Kim Hermans

Kim attended LEATSS 2016. 

1.Which course did you follow?

I followed the Intensive Workshop "StoryWorks – moving not telling your audience", taught by Tutor Simon De Deney (actor, teacher and storyteller).

I am part of the cast of "The Pillowman", the next NWTC production, which is about stories & storytelling.

I also did the Intensive Workshop "Action & Imagination", taught by Tutor John Gillett (actor).

This course involved the acting techniques of Stanislavski and Michael Chekhov. I did learn about those in previous workshops but I wanted to refresh my knowledge.

2. Can you give us a taster of what sort of things you are asked to do whilst at LEATSS?

During the workshop about stories we started with a fun game. Each participant had to tell the others a story without giving the title away. A participant told the story of "The

Godfather". Another one "Matilda".

We discussed what the common elements were in all those stories. Afterwards we had to write a story and read it out loud in front of the others, using those elements.

In small groups we had to write the plot for a next British film hit. Famous British film hits include "Billy Elliot", "Brassed Off", "The Full Monty". My group came up with "Strawberry fields", a love story between a Polish farmer and the daughter of an English farmer.

Besides writing we also did some storytelling. We had to tell the story that we used for the title guessing game. We also had to use story techniques to advertise LEATSS.

For the workshop "Action & Imagination" we did a lot of roleplaying.

Some non-talking exercises were about reacting to a situation and to the other person. In one situation 2 students had to pretend to be in a train that suddenly stops in a tunnel. Another exercise was about a person in a flat being angry at the other person he's living with. It was important to just react and not to play a reaction.

We learned about objectives and super-objectives. For the psychological gestures (physicalising the psychological  essence of the character with the super-objective at its core) we had to be a character from a play or movie that we liked. We had to further think about the chosen character: how does he or she move?, what's his or her centre? How does he or she do a daily activity?

3 Do you feel you will be able to apply what you learnt in future work?

Yes, I will apply what I learned about stories in Story writing and storytelling.

The things I learned in "Action & Imagination" will be valuable in my future acting work.

4. What would you say will be the main memory you have of your time at LEATSS 2016?

Me telling "Puss in boots" to my fellow students. First in English and then in Dutch. My posture was different because I felt more confident in Dutch which is my mother tongue.

5. It can be quite daunting to attend a new theatre course! What would be your advice to anyone who is thinking of going but feels too shy?

Just go and try. In 2002 I was very shy and nervous about my first theatre courses at the Summer school. The courses lasted a week and in the beginning I didn't volunteer for exercises but by the end of the week I gladly volunteered. I learned a lot and gained more confidence. I also started auditioning for plays and got parts. The year after my first Summer school I already returned for more workshops. This year it was actually my 14th time that I went.