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Week One: Rehearsals

INFERNO Cast, Together at Last…

It has been a while since our last entry and a very busy while it was too. Since auditions, we have cast the play, had our first read through, our first workshop and our first week of rehearsals. Moving from venue to venue, I have to thank the Aberdeen Arts Centre, Old Torry Community Centre and Seventeen for putting us up, often at short notice. Likewise, thanks to the cast for putting-up with us.(Pictured below, from left to right: Alec Westwood as August Strinberg; Josh Dunn as Mephisto; Libbie Beint as Mme Strinberg; Austyn Rob as Oskar Sorenson; Rosalind Watt as Emma Strindberg; Rebecca Wilkie as Calypso; Eliot Hardy as Ingmar Sorenson; writer & director, Thomas Bywater.)

We have been busy blocking and exploring the text and – with any luck – we’ll have another couple of blog entries to show for it.
   

INFERNO: First read-through in the AAC Gallery, 3/9/2013.

Final Call.

It has been great reading through your applications. We are beginning to see daylight again now and have just about made our way out from under the pile. It must be said: we are delighted by the response! There has been a huge variety of applicants to meet the decidedly varied roles on offer. Arriving from near and far we have had forms for auditions from as far afield as Sweden. It’s good to see that Strindberg still captures so much interest.

We are particularly impressed by the dedication of those of you who tried to deliver forms by hand. Apologies for not specifying that we can only receive solicited post at the Urquhart Road address, which might have proved difficult if we weren’t about to let you in.
   
The call for cast auditions is closed as of today, though we have still had a couple of last minute forms arriving. Many thanks to all who submitted applications. If you haven’t heard from us yet, don’t fret! Auditions might be just at the end of the week but we will respond to each applicant. (We are nice people.) And even if you haven’t managed to secure a slot this time, we hope you will still keep an eye out for future productions and opportunities with Station House Books.

We are looking forward to meeting the owners of such a varied and interesting bunch of casting forms.

Strindberg the Posterboy 

We have had a number of great poster designs from, Herefordshire-based visual artist, James Collins. We have been so busy reading your auditions recently that our wall has been a bit neglected recently. It could do with a some tarting-up, and we have been itching to share some of these posters

His website is well worth a visit:  http://james-collins.co.uk/

Casting Call: News

Auditions 22nd and 24th

Many thanks to those of you submitting applications to our casting call. With further publicity still going out as auditions requests keep coming in, we have had to extend our hours of auditioning; its looking like we may have to announce another date. So if you couldn’t make either of the original dates please keep an eye out for further announcements. Feel free to write with questions about applications or about any of the parts. We will be getting back to you shortly.

“HOT STUFF!”

Inferno Feature in Evening Express

We have received a very kind feature article from the Evening Express this Monday. If you didn’t manage to pick up a copy here it is again – with a sneak glimpse into the auditorium as it nears completion behind a suitably smug picture of Mr Hendry. It’s a great write up and we can only hope to live up to its promise. Thanks Harriet!

“August… like the English month.”


As INFERNO auditions are rapidly approaching we look forward with anticipation to the month Ahead.

We are excited by the number and quality of applications we have been receiving in response to our casting call. Please keep them coming! With the closing date for applications on the 18th, I’m sure we can have many more.

Adverts for calls to audition have been appearing throughout the city, along with a number throughout cyberspace. (Thanks Sophie!) So keep your eyes peeled and pass on a flyer. We look forwards to meeting you all and what will surely be an action packed August.

Until then,

T.

A look inside at the Tivoli from Aberdeen’s Evening Express, last year. The renovation work is almost complete and we will be able to announce a number of exciting press pieces soon.

Casting Call Poster

~§°CASTING CALL°§~

Dear Blogosphere,

I would like to draw to your attention the new flyers for INFERNO casting calls.

Please feel free to forward, share, and apply! But be sure keep your eyes peeled for these profoundly pink pictures.

They should be appearing to brighten things up round the old-town soon!

Tom.

INFERNO Auditions

CASTING CALL: INFERNO!

We would like to invite you to audition for the new play by the Station House : INFERNO.
The positions are now being advertised by Creative Scotland with casting call being held  at the end of August in the Aberdeen Arts Centre.

For more information please look at the INFERNO section of our website.

Best of luck to all applicants, and we look forward to hearing from you.


“A stage adaptation of the memoirs of, playwright and alchemist, August Strindberg – Inferno is the latest play by Thomas Bywater (Burrowden).

Now marking the centenary of Strindberg’s death, the play uses fin-de-siècle Paris as backdrop and means to explore the playwright’s most enduring themes. The ‘Inferno Crisis’ was a turning point in his writing, marked by his inexplicable abandonment of wife, child and career in the Stockholm theatres for a life of ignominious toil and chemical experiments. His memoirs reveal a nervous breakdown, culminating in alchemical obsession and attempts at making gold.

We are holding casting calls for the play in the Aberdeen Art Centre, on the 22nd and 24th of August.

We are looking to hire a diverse cast of local talent for this new Scottish play. All aspirations all, levels of experience are welcome to audition. The dates for performance are set as the 25th,26th and 27th October, in Aberdeen’s newly restored Tivoli Theatre.

http://www.thetivolitheatre.com

Rehearsals, starting September, will be 20 hours a week. Fees will be £9.50 – £12.00 per hour.

To apply please return a form complete with a CV/Resume by Sunday the 18th of August, 2013 to media@stationhousebooks.co.uk or by post to INFERNO, 64 Urquhart Road, TOP LEFT, ABERDEEN, AB24 5LX.

An application pack can be downloaded from the following link:
http://www.stationhousebooks.co.uk/Projects/Inferno_Casting_Call.pdf















Male Cast:

  • August Strindberg (40-60)
At the ripe age of 47, August has inexplicably run away from home,abandoning his family and responsibility.A bleakly charismatic character. His particular brand of pessimism and self righteousness make it difficult to discern madness from genius.

  • Ingmar Sorenson (20-30)
The elder brother and half of Sorenson and Sorenson Private Investigators inc. He takes the dominant role in most decisions made by the duo. Conceited, incompetent, but harmless.
  • Oskar Sorenson (20-30)
The other, younger, brother in the investigator’s bureau, Oskar plays more relaxed and submissive role, which often involves playing fall-fellow in problems that arise.
  • Mephisto (19-30)
Emphatic, lithe and thoroughly untrustworthy. His curious Mephistopholean appearance compliments his name.

Mephisto is an artist and a conman, passing from host to host, he systematically fleeces sitters and patrons alike. His staple income is gaudy iconography, covered with his miraculous gold; a pigment made from cheaper substances, he uses it to extort funds from the Church.



Female Cast:
  • Mme. Felicity Strindberg (40-60)
Mme. Strindberg is the scorned wife, whom August has usurped in Stockholm. Deeply suspicious of her husband’s motive, her one desire is to have her daughter, Emma, returned to her. Estranged from her husband she will resort to any means to discredit his fatherhood and retrieve Emma from the school he has sent her to.
  • Emma Strindberg (16-20)
Emma, attends a school in the north of Sweden, where she was sent by August, her Father. She is disarmingly bright and alarmingly fearless. Her education and preparation for the wider world has thus far been taken from the pages of the “best sort of adventure stories”.
  • Calypso (20-30)
A siren, Calypso is an artists’ model. Ambitious and aspiring she has a fine taste in artists and anyone else who will flatter her image and further her aims. These interests have landed her in some rough company – however she has never come to any harm, as yet.


A Picture of Eden

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Latent Literature

Hidden Aberdeen backs The Table Tappers

The Granite City’s own Hidden Aberdeen Tours has just given a very flattering plug to the Station House’s new e-book, The Table Tappers. If you haven’t found them already on facebook or wandering round at in the twilight hours, they provide a plenty of insightful tours round Old Aberdeen ¯the book’s setting.

Hope you enjoy their photography and, as always, happy reading.

http://www.hiddenaberdeen.co.uk

The Table Tappers

New E-book, On sale Now!

“In Sweden there is a parlour game called ‘spirit in the glass’. Just as you or I might enjoy a nice game of charades after dinner, the Swedes would see nothing unusual in conducting a séance with a dead uncle, or so Emma informed me.”

It is the night of All Hallow’s Eve and three students in the North-east of Scotland are seeking a memorable way to mark the occasion. A series of curious incidences around the University’s Theology Department unearth a history far older than is apparent, connected in ways none of them would hazard to imagine.

The Table Tappers uses the intrigue and incredulity of ‘the séance’ to delve into the grey areas of belief and a remarkable span of Scottish history. Its playful narrative summons elements of fancy to reanimate the past of Old Aberdeen, with chilling consequences. The story endeavours to question inherent morality, the apparent and the occult through an emptied whiskey tumbler.

“Then, as if waiting upon these words, the glass shot off sideward. Making it’s own circuitous route around a series of brief stops. Like an animal, suddenly exposed, seeking cover. I inked these hesitations down into the jotter: I.A.M.S.C.A.R.E.D.”

To buy or borrow your copy, click here!