Charioteer Theatre

Charioteer Theatre are dedicated to furthering theatrical skills

Mission Statement

Why “Charioteer”?

“While I was in Moscow working with Master Vassiliev on the text “Phaedrus” written by Plato, I was particularly touched by the description of the soul as a charioteer led by two horses, a white one, obedient and easy to drive, and a black one, rebellious and instinctive, that makes the charioteer struggle. The charioteer drives the chariot and the two horses on a journey above the skies to see the gods. I felt that this was the perfect image for a theatre on a journey in the sky of life searching for the truth . . .”

Laura Pasetti, Artistic Director
 

CHARIOTEER THEATRE was founded in 2004 by Laura Pasetti, Vivien Maule and Ian Thomas, who has recently been replaced within the core group by Clare Waddington. The inspiration for Charioteer Theatre came out of some work Laura and Vivien did together, in which Vivien, in bringing a production of a small one woman show, experienced under Laura’s teaching and direction a completely new way of researching the text. A few years later, the inspiration from this was still alive and they decided to form Charioteer Theatre as a way of bringing this to others.
 
Over the year and half that Charioteer Theatre has been putting up acting courses, it has become increasingly clear that our main focus is Education. Charioteer Theatre is an Acting School offering Training, Master Classes and Continuous Professional Development. It recognises no upper age limit to learning, believing that real experience in the art and practice of theatre for anyone, professional actor, aspiring actor, technician, make up artist, audience etc. can only serve to enrich the experience of theatre for all. For Charioteer Theatre, ‘professional’ is a matter of talent, commitment and dedication, which never stops. Charioteer Theatre wishes to provide the space for that.

“The truth is a storm of birds flying, the actor is the nest where they will rest, but only for a brief moment. Actors train all their life to get ready for this brief moment.”
Anatoli Vassilie (Patron of Charioteer Theatre)

Charioteer Theatre focuses on the acting process through laboratory forms where actors have the chance to engage with the creative process and to explore their potentials within it, experimenting with methods and techniques that could increase their knowledge of the stage and improve their interpretative skills.

In this work, Charioteer Theatre focuses largely, though not exclusively on the Classics as an incredible resource of inspiration and a solid starting point for the development of an actor in his/her profession. The Classics have also proved themselves all over the world, to provide a never-ending source of renewed inspiration for the experienced theatre practioner and theatre audience, which can transcend boundaries of time and culture.

Charioteer Theatre Acting School is International; it’s Artistic Director Laura Pasetti is Italian, it’s core group is largely British, it has been founded in Scotland, but in a local area where there are many different nationalities represented, and this international character has already been reflected in the range of participants who have attended the courses so far. Now it’s patron is Russian, Anatoli Vassiliev. We will work towards the time when Charioteer Theatre will be a fulltime Acting School still with these same features.

Current Project

We are very excited by the three projects which are current for us, not least because they truly represent some of the strands of work which we intend as our ultimate aim for Charioteer Theatre (see Fantasy Theatre).

From 26 June to 8 July we have a fully booked, two week laboratory (5 hrs a day) on Commedia dell’Arte, led by Giorgio Bongiovanni. We are also happy to be sharing our guest teacher with Eden Court for a one day programme for their outreach workers. Giorgio was student of the worldwide famous “’last Arlecchino” Ferruccio Soleri, and has been playing the masks of Pantalone and Brighella in the play “Arlecchino, Servant of Two Masters” directed by Giorgio Strehler, for the last 10 years, all over the world. He will help our course participants to learn and experience the first steps of this traditional form of Italian theatre, but using their own cultural backgrounds for improviation.

From 28 August until 2 September, in Elgin, Moray, Giuliana de Carli, also a guest teacher from Italy, will teach a course on Theatrical Makeup. We are happy that the first applications coming in for this course show that our promotional attempts to make this opportunity available to Make Up graduates from ‘local’ colleges has worked.

Giuliana comes from a family of make up artists, her father and her grandfather having been masters in this craft. She has been Manager of Make Up Department at Teatro alla Scala of Milan for several years. Despite the offer to direct the make up Department of the Italian national television, she preferred to dedicate her talent to theatre working with the most prestigious artists such as Maria Callas, Mario del Monaco, Giancarlo Giannini, Bridget Fonda, Giorgio Strehler and Ermanno Olmi. She has been teaching Theatrical Make Up at the School of Dramatic Arts and at Urbino University.
 
In November this year, Charioteer Theatre, with three actresses in training and Artistic Director Laura Pasetti, will travel to Milan, at the invitation of Teatro di Piccolo, to publicly present their teaching method in an Open Laboratory at the Teatro Studio. The actresses will show the result of an intense laboratory period exploring a classical piece, while Laura Pasetti will explain the process that brought them to this point. This is part of a programme called “Masterclass” to which guest Acting Schools from Wales, France, Hungary, Scotland, Canada and Greece have been invited to demonstrate their educational work and methods.

Fantasy Theatre

Our ‘dream project’ and ultimate aim for Charioteer Theatre is a residential, full time, fully accredited Acting School, with an international foundation, with no upper age limit for students, with well developed community outreach activities and it’s own public performance theatre space.

This Charioteer Theatre Acting School would have several interlinking strands of theatre education: the training of students, post graduate and continuous professional development, frequent outreach into the community, including selected open rehearsal opportunities, and developing from all this, theatrical productions with its associated promotional and audience development benefits.
 

Golden Moment

Fortunately we have had the delight of our first ‘golden moment’ repeated many times over the last year, to remind us and re-inspire us. The first was, when we had our very first course fully booked, at a time when very few people knew anything about our company. The course was a two week Theatre Laboratory called “Exploring the Stage through Beckett”, using “All That Fall” as a text for research.

We have to claim another ‘golden moment’ when Anatoli Vassiliev, acclaimed Russian theatre master, agreed to become our patron.

Not So Golden Moment

The realisation that what we do and believe does not fit the now usual view of ‘a theatre company’ and the discovery of how difficult it is to convince people that training in theatre is a valuable investment for the future: for the continuance of education for all, for the preservation of culture, for maintenance of inspiration in the theatre, and as an opportunity for self reflection which is so important for the development of individual and collective integrity.

Highland Theatre – Is There Such a Thing, and If So, What is it?

Charioteer Theatre’s Artistic Director is Italian, our core group is largely British, our participants in our courses so far have included many different nationalities, which is reflective of our growing international links and of the multinational nature of the particular locality where we are based. Thus we don’t feel qualified to comment on this particular question. We believe in any theatre which acknowledges different traditions and cultures, and creates links between them.

© Charioteer Theatre, 2006

Links

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