Peta Lily | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Brisbane, Queensland, Australia |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, Performer, Theatremaker, Director |
Peta Lily (born Peta Wilhelmina Gottschalk) is a London-based performer/theatremaker and one of the ground-breaking performers involved in shaping the Physical Theatre work of the 1980s. She is well known for her one-woman shows, physical theatre productions and open workshops in Clown, Dark Clown, and Theatre Skills.
Lily was born in Brisbane, Australia, and majored in drama at the University of Queensland. She then worked in advertising for two and a half years as a copywriter and director of radio commercials. Lily played leading roles in a number of productions in Brisbane's La Boite Repertory Theatre before travelling to England and Europe.
In London, Lily trained together in mime with fellow students painter Tessa Schneideman and puppeteer Claudia Prietzel. The three eventually formed Britain's first all-female mime troupe, Three Women Mime Company, re-inventing the form and bringing a female point of view to mime's classic "everyman" clown. Lily performed with 'Three Women' in the UK and Europe for three years with shows High Heels and Follies Berserk and appeared at the London International Mime Festival, for which 'Three Women' made the cover of Time Out Magazine. [1] [2]
'Three Women' studied with Sankai Juku and Yoshi Oida, and with Theatre du Mouvement in Paris, and were one of a select number of physical theatre companies chosen to work with Jacques Le Coq in a special summer school in 1981. Lily then went on to study with Philippe Gaulier, Monika Pagneaux, Carlo Bosso of the Commedia dell'arte, and Master Yeung Kim Wah of the Cantonese Opera. She studied directing with Mike Alfreds, and acted as Movement Director to Alfreds’ production of The Dearly Beloved for Cambridge Theatre Company.
Lily's constant experimentation with form has resulted in numerous solo shows, some silent, many incorporating text. These include Red Heart, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Frightened of Nothing and Wendy Darling, an update of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan which won a Fringe First Award in 1988.
With co-performer Philip Pellew, she toured as Peta Lily and Co. with shows Low Fidelity and Beg!, and collaborated with David Glass to create Whale, based on Melville's Moby Dick. Lily appeared in productions by the David Glass Ensemble, and toured with writer-performer Claire Dowie in Dowie's play All Over Lovely.
In 1999, Lily returned to solo work with the autobiographical Topless, followed by Midriff (2002), Invocation (2010), and Chastity Belt (2012), an examination of the relationship between sexuality and autonomy for women. [3]
Lily developed her Dark Clown work (exercises and theory) over many years of practical research, seeking to create clown characters and ensembles with more edge and relevance and a way to make a more exciting and demanding rapport with audiences. She writes:
The concept of enforced performance resulted in the creation of Hamlet or Die in 2001 (Hong Kong Fringe Club) and a startling production of The Maids in 2003 (TRYFUSS Theatre Company, Portugal), where female 'prisoners' were forced to perform Genet's play for a live audience.
Lily has worked as Dark Clown Consultant to Jammy Voo, Acrojou and John-Paul Zaccarrini.
Lily was mentored by April de Angelis and wrote the full-length play Blame (1994), which was short-listed for the Verity Bargate Award. Her play The Porter’s Daughter (a below stairs, women's eye view of the events in Shakespeare's Macbeth), was produced at the Cockpit Theatre, and on a UK and Germany tour, and she was commissioned by the Unity Theatre, Liverpool, to write and direct Random Oracle (2001). The dynamic poems included the script of Chastity Belt are currently being developed into a book of verse.
Physical theatre is a genre of theatrical performance that encompasses storytelling primarily through physical movement. Although several performance theatre disciplines are often described as "physical theatre," the genre's characteristic aspect is a reliance on the performers' physical motion rather than, or combined with, text to convey storytelling. Performers can communicate through various body gestures.
Ra-Ra Zoo was an English-based contemporary circus theatre company, active, a seminal group who created self devised physical theatre performance for theatres using comedy and circus skills. Founded by Sue Broadway, Stephen Kent, David Spathaky and Sue Bradley while they were all working and staying together at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 1984.
Jacques Lecoq was a French stage actor and acting movement coach. He was best known for his teaching methods in physical theatre, movement, and mime which he taught at the school he founded in Paris known as École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq. He taught there from 1956 until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1999.
Joseph Grimaldi was an English actor, comedian and dancer, who became the most popular English entertainer of the Regency era. In the early 1800s, he expanded the role of Clown in the harlequinade that formed part of British pantomimes, notably at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and the Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden theatres. He became so dominant on the London comic stage that the harlequinade role of Clown became known as "Joey", and both the nickname and Grimaldi's whiteface make-up design were, and still are, used by other types of clowns. Grimaldi originated catchphrases such as "Here we are again!", which continue to feature in modern pantomimes.
Complicité is a British theatre company founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, Marcello Magni and Fiona Gordon. Its original name was Théâtre de Complicité. The company is based in London and uses extreme movement to represent their work, with surrealist imagery. Its work has been influenced by Jacques Lecoq. The company produced their first performance in 1983. In 1985 they won the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Their productions often involve technology such as projection and cameras, and cover serious themes.
A mime artist, or simply mime, is a person who uses mime, the acting out of a story through body motions without the use of speech, as a theatrical medium or as a performance art. In earlier times, in English, such a performer would typically be referred to as a mummer. Miming is distinguished from silent comedy, in which the artist is a character in a film or skit without sound.
Pantomime is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and in other English-speaking countries, especially during the Christmas and New Year season. Modern pantomime includes songs, gags, slapstick comedy and dancing. It generally combines gender-crossing actors and topical humour with a story more or less based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or folk tale. Pantomime is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is encouraged and expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers.
Wolfe Bowart is a physical comedian, actor, director and playwright. He is the creator and performer of the physical theatre productions LaLaLuna, Letter's End and The Man the Sea Saw. Bowart is the son of writer Walter Bowart and Linda Dugmore, and grandson of the abstract expressionist artist Edward Dugmore.
Angie Le Mar is a British comedian, actor, writer, director, presenter and producer.
Aikaterini Hadjipateras, known professionally as Kathryn Hunter, is an American-born British actress and theatre director, known for her appearances as Arabella Figg in the Harry Potter film series, Eedy Karn in the Disney+ Star Wars spinoff series Andor, and as the Three Witches in Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth.
Spymonkey is an international comedy and physical theatre company, based in Brighton. Its members are Toby Park and Petra Massey, both British, Aitor Basauri, a Spaniard, and Stephan Kreiss (1962-2021), a German. According to the theatre director, Tom Morris, ‘Spymonkey follow a rich comic tradition which runs from Tommy Cooper through Morecambe and Wise to Reeves and Mortimer. They are clowns supreme, the high priests of foolery.' For Julian Crouch of Improbable Theatre, they are ‘groundbreaking and sharply brilliant, Spymonkey dance along the very boundary of artistic bravery. They take big risks in their work, and manage to be both true to a highly experimental process AND take their audience with them on that journey.'
A solo performance, sometimes referred to as a one-man show, one-woman show, or one-person show, features a single person telling a story for an audience, typically for the purpose of entertainment. This type of performance comes in many varieties, including autobiographical creations, comedy acts, novel adaptations, vaudeville, poetry, music and dance. In 1996, Rob Becker's Defending the Caveman became the longest-running one-person play in the history of Broadway theatre.
Chotto Ookii Theatre Company are a physical theatre company based in Leeds, England. It comprises performer/directors Matt Rogers, Kathleen Yore, Rebecca Devitt, Jake England-Johns and Rebekah Caputo. After forming as a collective in 2005 they produced their debut show And Even My Goldfish for which they won the Total Theatre Award for best newcomer at the 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The name means 'a little big' in Japanese.
The Right Size was a British theatre company active from 1988 to 2006, led by Sean Foley and Hamish McColl. Their major success was The Play What I Wrote, a tribute to Morecambe and Wise, and other key productions included Do You Come Here Often? and Ducktastic.
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is ὑποκριτής (hupokritḗs), literally "one who answers". The actor's interpretation of a role—the art of acting—pertains to the role played, whether based on a real person or fictional character. This can also be considered an "actor's role," which was called this due to scrolls being used in the theaters. Interpretation occurs even when the actor is "playing themselves", as in some forms of experimental performance art.
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James and Jamesy are a Canadian clown duo, created by Aaron Malkin and Alastair Knowles with director David MacMurray Smith. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, they produce theatrical and other clown performances, blending theatre, physical comedy and dance, which typically include significant audience participation, breaking of the 4th wall and improvisation on the part of the performers.
Nate – A One Man Show is a performance by American comedian Natalie Palamides, which explores consent through the male character Nate. Through audience participation, Nate challenges his ex-girlfriend's new partner to wrestling, and goes on a date with his art teacher Miss Jackson. Initially touring to small audiences around the U.S., Ireland and the U.K., Nate drew attention at the 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won the Total Theatre Award. It was adapted into a Netflix special that was released on December 1, 2020.