Final performance of The Ice Maiden!
We’ve really enjoyed the past co
uple of days at Theatrefest, we’ve seen some great shows and got a lot of good feedback.
A lot of people seemed to have really enjoyed the show and said lovely things about it like:
“Throughout the performance SourDough use many different types of media to tell their tale to great effect”
“This production is visual, vivid and emotive, but beyond all full of imagination”
“The Ice Maiden is quite beautiful”
But don’t worry if you’ve missed it because you can see The Ice Maiden tonight at 7:30 at the Baptist Hall.
So come along for your final chance to enjoy our multi-media storytelling!
More performances at Barnstaple Fringe TheatreFest
Yesterday we had our first performance in Barnstaple and it went well, we got a lot of postive feedback.
But the good thing is we still have two more performances left for you lucky people to come and see!
We perform at the Baptist Hall today at 4:15 and tomorrow at 7:30 so be there for some lovely puppetry, music and theatre
Our tech rehearsal yesterday
Barnstaple Theatre
So we’ve finished our performances at Ignite – but do not worry if you missed it, for we are performing again at the Barnstaple Fringe Festival this coming week!
Theatrefest is a great festival and there are some truly great performances going on, so we recommend you see as much as you can. Particular shout outs must go to our friends Worklight Theatre and their new show I Think I’m a Feminist and Theo Fraser’s truly hilarious Pretentious.
We are performing at the Baptist Hall at the following dates and times so come along for then last performances of The Ice Maiden:
Thursday 20th – 8:00
Friday 21st – 4:15
Saturday 22nd – 7:30
Ignite
Just a quick post to say we are doing our second performance of The Ice Maiden today on the last day of the Exeter Ignite Festival.
We perform at 12:20 at the Bike Shed Theatre so come along and enjoy a tale from the ice maiden’s frozen kingdom…
The Ice Maiden at Ignite!
The performances are finally here!
Having been reworking the show since January we have finished the full version, and are performing at the Exeter Ignite Festival tomorrow and Saturday.
We are in the Bike Shed Theatre on tomorrow, Friday 7th at 2:40 and on Saturday at 12:20.
Tickets are £6 with discounts if you buy for one than one show. There’s a lot of good work in the festival and it is all worth seeing, and if you want to cool down tomorrow then come to the Bike Shed for a tale of the frozen kingdoms of the Ice Maiden….
The Ice Maiden – Exeter Ignite and Barnstaple Fringe TheatreFest 2013
“She, the murderess, the destroyer, is half a child of air and half the powerful ruler of the streams”
SourDough Theatre present Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ice Maiden, the dark tale of a young man called Rudy, whose life is beset by an evil being – the queen of the glaciers, a force of icy rage from the natural world, the titular Ice Maiden. After escaping her when he was young he must now do everything in his power to resist the lure of the Ice Maiden and escape her frosty grasps.
Working from Andersen’s original text, SourDough have devised their own version, merging the old story with their new interpretation. Here they unveil their production of this morbid fairy-tale, exploring a world that is both enticing and dangerous. The story is illustrated with many of the company’s favourite devices; shadows, projection, puppetry and live music.
We will be performing at two different festivals, with a total of five performances throughout June:
Ignite: Exeter’s Festival of Theatre (www.igniteexeter.org.uk)
The Bike Shed Theatre, Exeter
Friday 7th June, 2:40pm
Saturday 8th June, 12:20pm
Tickets available at www.bikeshedtheatre.co.uk for just £6.
Fringe TheatreFest, Barnstaple (www.theatrefest.co.uk)
The Baptist Hall, Barnstaple
Thursday 20th June, 8:00pm
Friday 21st June, 4:15pm
Saturday 22nd June, 7:30pm
Tickets just £5. For ticketing info, see www.theatrefest.co.uk or call the Box Office on 01271 32 42 42
See you all there!
Just a delayed update
Thought it was about time we posted a little update on what’s happening at the moment with The Ice Maiden.
We performed the work-in-progress version of our first act in the From Devon with Love festival and managed to get a lot of helpful feedback from it, which was the main thing we were looking for. A lot of our ideas went down well, people liked our aesthetic and we found out a lot about which sections were working better than others. From the feedback we got two main points – to push our more dramatic, aesthetically-interesting parts futher, and to give the whole piece more of a storytelling feel. Although we did have some bits which were quite like storytelling theatre, the theme was definetly lacking when you looked at the piece overall. Rather than having flats to function as wings, and blackouts to disguise scene changes, it was suggested we ‘don’t hide the strings’, integrate the narration in the action and have the actors sit on a bench at the back of the stage when not in a scene and other such ideas.
Although we had worked with other actors for that performance, we decided to carry on with just the three of us for the next stage of the project. Taking the feedback we tried to develop our script taking the new ideas into account but ended up hitting a wall. The concept of storytellers narrating the tale to the audience was integrated fairly easily, but there seemed no way around the fact that these characters seemed random, walking around the stage telling the audience this story for no particular reason. There were also problems with the plot, mostly from the character of Babette who we couldn’t escape simply being the ‘love interest’.
Therefore we decided we had to take a bit of a new direction with the piece. We looked at the plot and made it more centric around the main character Rudy, and decided to have him as a puppet throughout the whole piece, rather than just at the beginning. The plot changes opened up a lot of new potential scenes, and as we worked through a new script we tried to make sure sure that each scene had some sort of hook or device to it, and not simply be too reliant on dialogue (never one of our strong suits).
While we liked having storyteller characters narrate the whole piece, we needed a reason for them to be there and so they have ended up functioning as a framing device. It is now like it is being created by these storytellers as it goes along – the play is set in these creators’ rehearsal room as they struggle to come up with a new idea, and start writing this story. It allows us to be highly theatrical and acknowledge the storytelling themes, we can drop in and out of the action to narrate when we need to and we can show the strings as much as we want
We’re going to be performing in the Ignite festival in the Bike Shed and TheatreFest in Barnstsaple – so lets see if we can make this version in three months….
Work in progress performance
Just a quick note to say that a work-in-progress performance of the first act of The Ice Maiden is being performed on Monday 14th!
The Bike Shed Theatre, at 8:30pm and tickets are just £5. It’s part of the From Devon With Love festival and it would be great to see you there and any feedback will be very welcome!
From Devon With Love
“She, the murderess, the destroyer, is half a child of air and half the powerful ruler of the streams”
SourDough Theatre present Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ice Maiden, the dark tale of a young man called Rudy, whose life is beset by an evil being – the queen of the glaciers, a force of icy rage from the natural world, the titular Ice Maiden. After escaping her when he was young he must now do everything in his power to resist the lure of the Ice Maiden and escape her frosty grasps.
Working from Andersen’s original text, SourDough have devised their own version, merging the old story with their new interpretation. Here they unveil the first act of their latest production as part of a work-in-progress piece, a morbid fairy-tale, exploring a world that is both beautiful and grotesque. The story is illustrated with many of the company’s favourite devices; shadows, projection and live music. As the first performance of this new project SourDough are experimenting with bringing together a range of visual and technical elements, to create a distinctive storytelling experience.
SourDough Theatre will perform their piece at The Bike Shed Theatre as part of From Devon With Love, a 2 week festival of new local theatre.
Monday 14th January
8:30pm
Single show from £5, two shows from £7.
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