Project

In March 2010, the Genesis Laboratory, HighTide's Research and Development Studio for emerging theatre practitioners, opens at a studio underneath the Waterloo Brasserie.  A one year grant from the Genesis Foundation will enable HighTide to award 26 bursaries to emerging playwrights, directors, and ensembles to develop their craft for a week in HighTide's Studio with the support of HighTide's Artistic Director Steven Atkinson.

Located in South Kensington, London, the Royal College of Art is th eonly wholly postgraduate university of art and design in the world.

The Sixteen - choral projects

After thirty years of worldwide performance and recording, The Sixteen, a British group founded and conducted by Harry Christophers, is recognised as one of the world's leading ensembles in its field.  Comprising both choir and period-instrument orchestra, The Sixteen has gained a particular reputation for performances of early English polyphony, Renaissance, Baroque, early Classical and 20th Century music.

William Oldroyd is a participant on the Genesis Foundation’s Wilson Brothers scheme at the Young Vic theatre in London. As part of this programme of work, he directed a workshop production of Ibsen’s Ghosts.

Natalie Abrahami is co-artistic director of the Gate Theatre in Notting Hill. She has directed productions at the Royal Court, Battersea Arts Centre, and Southwark Playhouse. In 2005 Natalie won the James Menzies Kitchin-trust Award for her production of Samuel Beckett’s play Not I. She is a member of the Genesis Directors Project at London’s Young Vic theatre.

Maria Aberg is a Swedish director who has worked regularly in the UK, Sweden and Germany. In the UK she has directed for the Royal Court, RSC, Soho theatre and Southwark Playhouse. She is a member of the Genesis Directors Project at the Young Vic in London.

What’s the secret of getting great performances from your actors? At the end of February 2009, I travelled to St Petersburg with seven theatre directors from the Young Vic’s Genesis Directors Programme to ask Lev Dodin that very question.

We spent two weeks there with the iconic Russian director, who has developed god-like status since taking over the Maly Theatre 23 years ago. His stellar reputation is founded upon his ability to draw phenomenally deep and detailed performances from his acting ensemble.

Stay with me, Lord, for it is necessary to have you present so that I do not forget you. You know how easily I abandon you.

Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak and I need your strength, that I may not fall so often.

Stay with me, Lord, for you are my life, and without you, I am without fervour.

Stay with me, Lord, for you are my light, and without you, I am in darkness.

Stay with me, Lord, to show me your will.

Stay with me, Lord, so that I hear your voice and follow you.

A Statement by John Lloyd Davies, Head of Opera Development at ROH2

For almost a hundred years contemporary opera has been the problem child of the opera world. What was once a living and accessible art form, reflecting the time and world in which it was created, has become a narrow, academic field, rarely reaching a wider audience. Where once the arias of Don Giovanni were busked on the streets of Prague, and Verdi's tunes were pirated for barrel-organs, today new opera is the preserve of a tiny group of enthusiasts and specialists.

Varjak Paw

One of the highlights of the spring programme has been the continuing work in partnership with The Opera Group on the new opera Varjak Paw, by composer Julian Philips and writer Kit Hesketh Harvey (of ‘Kit and the Widow’). Workshops during March 2008 culminated in a showcase performance of scenes from the opera to an invited audience at the Jerwood Space. This was followed by a question and answer session with Julian and Kit, and a chance to see the set model for the world premiere production.