representations her actors were embodying regarding the emotional lives of the characters they were playing onstage. (231-232) Katie Mitchell believes that these discoveries have shaped her into the successful director she is today. She states, “As a result of these discoveries my relationship to the audience radically changed. It was no longer essential for actors to feel the emotions: now what mattered was that the audience felt them” (232). William James and Antonio Damasio’s studies helped her better comprehend Stanislavsky’s physical actions and physical truths, finding more depth in her artistic endeavors within the theatre. Directorial Style Katie Mitchell tends to lean more towards producing works that have deep, darker themes. Rarely does she direct comedies, but rather she chooses plays that explore the depths of humanity and the powers within it. She encourages her actors to explore the physicality of their language, not shying away form the emotional truths within their characters. The actors never directly address the audience, but rather live within the play itself. Once the curtain comes up, so does the fourth wall onstage. When watching her performances, it is noted that it is as if you are watching life take place onstage in real time and space (Higgins). She also takes classic works and changes their perspective to have a more feminist approach. Mitchell acknowledges the lack of plays written by female playwrights that have substantial female roles. To counteract this, she often takes collected texts and creates her own work, forming new works for herself and other artists equally (Trueman). One example of this is her production of Sarah Kane’s Cleansed, where the main character was dressed in drag. Mitchell has also explored works in various different mediums concerning climate change.
In 2012, Mitchell began working alongside scientist Stephen Emmott. The team spent five months workshopping ideas on how to produce a theatrical work on the topic. After realizing that their work was becoming too similar to others being produced on the same subject, they came to the realization that they would need to use another form of storytelling outside of the traditional theatrical setting. They then went on to the Royal Court and created Ten Billion, a dramatized lecture that inspired her to work alongside Emmott again
(Merritt). Emmot and Mitchell teamed up with playwright Duncan Macmillan and climate scientist Chris Rapley for 10 months to create 2071. Their aim through this production was to present Rapley’s scientific facts in a way that is easy to follow for the audience. “The simultaneous challenge we’ve had is how to take the anger and emotion out of the issue and at the same time make the data dramatically compelling to listen to”, said Macmillan (Merritt). She has also explored camera and theatre work, collaborating with video director Leo Warner to produce Duncan Macmillan’s Forbidden Zone as he wrote it on set. Warner stated, “as the ambition of Katie’s storytelling has expanded, we’ve needed to expand the canvas” (Oltermann). They created a “live cinema” approach to theatre, where the performers control and maneuver cameras and props so that they are projects onto a screen onstage. She also explored this new form of theatre in her production of Macmillan’s Lungs, where Mitchell had two of her actors ride exercise bikes to power the lights onstage throughout the entire production. The German press praises Mitchell’s bold directorial approaches, saying she has developed a “new theatrical language as intense and eye opening as only theatre can be” (Oltermann). The Director’s Handbook – A Deeper Look into Mitchell’s Directorial Process Mitchell’s analytical approach to the works she directs is laid out in great detail within her The Director’s Craft: A Handbook for the Theatre. Within this text, Mitchell takes her reader through her directorial process; from the day she begins analyzing the script to the day the production closes. In the introduction, Mitchell begins by saying, “Some think that directing is an inherit talent that can only evolve on the rehearsal room floor, during the process of making shows. Others think that it is a skill that can be learnt over time in an educational context. I am of the latter opinion” (1). By saying this, Mitchell immediately identifies the purpose of her book: to educate and train aspiring directors in the craft of her work. The book is broken into four parts: Preparing for Rehearsals, Rehearsals, Getting into the Theatre and the Public Performance, and Context and Sources. She uses The Seagull to demonstrate her method all throughout the book.
Annie Turnbo Malone was an entrepreneur and was also a chemist. She became a millionaire by making some hair products for some black women. She gave most of her money away to charity and to promote the African American. She was born on august 9, 1869, and was the tenth child out of eleven children that where born by Robert and Isabella turnbo. Annie’s parents died when she was young so her older sister took care of her until she was old enough to take care of herself.
Monica Malpass Bio, Wiki, Married, Husband, Net worth, Divorce, Dating, Boyfriend, career Short Bio Monica Malpass is a famous American journalist as well as a television anchor. Her date of birth is April 28, 1961(56 years). She was born in high point, North Carolina. Although we can find pictures of Monica’s parents and siblings, the details about the parents of Monica are not made available on any Wikipedia. In 1983 Monica obtained bachelors of Arts degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina.
Kathleen Orr, popularly known as Kathy Orr is a meteorologist for the Fox 29 Weather Authority team on WTXF in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was born on October 19, 1965 and grew up in Westckave, Geddes, New York with her family. The information about her parents and her siblings are still unknown. As per bio obtained online, Kathy Orr is also an author. She has written a number of books like Seductive Deceiver, The drifter's revenge and many others. She graduated in Public Communications from S. I. Newhouse which is affiliated to Syracuse University.
The athlete I chose is Natasha Watley. She is a professional softball player and the first African-American female to play on the USA softball team in the Olympics. She’s a former collegiate 4-time First Team All-American who played for the UCLA Bruins, the USA Softball Women’s National Team, and for the USSSA Pride. She helped the Bruins will multiple championships and also holds numerous records and one of the few players to bat at least .400 with 300 hits, 200 runs, and 100 stolen bases. She’s also the career hits leader in the National Pro Fast pitch. She won the gold medal in the 2004 summer Olympics and a silver in the Beijing Olympics. She was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame in 2014.
Faye Carey is a 16 year old girl that has managed to re-home more than 60 dogs. News Hub says that ¨She wants to have a career in animal control.¨ ¨She has made a Facebook page called Animal Re-Home Waikato.¨ Says News Hub. Her Facebook page has nearly 300 likes and a loyal following of new parents. (Of animals). News Hub also said that ¨With Faye being there, when an animal comes into the shelter or animal control, the animal goes right into a new loving home. ¨
Mary Wade, born on the 5th of October 1777 was the youngest convict to be sent to Australia. Before her life as a convict, she would sweep and beg on the streets of London to make her living.
...her schooling in Ohio she began apprenticing with experimental theater companies in New York and taking anthropology classes at Columbia University. Along with scenic design, costume design, and prop and puppet design Taymor successfully directed a number of shows. In 1997 her direction of the Broadway hit the Lion King led to the first Tony for Directing presented to a female in the fifty years that the Tony awards had been in place.
Mary Bryant was in the group of the first convicts (and the only female convict) to ever escape from the Australian shores. Mary escaped from a penal colony which often is a remote place to escape from and is a place for prisoners to be separated. The fact that Bryant escaped from Australia suggests that she was a very courageous person, this was a trait most convicts seemed to loose once they were sentenced to transportation. This made her unique using the convicts.
At any point in time, someone’s world can be turned upside down by an unthinkable horror in a matter of seconds. On June 20th, 2001 in a small, suburban household in Houston, TX, Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub after her husband left for work. The crime is unimaginable, yes, but the history leading up to the crime is just as important to the story. Andrea Yates childhood, adulthood, and medical history are all potent pieces of knowledge necessary to understanding the crime she committed.
For a long time, women’s potential in Science was little to none. However, over the years, it has now changed because of the outstanding breakthroughs and encouraging accomplishments women have done through the years. It is because of them, women’s potential in Science and other realms of studies has now evolved with more understandings and discoveries. It is for the reason of Maria Mitchell, one of the first female astronomers to be recognized in Science, that women’s potential were essentially respected. Her discoveries during her time as a student, a teacher, and an astronomer paved the way for many others, not just in Science, but also for woman’s rights and potential to be seen.
On November 7th, 1943, Joni Mitchell was born as Roberta Joan Anderson in Fort Macleod, Canada. Her family eventually moved to North Battleford and then Saskatoon; both of which are cities in the Saskatchewan providence of Canada. She considers Saskatoon, Canada to be her hometown. At the young age of nine years old, Mitchell contracted polio, but she managed to recover and regain her ability to walk after a stay in the hospital. Joni Mitchell’s interest in folk music began in her adolescent years. She was self-taught on how to play the ukulele and ultimately, the guitar. Mitchell started performing at parties and among the folk songs sang were some original ones she wrote herself. Thus, Joni Mitchell’s songwriter and singer career began. She, however, was more interested in pursuing art at the time.
Katherine Johnson is a memorable African American mathematician and an icon for young black girls around the world. Katherine Johnson loved math. Early in her career, she was called a “computer.” She helped NASA put an astronaut into orbit around Earth, and then she helped put a man on the moon.
Butler, Judith. Ed. Case, Sue-Ellen. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution." Performing Feminisms: Feminist Critical Theory and Theatre. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.
Russell Brown, J. 1995. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Theatre. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Inchbald, Mrs. The British Theatre: Or, A Collection of Plays. New York: Hurst, Robinson, 1824.