After an insanely busy first few months of 2019, Kaitlin is very happy to say that things are becoming a little steadier and, while she is still working on many projects, she is taking the time to recoup and enjoy the rewards of all her hard work. She finished working on Girl Gang‘s all female Hamlet at Hope Mill Theatre and was incredibly proud to have been part of the team bringing this smash to Manchester. She also worked with Llandudno Youth Musical Theatre to bring the fights to life in their upcoming production of Oklahoma! and spent a couple of mornings having a blast setting and polishing up their performances ready for opening night.
On top of this, Kaitlin travelled back down South to Cheltenham to visit The Everyman Theatre and their Actor’s Lab group. She spent a great few hours teaching them some basics of Stage Combat and sharing her skills in terms of what a Fight Director does. It was such a lovely evening, especially as the group had searched her out specifically after seeing her work in The Tobacco Factory‘s version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
This month Kaitlin has been working on several projects. She has continued her role on the Intake Audition Panel at The Manchester School of Theatre and has had a couple of lovely Fight Direction and teaching jobs to work on as well.
Kaitlin finished working on The Tobacco Factory‘s production of Our Country’s Good in Bristol and saw it open to great success. Once back in Manchester she then started on the much anticipated all female Hamlet produced by Girl Gang at Hope Mill Theatre.
As well as this, Kaitlin visited Birmingham to run another set of Stage Combat workshops for the Year 9 students at King Edward VI Five Ways School. As last time, it was a wonderful day where Kaitlin and her APC apprentice teacher Gwill taught a keen set of students the basics of Unarmed Theatrical Combat. Finally, to finish off the month off she also ran an APC Stage Combat Exam Course at Hope Street Theatre in Liverpool. It was a great weekend with lots of new faces coming along to learn. Kaitlin hopes to be running a lot more courses in the near future so watch this space.
Kaitlin spent a good portion of this month having a blast working on Macbeth in Liverpool with Daniel Taylor Productions. It was wonderful to be involved both as an Actress and a Fight Director and the response from the audiences and press alike were wonderful.
After this she swiftly picked up the Fight Direction work again at The Tobacco Factory in Bristol to continue her work with their ensemble company on their next show Our Country’s Good. It was great to see and work with the whole team there again. Whilst she was visiting she took the time to check up on and watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream again and she was very happy to see how the show had grown and settled.
Finally, she is spending a bit of time doing some more horse back training in Warwick with The Knights of Middle England. It’s not only a great set of skills for her to keep on top of, but also something she really enjoys and after such a hectic few months she is really looking forward to blowing the cobwebs away and hitting the reset button!
This month has required Kaitlin to use all of her organisational and time management skills as she has filled her days with various jobs all over the country. Firstly she battled her way through the South West’s blizzards to start her Fight Direction sessions on A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Tobacco Factory in Bristol. There’s been a fair bit to get her teeth into and working with the brilliant Artistic Director, Mike Tweddle, and the fantastic cast and crew has been a joy. Kaitlin can’t wait to see the show in full swing. For tickets and details please click here.
She has also enjoyed teaming up with Director Chris Lawson again after directing the fights for his Doncaster Panto this last Christmas. In his new role as Interim Artistic Director of Oldham Coliseum, he has invited her to create the violence on his production of A Skull In Connemara. This dark piece is set to be very chilling and with Chris’ request for the violence to be “Tarantino-esque”, it is set to be a great show… and a bit different to Robin Hood and The Babes in The Wood! For tickets and more production information please click here.
Her next Fight Direction engagement this month is with Great Expectations Theatre who’s production of The Cycle explores the upsetting and often complicated subject of domestic violence, with a particular view of it aimed at the male. This piece will be performed at The King’s Arms, Salford and for tickets and more information please click here.
Other than all of the Fight Direction, Kaitlin has been continuing with her role on the Intake Audition Panel for Manchester School of Theatre, and has also been doing some Master Classes and Workshops. She has been working with the brilliant Youth Theatre at AK Theatre Arts, and also spent a fantastic morning at The Arden School of Theatre in Manchester taking the students through unarmed combat techniques.
Her final and biggest news this month is that the end of February Kaitlin will once again be teaming up with Daniel Taylor Productions in Liverpool after being involved in their fabulous production of Romeo and Juliet last year. This year’s production will be of Macbeth, and she is delighted that not only will she be directing the fights again, but she has also been cast in the role of Lady Macduff. It’s nearly ten years since she performed in Liverpool, with Daniel Taylor himself, in Peter Pan and she is looking forward to getting back there. The show will be playing at The Epstein Theatre in early March and tickets can be bought here.
If Kaitlin thought she would ease into the New Year then she was sorely mistaken as thus far things have been pretty full throttle across the board. She started off by having the honour bestowed on her of being placed on the Intake Audition Panel for MMU’s Manchester School of Theatre. She has worked at the school since 2005 as one of their Stage Combat tutor’s and she is delighted to have been asked to take on this new additional role. She has really enjoyed meeting all the candidates so far and has enjoyed watching their work.
On top of this she has run her first APC Stage Combat Examination Course of the year and all the students passed well across the board. Her next course will be coming up in April in Liverpool and if you fancy taking part, would like more details and to book a place please click here.
Fight Direction wise Kaitlin has had no time to rest on her laurels. She has been working on Flesh with Carl Cieka and the outstanding Youth Actors at Marple Drama and also doing all the preparatory work for several shows she is going to commence work on in February. It’s already looking like a busy Spring!
All of Kaitlin’s hard work over the last few months has come to fruition as all the shows she has been providing Fight Direction for opened with huge success. However, instead of resting on her laurels, she has has filled some of her time this month with Stage Combat workshops, self taping auditions for other possible projects and planning ahead for next year.
Early in the month she spent a brilliant day providing Stage Combat workshops to Year 9 students at King Edward VI Five Ways School in Birmingham. This arts outreach day was to provide the students with a taste of what they could experience through studying arts subjects and was a lot of fun for all involved, including Kaitlin and her apprentice teacher Gwill. Also on the combat front, she has been continuing with her training to become an Examiner for The APC. It is a long process but a natural progression in her career in this field and an incredibly worthwhile endeavour. On top of this, she has some great workshops planned for Manchester and Liverpool in the new year. Please click here for details of the first one in January.
Acting wise Kaitlin has done a spot of filming to advertise a well known chain of Gyms and there looks to be some interesting possibilities for the new year coupled to some Fight Direction she has taken on. Watch this space for an exciting 2019.
Things are certainly coming thick and fast this month as lots of projects are being continued and other bookings coming in for as far away as next March. As well as working on the productions Kaitlin began last month, she has several new Fight Direction jobs starting as well this month. In her capacity as FD on drama school shows, ALRA North started production of Alice in Wonderland and The Manchester School of Theatre involved her in their next finals production of The Illusion. Both shows require some fancy sword work and Kaitlin is loving coming up with inventive choreography for both shows. Everyone involved is top notch so the rehearsals are running very smoothly so far!
Another exciting project Kaitlin worked on this month was with Director Chris Lawson over at Cast in Doncaster doing the fights for their Pantomime Robin Hood and The Babes in The Wood. The cast have all proven to be strong in their fighting skills and Kaitlin has had a lot of fun creating some very complicated and fun group fight scenes using various weapons. It’s a very kick-ass show and has the potential to be a thrilling swashbuckling adventure.
October has been a crammed month for Kaitlin with lots of projects coming thick and fast. Fight Direction wise, firstly she has been involved with The Manchester School of Theatre again with their production of Arcadia on the main stage at HOME, Manchester. She was also asked to produce a sensitive rape scene in The Pride for Green Carnation Theatre Company and she was incredibly proud of the results, working with very focused and dedicated performers. She is also currently planning the fights for The Cycle with Great Expectations Theatre and Alice in Wonderland for ALRA North, both beginning rehearsals at the end of the month. Finally, she has now begun work on Playhouse 2’s production of Cyrano de Bergerac and spent a brilliant first rehearsal with the whole cast teaching them the rudiments of sword play.
Kaitlin also had some fun working with Laughlines doing some sitcom tribute shows and murder mysteries this month. This was an utter delight to do and she looks forward to occasionally doing some more shows going forward!
September kicked off with The APC South West Summer Course on which Kaitlin was tutoring both the Basic and the Honours students – never one to shy away from a challenge she spent the week operating in two very different sections of her brain to prepare students who had never held a sword before and those who were at the top, most difficult level of performance certificate. Brilliant results were attained across the whole summer course and she is already looking forward to next year.
She has also set to on a few of her Fight Direction jobs this month. Firstly, she has been working with the brilliant Manchester based theatre company Play With Fire on their production of The Effect, to be performed at Oldham Coliseum at the end of the month. It is being performed alongside a devised piece in response to this play by Lucy Prebble by a local youth theatre Kaitlin has close ties to, Wild Things Drama and it promises to be a great double-bill. For more details and to book tickets please click here.
She has also entered into the planning stages for what is a very ambitious and spectacular production of Cyrano de Bergerac with a local amateur company at Playhouse 2 in Shaw. She attended a recent initial read-through and after chatting with the director, she will be training all the performers from scratch and it is promising to be a very swashbuckly show!
After finishing off The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival Kaitlin has returned to Manchester and first off she popped up to Clitheroe to do a kids Stage Combat workshop for Ribcaged Productions. She and her APC Apprentice Teacher spent the day getting the kids to punch, kick and slap each other… theatrically of course!
Other than that she is currently in full preparations for not one but four Fight Direction jobs, all taking place over the next couple of months. Watch this space for more details!
Kaitlin is in full swing this month taking part in The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival. The first two weeks she spent rehearsing as Biondello, The Widow and The Pedant in The Taming Of The Shrew and also proving Fight Direction for said show and Cymbeline. Once the first half of the festival opened, the casts then all juggled round and style for the shows due to open in August. In this latter part of the festival Kaitlin will be playing Adriana and Fight Directing for The Comedy of Errors and also Fight Directing Twelfth Night. All in all it is an incredibly busy month but completely worth it!
This month has been packed with lots of exciting projects and Kaitlin has been having a lot of fun dashing between jobs and skill sets.
Her Fight Directing has really kept her busy working on several productions in the North West. Firstly she choreographed and opened the all female production of Romeo and Juliet produced by Girl Gang Manchester and performed at Hope Mill Theatre. This innovative production brought together some of Manchester’s top female talent and was received with much acclaim. She also worked on two productions at ALRA North. First was Scuttlers presented by the Foundation Year Students, directed by Jayne Courtney and then she also worked on Macbeth with the Second Years, directed by Alyx Tole.
More fighting work needed her attention also as she ran an APC Basic Unarmed course for the brilliant Collingwood RSC Amature Dramatic group down in Portsmouth. This regular exam group are really beginning to ramp up their skills and their grades are improving course by course.
Acting wise, Kaitlin did some filming for The British Council on their Language Learning videos project. She spent a day with the team, and some acting faces she knew very well, filming scenarios to be used to teach the English language world wide. Finally, Kaitlin will be stretching her Shakespeare muscles again this year at The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival and she is currently line learning in preparation to start at the end of the month.
This month has been a busy one for Kaitlin in more than a few ways. She has been taking advantage of some free time to see as much theatre as she can and has been the length and breadth of the country watching some amazing productions, several of which have starred good friends. She has found it great fun to not only go out and support fellow performers but really great to see what’s out there theatrically at present.
In other terms, May has brought in a fair bit of Fight Direction and Combat Teaching work. People Zoo’s Production of The Trial, which Kaitlin did the fights for when it was first staged a couple of years back, has been revived for a short run at The New Diorama in London and Kaitlin was asked once again to be involved to create the fights. With new direction, staging, set and actors it was great fun to revisit and reimagine the moments of violence. Also she has been involved again with ALRA North’s final year student productions, this time working with Box of Tricks Director Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder on Game. At the end of the month she will also be setting fights for a top secret feature film… for details watch this space!
Other news is that as well as continuing her APC Examiner training, her Combat Teaching has been put to use at Oldham Coliseum where she taught a community workshop with school teachers. They had great fun learning punching, slapping, pulling hair and venting their stresses of the teaching day!
And finally, Kaitlin is delighted to be returning to The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival this year to take part in more outdoor Shakespeare spleandor and social fun. Her castings are very exciting as well this year with great parts in both The Taming of The Shrew and The Comedy of Errors. She is very much looking forward to getting stuck in and is already learning her lines. For full details of the festival and to book tickets, click here.
Kaitlin has again been “fighting” her way through April! She made return visits to St. David’s College in Llandudno to polish up their action for The Battle of Boat , and also completed work and saw the wonderful production of Daniel Taylor Productions’ version of Romeo and Juliet at The Epstein Theatre in Liverpool. Both casts were joyous to work with and she hopes she get to work with them again before long.
Other than this she has been down to Cannock to give a Stage Combat workshop to the Youth Theatre there who are performing at Cannock Festival , and has made a return visit to her friends down in Portsmouth at The HMS Collingwood RSC Amateur Dramatic Society again to put them through their paces on another APC Basic Exam, this time in Quarterstaff. They all passed and there has been a marked improvement in their skills this time round so they are already planning another course for June!
Finally Kaitlin will be back in the saddle with The Knights of Middle England again this month to practice more of her mounted combat skills. She is determined to be able to Joust before too long…
March has seen Kaitlin doing lots of Combat in various forms, keeping her on her toes after the success of D’Eon at the end of last month. There has been lots of travelling the length and breadth of the country continuing her training to be an Examiner for The Academy of Dramatic Combat, getting her students at The Manchester School of Acting ready for their APC Basic Stage Combat exam and various Fight Direction jobs to keep her busy.
After being very proud that all her students at The Manchester School of Acting passed their test, Kaitlin worked on two productions which will be staged in April. The first was for St. David’s College in Llandudno where she helped the students with a particularly tricky couple of sections in their college production of The Battle of Boat . The students were amazing and she has no doubt the show will go brilliantly. The second was with Daniel Taylor Productions who are mounting a production of Romeo and Juliet in rep with A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Epstein Theatre in Liverpool. She is particularly excited to be working on this as she worked with Danny many years ago when they performed in First Family Entertainment’s Peter Pan with Henry Winkler.
Another very exciting event this month was that Kaitlin was invited to be the Equity Registered Fight Director Judge on the panel at RADA’s annual Prize Fight Night . It was an excellent evening and she was incredibly honoured to be involved along side fellow judge Richard Wilson!
What a month… an utter whirlwind. Kaitlin has been completely concentrating on playing the titular character in D’Eon and it has paid off. The show at Hope Mill Theatre, produced by The Straight Acting Theatre, was a brilliant success. Performing to sell out audiences, who laughed, cried, stomped, cheered, stood to applaud… “the tightest, brightest and most versatile ensemble in town” (review by North West End) had a blast and there were so many wonderful reviews and audience comments. Next the plan is to try to secure a tour so if you didn’t manage to secure a ticket to see this extraordinary show, please watch this space! Please visit Kaitlin’s reviews page to see more feedback for the show and her performance.
But of course life goes on so after the show ended in mid February, Kaitlin has been back teaching Combat at The Manchester School of Theatre getting them ready for their APC Stage Combat exam and setting up meetings for Fight Direction work in the coming months. One of which has paid off already and so Kaitlin popped over to Nottingham to work on The Hucknall Passion with good friend and director, James Pacey. She has worked on this production in its several incarnations with James and always enjoys working with the community actors whenever he restages it.
There are also lots of other exciting opportunities in the works for 2018 and so Kaitlin has her bar set quite high so far for this year.
Happy New Year! Kaitlin kicked off the year with two Shakespearean Fight Direction jobs, both down in London. The first was for TNT/ADG Europe who are, rather excitingly, touring a world wide production of Romeo and Juliet. It was great to get to meet the team and look over the fights and put them through their paces. The next was for a rural touring adaptation of Lear by Bears and Vagabonds. Kaitlin loved seeing what the cast were doing with the text and had a lot of fun working with them to produce the violence in very creative and alternative ways.
And finally, after a year in the planning D’Eon rehearsals kicked off! Very exciting times.
While winding down for Christmas, Kaitlin has been getting in some more APC Stage Combat Examiner Training. Hopefully, after adding trips to drama schools in Guildford, Northampton and London this month, she will be well on her way to getting qualified before too long. She is very much enjoying it and always looks forward to observing what her fellow APC teachers have been up to with their students.
The only other thing in the pipeline at present is an upcoming production of Renny Krupinski’s new play D’Eon. As told in last month’s news it is a very exciting project and casting continued this month.
November has been an incredibly busy month for Kaitlin, almost to the point of her not knowing what’s up or down… or even what day of the week it is! It seems that every single day is jam packed full of brilliant jobs so she is very happy and grateful.
Her fight direction career is now really taking off and she is beginning to really get her teeth into some great projects as well as keeping all her regular companies happy with theatrical violence as well. So far this month she has worked with director Stefan Escreet on some lovely moments in Picnic for The Manchester School of Theatre‘s 3rd Years Finals show and also their other production of Twelfth Night. This latter show has been particularly fun because after working with director David Salter on the fights for his Hamlet at The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival, he has made it a particularly swashbuckly affair and excitedly told Kaitlin he was putting in many more sword fights than you would expect to find in the text, especially to use her skills. It has been great fun working with the cast to deliver this and an utter delight working with David again.
She has also been working at ALRA North again on their Christmas show The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Director Dee Evans has a very particular and beautiful movement design for the show and Kaitlin has been working closely with her to keep the fights and battles in keeping with that. It promises to be a real treat festive treat when it is on at Wigan Pier later this month.
Finally for her fight direction this month, she has been asked to provide the fights for the rock and roll panto The Little Mermaid at The Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. After attaining her Equity Registered Fight Director status a couple of months ago, this is a real step up and she is incredibly excited. She has already had an initial session with the cast and creative team and is delighted to be involved.
Her acting seems to be keeping her busy too this month so it’s all steam ahead. Over the next month she will be filming with V-PAC Productions in Harrogate on a feature film called Clouds which tells the tale of a young lad called Stewart and his difficulties living in a world he doesn’t quite see in the same way as everyone else. In this mental health awareness comedy feature Kaitlin plays Stewart’s mum Susan and so far the production has been an absolute hoot to work on.
Finally, looking forward to next year it has been announced that Kaitlin has been cast as the title role in Renny Krupinski’s new play D’Eon, set to be performed by The Straight Acting Theatre Company at Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester in February next year. This is a wonderful story about the extraordinary life of the Chevalier De’Eon de Beaumont, the 18th Century French diplomat, war hero and spy who, at the age of 41, put on female attire and caused political and social outrage by living the rest of his life as the woman he now claimed he’d always been. This show is already proving to be causing a huge stir and the show is now selling fast so for more information and to book a hot ticket click here. Further very exciting casting announcements will follow soon!
This month has kicked off, quite literally, with some really interesting fight direction jobs. The first is for director Sean McGrath who Kaitlin met and worked with over the summer at The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival. His company Alter Ego Creative Solutions has worked closely with the police developing and sending out a show to schools that deals with the very real issue of kids being targeted by gangs to act as drug runners. County Lines is a very hard hitting piece and shows just the sort of problems and dangerous situations they can be exposed to, including extreme violence. Kaitlin had a great day with the cast setting these moments and is very proud to be involved.
Next up she is working on a research and development piece called Put Down Your Aprons with Urban Stage and Oldham Coliseum about the role of women in WW1 and the Suffrage movement and protests. The violence towards them during these protests is set to be a very important moment in the show and Kaitlin has been invited to do the fight direction for this moment. The piece will be shown to an invited audience this month with a view to being fully developed into a two act play for next year’s WW1 Centenary celebrations.
It seems to be all fights, fights, fights this month. Firstly, Kaitlin was back at CBBC‘s brilliant school room comedy So Awkward to do some more slapstick action co-ordination. It was great to be back there again with the team, and much fun was had creating some hilarious trips, falls and knocks. On top of that, before term time starts at her regular teaching placement in Manchester, she has been packing in the teaching with various APC short exam courses all over the UK. She has been training actors all over the place, including Manchester, Gloucester and Portsmouth, to fight with Broadswords, Rapiers, Small Swords, Spears and Clubs, and to defend themselves with Shields, Cloaks and Staffs… it has been intense and the results have been great!
Acting wise, this month has she worked with the very talented director Sophie Paterson on a Research and Development day for a play she is hoping to take into production next year. Kaitlin worked with Sophie when she was Assistant Director on Treasure Island at Birmingham Rep last Christmas, and it was a lot of fun getting back together with her and several other actors from the show to play around with Philip Dawkins’ play Failure: A Love Story at the rehearsal spaces at The Young Vic. If all goes well, there will be further R&D later this year and then a full production of the show next Spring. Keep your fingers crossed…
Finally, Kaitlin will be heading back to Warwick at the end of the month to get back on a horse again and do some more intensive training with The Knights of Middle England. All the riding skills she is learning, including horseback archery are very exciting additions to her CV and to top it off, she’s having a lot of fun doing it!