Burning Coal Hosts APPROACHES TO DEVISED THEATRE Workshop, 6/30

Burning Coal Theatre Company will present a workshop for actors and directors on" Approaches to Devised Theatre" on Saturday, June 30th from noon to 4 pm at the Murphey School Auditorium, 224 Polk Street, Raleigh, NC. The instructor, Anna Jones, hails from London, England and has worked extensively there and in New York City. The workshop fee is $25. Registration at 919-834-4001.

In "Approaches to Devising - Exploring Process," participants will look at a range of different starting points to the devising process (e.g. text, image, space) and work through its different stages - looking carefully at the source material, brainstorming ideas, active workshopping, the editing process.

All levels of experience welcome. Reflection will be built in throughout to help participants nurture their ideas and voice.

Anna Jones is a freelance theatre director and maker. She is currently under commission to the London Sinfonietta to devise a new piece based on the Greek myth of Persephone with puppeteer Seonaid Goody and composer Elspeth Brooke.

Anna's directing work in New York has been seen at Theaterlab, The Culture Project, The Brick Theater and in many site-specific venues, including a former coffin factory in Brooklyn and on Governor's Island for Figment. In the UK, she has devised and directed work at The Roundhouse Studio, Cambridge Arts Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre and Southwark Playhouse.

From 2007-2009 Anna ran Bone Orchard theatre company and directed/devised five original productions, including TIMES 365:24:7 (“a teeming mosaic”, New York Times) about the 24 hour nature of the news with the input of over 20 New York based journalists. She is now co-Artistic Director of NYLon Productions, a theatre company dedicated to telling powerful, timely stories and creating a bridge between the New York and London theatre scenes.

Anna has devised new work with children for England’s National Theatre: Discover and taught directing workshops for teenagers at The Old Vic in London and has been a Teaching Artist for The New Victory Theater, the West Side YMCA and The Center for Arts Education in New York. Anna trained at Cambridge University and the Yale School of Drama.

For further information about this workshop, or about PoliTheatrics, 2012, contact Simmie Kastner, Managing Director, at 919-834-4001 or go online at www.burnincoal.org.

Burning Coal Theatre Company is Raleigh's small, professional theatre. Burning Coal is an incorporated, non-profit [501 (c) (3)] organization. Burning Coal's mission is to produce literate, visceral, affecting theatre that is experienced, not simply seen. Burning Coal produces explosive reexaminations of overlooked classic and modern plays, as well as new plays, whose themes and issues are of immediate concern to our audience, using the best local, national and International Artists available. We work toward a theatre of high-energy performances and minimalist production values. The emphasis is on literate works that are felt and experienced viscerally, unlike more traditional linear plays, at which audiences are most often asked to observe without participating. Race and gender non-specific casting is an integral component of our perspective, as well as an international viewpoint.

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