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Friday 18 November 2011

Anna Scher interview on Desert island Discs

FYI
I heard a bit of this this morning on desert island discs on Radio 4 - Scher noted that discipline was the first thing she used in theatre training but improvisation was a key skill for young actors. the broadcast is available form the title link.
Paula

(BBC, 2011, online)
"Anna Scher
LISTEN :
Listen now (45 minutes)
Availability:
Available to listen.
Last broadcast today, 09:00 on BBC Radio 4.
SYNOPSIS
Kirsty Young's castaway is the drama teacher Anna Scher.

It's more than forty years since she set up her theatre school and it has launched the careers of Kathy Burke, Martin Kemp, Pauline Quirke and Patsy Palmer to name just a few. It started out as a lunchtime drama club - and very quickly grew. Anna Scher says: "There were enormous classes - about seventy in a class - and a lot of those pupils were non-readers and so I fell into improvisation by chance. I found that it was a very effective way of character training."

Producer: Leanne Buckle.


Fri 18 Nov 201109:00BBC Radio 4" (BBC, 2011, online)

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for this Paula - I love Desert Island Discs! I will listen with interest as improvisation workshops are something I am quite scared of but would love to be able to do. Having the confidence to do it yourself, and teaching others to do it are completely different skills I find.

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  2. Very interesting.
    I study at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York and we work a lot on improvisation. We use improvisation to develop character behaviours and give our characters a substantial inner truth, without giving much importance to the lines. There's nothing as hard and fun as improvisation work!

    I was browsing through blogs looking for followers and I ran into your blog.
    Your work sounds very interesting. I think you might also find what I write interesting. If that is so, I'd love to have your feedback, comments, and have you as a follower.
    Thank you very much for sharing the BBC4 broadcast. I haven't listened to BBC4 in a while. This is the perfect chance to resume a good old habit!

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  3. Thank you for putting us on to this broadcast. I listened to it with interest although it doesn't really give very much of a clue as to the methods Anna Scher pioneered in the 1970's. I am researching her recent as well as her previous history since the inquiry topic I have chosen is related to Annas' feel of work.

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