BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES - 2018 TEACHER RESOURCE KIT THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF - NZ Festival
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THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF
BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES
EVENT PARTNER
2018 SCHOOLFEST PARTNER
TEACHER RESOURCE KIT
CONTENTS
1. CURRICULUM & LEARNING AREAS
2. CAST & CREATIVES
3. ABOUT THE SHOW
4. ABOUT THE COMPANY
5. BIOGRAPHIES & STATEMENTS
6. FURTHER RESOURCES & READING
A. VIDEOS/TRAILER
B. REVIEWS
C. OTHER RELATED VIDEOS/MATERIALS
7. YOUR SHOW EXPERIENCE
8. BACK IN YOUR CLASSROOM
TEACHERS SCHOOLFEST 101 PACK
DOWNLOAD HERE
This is your guide to getting the most out of your SchoolFest experience. The
pack includes top tips for attending performances, dress code, schools’ ticket
collection, Festival venues, accessibility and more.
2018 SCHOOLFEST
BARBER SHOP
CHRONICLES
CURRICULUM LINKS Dance, Drama, Music
ACHIEVEMENT OBJECTIVES & LEARNING OUTCOMES
Level 3–8
Dance
AS90860 – 1.4 Demonstrate understanding of the elements of
dance
AS90861 – 1.5 Demonstrate understanding of a dance
performance
AS90005 – 1.6 Demonstrate knowledge of a dance genre or
style
AS91211 – 2.7 Provide an interpretation of a dance performance
with supporting evidence
AS91212 – 2.8 Demonstrate understanding of a dance genre or
style in context
AS91594 – 3.7 Analyse a dance performance
Drama
AS90998 - 1.3 Demonstrate understanding of features of a
drama/theatre form
AS91217 - 2.5 Examine the work of a playwright
AS91516 - 3.5 Demonstrate understanding of the work of a
drama or theatre theorist or practitioner
AS90011 - 1.7 Demonstrate understanding of the use of drama
aspects with live performance
AS91219 - 2.7 Discuss drama elements, techniques, conventions
and technologies within live performance
AS91518 - 3.7 Demonstrate understanding of live drama
performance
Music
AS91425 - 3.10 Research a music topic
Photography credit: Dean Chalkley
CAST & CREATIVES Writer Inua Ellams Director Bijan Sheibani Designer Rae Smith Lighting Designer Jack Knowles Movement Director Aline David Sound Designer Gareth Fry Music Michael Henry Fight Director Kev McCurdy Staff Director Stella Odunlami Barber Consultant Peter Atakpo Company Voice Work Charmian Hoare Dialect Coach Hazel Holder Tour Casting Director Amy Ball Design Associate Catherine Morgan Lighting Associate Laura Howells Sound Associate Amir Sherhan Costume Supervisor Lydia Crimp Wardrobe Supervisor Louise Marchand-Paris Production Manager Richard Eustace Company Stage Manager Joni Carter Deputy Stage Manager Fiona Bardsley Assistant Stage Manager Naomi Brooks
Kwabena / Brian / Fabrice Emmanuel: Cyril Nri Musa / Andile / Mensah:
/ Olawale: Peter Bankolé Maynard Eziashi
Tanaka / Fiifi: David Ajao Samuel: Bayo Gbadamosi Winston / Shoni: Martin
Imhangbe
Kwame / Simon / Wole: Abram / Ohene / Sizwe: Tokunbo / Paul /
Abdul Salis David Webber Simphiwe: Patrice
Naiambana
Ethan: Kwami Odoom Elnathan / Benjamin / Wallace / Timothy /
Dwain: Sule Rimi Mohammed / Tinashe:
Tuwaine Barrett
“This wonderful new play is a revelation. It’s a flamboyant, musical, movable feast” ★ THE TIMES
ABOUT THE SHOW One day. Six cities. A thousand stories. For generations, African men have gathered in barber shops. Sometimes they have haircuts, sometimes they listen, more often than not they talk. Barber shops are confession boxes, political platforms, preacher- pulpits and football pitches... places to go for unofficial advice, and to keep in touch with the world. Barber Shop Chronicles is a heart-warming, hilarious and insightful new play, set in Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos, Accra and London. The play invites the audience into a uniquely masculine environment where the banter may be barbed, but the truth always telling. The barbers of these tales are sages, role models and father figures, they are the glue that keeps men together. Fuel has produced Inua Ellams’ work for theatre since his debut play nine years ago. Opening at the National Theatre in May 2017, Barber Shop Chronicles has received huge critical acclaim and taken social media by storm with audience feedback. Looking ahead to 2018 and beyond, Fuel are now exploring potential touring partnerships to collaborate with regional and international programmers to bring the play to their audiences.
ABOUT THE COMPANY Fuel Fuel produces an adventurous, playful and significant programme of work – live, digital, and across art forms – for a large and representative audience across the UK and beyond. We collaborate with outstanding artists with fresh perspectives and approaches who seek to explore our place in the world, expose our fears, understand our hopes for the future, create experiences which change us and in turn empower us to make change in the world around us. Fuel Director Kate McGrath and Inua Ellams met in 2008, after Kate saw the beginnings of what became Inua’s first play, The14th Tale, at BAC. Fuel helped Inua develop this debut and produced it, premiering it at the Edinburgh Festival, winning a Fringe First, touring it in the UK and internationally and presenting it at the National Theatre. Since that first meeting, Fuel has worked closely with Inua, producing Untitled, Knight Watch, The Long Song Goodbye, Black T-shirt Collection, The Spalding Suite, and Barber Shop Chronicles since its inception. Fuel is also currently touring Inua’s An Evening with an Immigrant where with poems, stories and extracts from his plays, he tells about his life through the lens of his experience of immigration.
BIOGRAPHIES & STATEMENTS Inua Ellams, Writer: Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a cross-art-form practitioner, a poet, playwright, performer, graphic artist, designer and founder of the Midnight Run – a nocturnal urban excursion. He is a Complete Works poet alumni and a designer at White Space Creative Agency. Inua Ellams’ previous plays at the National include The 14th Tale (Fringe First award) and Black T-Shirt Collection. Other plays include The Riddler at Theatre503; Knight Watch at Greenwich + Docklands Festival; Mostly Like Blue for Islington Community Theatre; Cape at the Unicorn; The Long Song Goodbye at Battersea Arts Centre; Fastcuts and Snapshot at West Yorkshire Playhouse; Marsh Orchids & Concrete for China Plate; Reset Everything and An Evening with an Immigrant at the Soho and on tour, which was awarded the Liberty Human Rights Award in 2017; and Turned at Trafalgar Studios. Radio plays include The Ballad of Abdul Hafiz and Wild Blood. He has published three pamphlets of poetry ‘Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars’, ‘Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales’ and ‘The Wire-Headed Heathen’. His poetry is published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches, and several plays by Oberon Books. His new book #Afterhours is published by Nine Arches Press. inuaellams.com Bijan Sheibani, Director: Bijan Sheibani is a theatre and opera director. His work in theatre includes Our Class, The Kitchen, Emil and the Detectives, A Taste of Honey and Romeo and Juliet for the National; Giving at Hampstead; The House of Bernarda Alba at the Almeida; Moonlight at the Donmar Warehouse; Eurydice and The Brothers Size for the Young Vic and ATC; Ghosts for the Arcola and ATC; Gone Too Far! for the Royal Court, Hackney Empire, Albany and ATC; The Typist for Riverside Studios and Sky Arts; Other Hands and Flush at the Soho Theatre; One for the Road and Party Time at Battersea Arts Centre; and Have I None at Southwark Playhouse. Work in opera includes Nothing at Glyndebourne and Danish National Opera; The Virtues of Things and Through His Teeth at the Royal Opera House; and Tarantula in Petrol Blue at Aldeburgh. He directed the short film Groove is in the Heart, which was selected for the BFI London Film Festival and other international festivals. He also wrote and directed the short film Samira’s Party, which was selected for the BFI London Film Festival 2017, and funded by Film London and the BFI. His production of Gone Too Far! won an Olivier Award for outstanding achievement in an affiliate theatre and he was nominated for Olivier Awards for Our Class and The Brothers Size. He was artistic director of ATC from 2007 to 2010 and an Associate Director of the National Theatre from 2010 to 2015. In 2018 he will remount his production of The Brothers Size by Tarell McCraney for the Young Vic, and direct a new production of Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker for Home in Manchester. He will also direct a new opera for Streetwise Opera at the Sage Gateshead.
FURTHER RESOURCES
& READING
VIDEOS & TRAILER
Barber Shop Chronicles | NZ Festival Trailer
https://www.festival.co.nz/2018/events/barber-shop-chronicles/#watch
Barber Shop Chronicles | In the rehearsal room
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok5oDvktgO4
Barber Shop Chronicles | What’s it all about?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1TJgVVvkFE
Inua Ellams’ Barber Shop Chronicles Teaser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtsyrNu4TlwBarber Shop Chronicles | Question Time: Part One https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIrQL4NBWGY Barber Shop Chronicles | Question Time: Part Two https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYIc6sTkocw Inua Ellams on Barber Shop Chronicles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VEeXxu_fas&t=49s Barber Shop Chronicles | Improv Scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB8w4G21Xzs&t=9s Barber Shop Chronicles | Audience Reactions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xceGAS2TSY
REVIEWS “It makes the average white British male’s belief that you simply go in for a haircut look decidedly dreary. The acting is first rate. It’s a richly enjoyable play” The Guardian ★★ “The sinewy pulse and lissom beauty of Sheibani’s production, which throbs with energy and heat. A hypnotic use of song signifies each shift in location, while his crack cast move with limber grace. This is a show full of sadness and great joy.” Daily Telegraph “Staged with an exhilarating dynamism. This is a joyous piece of theatre. Such an ambitious piece and so life-affirmingly realised. Go.” The Independent “Barber Shop Chronicles is a pleasure to experience. The level of joy in the room is high.” The Stage “...a sharp-edged insight into African masculinity.” TimeOut “This wonderful new play is a revelation. It’s a flamboyant, musical, movable feast” The Times “Funny, fast, thoughtful, moving. An absolute cracker.” Financial Times “Bijan Sheibani’s production is irresistibly joyful. A festival atmosphere dominates with dancing to rap, hip hop afro beats and vocal harmonies between scenes” Daily Mail “Rae Smith’s terrific design sets the action underneath a large wire globe. Bijan Sheibani’s production skids from one scene to another on caster chairs, music and a flap of barbers’ capes.” The Observer “Ellams’s play has warmth, casual wisdom and global reach with a light touch.” Sunday Times Barber Shop Chronicles: Acclaimed theatre production coming to Wellington https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/stage-and-theatre/97794674/barber-shop-chronicles-acclaimed- theatre-production-coming-to-wellington Barber Shop Chronicles, National Theatre, London, review: Staged with an exhilarating dynamism http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/barber-shop-chronicles-dorfman- national-theatre-t-london-review-a7779761.html Barber Shop Chronicles review at National Theatre, London – ‘rich and exhilarating’ https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2017/barber-shop-chronicles-review-national-theatre-london/
“Funny, fast, thoughtful, moving. An absolute cracker” FINANCIAL TIMES
OTHER RELATED VIDEOS/MATERIALS Videos Inua Ellams “Candy Coated Unicorns And Converse All Stars” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNT_-vb1vio Shame Is The Cape I Wear – Inua Ellams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VioAPex9HXo Introduction to Inua Ellams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLjaAKtOMA4 TEDXBrixton | Inua Ellams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG7Fb7E5nOk
YOUR SHOW EXPERIENCE Before seeing a theatre production – Research the story and content upon which the performance is based, for instance, barbershops and their protocol around the world. – View and analyse videos/photos of the creative team’s past works. Things to think about during the show Before entering the theatre: – How, if at all, does the exterior of the theatre capture my attention? – How does this theatre exterior compare to other theatres I have seen or are nearby? – Who else seems to be attending the show? What is the make-up of the audience (i.e. age, gender, ethnicity, race, etc?) As I enter the theatre: – What sense of energy do I feel in the theatre space? – Which of my senses seem to be most activated? (Touch, sight, sound, smell?) – How do I navigate the building to find my seats? Once in the theatre: – What strikes me about the design of the theatre? The physical space? The lighting? Looking at the frame of the stage (proscenium etc.), does anything catch my eye? – What do I notice about the set design or curtain when looking at the stage? What might I understand about the production before it even starts? Observations about the production: – What captures my attention during the play? Is it the actors? The set? The music? Why? – Does the plot engage me? Do I care about the characters? Why? – How do the actors seem to interact with one another? With the set and the world of the play? – How do the director, actors and designers (costume, lights and set) stage the action to focus the drama for me? – What questions do I have about this production? What is the meaning of the play? – How did it feel when the lights came up and I was brought back to the reality that I was in a theatre and it is now time to leave?
BACK IN YOUR CLASSROOM ACTIVITY 1 Positive, negative & interesting Following the attendance of Barber Shop Chronicles, ask your students to reflect on the questions below. You might choose to have them answer each individually, in groups for round-table discussions or all together as a class. 1. What was your overall reaction to Barber Shop Chronicles? Did you find the production compelling? Stimulating? Intriguing? Challenging? Memorable? Confusing? Evocative? Unique? Delightful? Meaningful? Explain your reactions. 2. What were the most compelling characters or themes in the play and why did you find them interesting? 3. Do you think that the pace and tempo of the storytelling were effective and appropriate? Explain your opinion. 4. If you were asked to describe Barber Shop Chronicles to a friend who didn’t see the play using only one sentence, what would that sentence be? 5. Which characters were you most drawn to in Barber Shop Chronicles and why? 6. How were the qualities of character revealed by their action and speech? 7. Was there a character whose personality or ideas you most related to? 8. In what ways did your favourite characters reveal the themes of the play? Explain your response.
ACTIVITY 2
Favourites & the five ws
What were your favourite three key moments in the production? Which characters and
relationships were involved in these moments? Answer the five Ws (What, Who, Why,
When, Where) for each of these three key moments.
Moment 1 Moment 2 Moment 3
What happened?
Who was there?
Why did it happen?
When did it happen?
Where did it happen?ACTIVITY 3
Production technologies used in Barber Shop Chronicles
In the boxes below, describe one example of each production technology you saw in
the show.
1. Lighting How did it help to communicate the ideas of the
show. Why was it effective?
2. Costume How did it help to communicate the ideas of the
show. Why was it effective?
3. Sound/Music How did it help to communicate the ideas of the
show. Why was it effective?ACTIVITY 4 Write a review Have your students take on the role of theatre critic by writing a review of the production of Barber Shop Chronicles. A theatre critic or reviewer is essentially a “professional audience member”, whose job is to provide reportage of a play’s production and performance through active and descriptive language for a target audience of readers (for example, their peers, their community, or those interested in the arts). Critics/reviewers analyse the theatrical event to provide a clearer understanding of the artistic ambitions and intentions of a play and its production; reviewers often ask themselves, “What is the playwright and this production attempting to do?” Finally, the critic offers personal judgment as to whether the artistic intentions of a production were achieved and effective. Your performance review should include: Introduction • Include the name of the production, production company and key creatives (writer, director, leading actors). Body paragraphs • Tell the reader something about the major themes/ideas of the production. • Make judgements about the production but make sure you justify your opinions. Conclusions • Make an overall recommendation about why people should see this performance. Don’t forget to include a snappy headline that encapsulates the show. Note: Encourage your students to email their reviews to the New Zealand Festival SchoolFest team on schoolfest@festival.co.nz for publication. ACTIVITY 5 Recreate it! Choose one of your favourite moments/scenes from the show and recreate it. Perhaps change a character, location or issue to make it personal to you. Try adapting it for New Zealand; a New Zealand story, cast and location. Perform it to the rest of the class and see if they can guess which moment from the production you picked.
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