Hello and thank you for visiting the Kate Willoughby website.
LATEST UPDATE:
It's been a struggle, but To Freedom's Cause is almost out of the blocks. Watch this space for updates.
Maggie Turner (Assistant Prison Wardress), Sabina Arthur (Prison Wardress) & Kate Willoughby (Emily Wilding Davison)
- Rehearsed reading of To Freedom's Cause at RADA
EARLIER UPDATES:
Nearly five years after Emily Davison's death, women over 30 finally got the vote. More progress was to come and more is still needed, not least pay parity, which Emily also fought for.
Kay Renner (Margaret Davison) & Kate Willoughby (Emily Wilding Davison)
- Rehearsed reading of To Freedom's Cause at RADA
Thank you to everyone who came to RADA to watch the staged reading of To Freedom's Cause. It was great to get feedback too and I will now be fine tuning the play as a result of this. Further information about the play can also be found via the menu under To Freedom's Cause.
Here are some shots from a rehearsal at RADA (Photographer: Paride Odierna):
Forcible Feeding (Peter Salter, Sabina Arthur)
Strangeways (Kate Willoughby, Maggie Turner)
"I am not afraid ... I was born to do this."
- JOAN OF ARC, Patron Saint of militant suffragettes
SEE A REBEL WITH A CAUSE : ENGLAND'S ONLY MARTYR SUFFRAGETTE
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"From what I see Mr Asquith doesn't seem in much of a hurry to make changes and as for that Welsh Wizard."
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"The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics"
- Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette & founder of the W.S.P.U. (Women's Social & Political Union).
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Following on from the success of Women Who Kick Ass! in July, Taking Action is bringing a rehearsed reading of my third play To Freedom's Cause to RADA next month. Some of the original cast and creatives from the Yorkshire production will reprise their roles.
To Freedom's Cause intertwines several lives that were inextricably linked to Emily Wilding Davison's fatal act at the 1913 Derby. The play has been redrafted since it was premiered in Yorkshire in 2009 and so it will be a first performance of the play in its current form.
As a writer I am drawn to people rather than politics, though that does often form a backdrop for my work. For example my inspiration for To Freedom's Cause was an emotionally conflicted letter from Emily's mother to her dying daughter. Music and song are also elements that often feature in my work. They add heart and depth to my plays.
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Some feedback from the Yorkshire production of To Freedom’s Cause:
"Remarkable story." "Makes you feel very grateful for what they did." "Emotional and very powerful."
PREVIOUS WORK:
Taking Action: Women Who Kick Ass! was performed at RADA in July and was a lot of fun. With the focus on ordinary women taking on extraordinary circumstances, it was great to put some of my writing on its feet alongside more established work.
At Night in Praha - a fantastic micro drama by American writer Steve Capra has been an ongoing project this year, with performances in Brighton (as part of Short Cuts @ The Nightingale) and London (at the Landor and RADA),
Set in occupied Praha, it is an ingenius piece of writing that condenses the lives of two courageous women, who happen to have been former lovers of Franz Kafka into ten roller coaster minutes. Canadian actor and singer Debbie Bridge brought a great team together and it has been fantastic project to have been a part of.
Some audience feedback from Short Cuts @ The Nightingale:
"Enjoyed the revelations unfolding & understanding them alongside the characters." "Focused intensity. Very claustrophobic."
"Ending works very well – left wanting more." "Excellent performances. Good restraint."
MISCELLANEOUS:
My other work includes a 'top up' workshop with American director Niki Flacks. She has the simplest and most powerful way of accessing emotions without drawing on upsetting personal memories. She is an inspiration and I urge you to book a class with her when she's next in the UK.
Whilst Think Make Grow's exciting Forum Theatre project for north Northumberland was a formative experience. I had previously used some aspects at Boal's work, but working with Wendy Ward, Ruth Urquhart and Penny Lamport gave me the opportunity to use more of Boal's simple yet immensely powerful form of theatre, in order to empower audiences to actively explore issues that affect their community/workplace/school.
MEISNER, IMPULSE & BILL BALL:
Other notable work includes a series of productions directed by American director Scott Williams and the Impulse Company: Top Girls (Marlene), The Three Sisters (Masha) and Twelfth Night (Valentine).
I can highly recommend Scott Williams work, both as a director and teacher. His teaching combines the technique devised by Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater with the positive, supportive approach practised and promoted by William Ball, founder of the American Conservatory Theater.
From repetition exercises to lifting the text off the page and then experimenting with tasks Scott’s straightforward approach opens up all sorts of avenues in the work. It is highly adaptable to any form of theatre or screen work: the focus is on the other person, so it simply overrides intellectual self-consciousness.
The Meisner Technique encourages living truthfully in a set of given circumstances (with no fourth wall). It can be pretty terrifying at times as you literally step into the unknown, until you realise that you will always have "the moment" and that this and the other actor(s) as your lifeline.
Working with Scott led to a series of important breakthroughs, which I have been able to build on with my more recent work: In performance the freedom I found through repetition and later rehearsals opened up still further when I simply relaxed and responded to the other actors. New discoveries happened on impulse every night and this gave the work an energy and truthfulness that had previously eluded me.
TO FREEDOM’S CAUSE – KATE WILLOUGHBY PRODUCTIONS - OVERVIEW:
After hugely successful performances of the play at Bolton Castle and the Friars Head in September and October 2009, I am looking to develop ‘To Freedom’s Cause’ further. The play was featured on BBC Look North and on the BBC's Politics Show (North East edition).
Feedback from the audience of ‘To Freedom’s Cause’ includes:
"If I'd have lived then I would have been too frightened to go to gaol."
"My distant relative Zoe Proctor wrote 'My Life and Yesterday', in the 1900's she had been a suffragette for a short time ... she wrote about life in prison. All ties up with your production."
"I thought that the forcible feeding scene was excellent. It was enough to make the audience imagine the brutality of it, which is what the work of the theatre must do - stimulate the imagination. When that happens people can be changed."
"The fervour of the women dedicated to the cause was most powerful. I wished to join the campaign."
"The play began to illustrate the needs we all have for approval, affection, love, trust, etc and if they can be focused on a CAUSE, to some extent we come alive."
For more information go to the Kate Willoughby Productions section or click here.
