Word from Tom

I cant believe how each month the campaign just keeps going from strength to strength. Another incredible jam packed month full of meetings, projects and scratch nights. This month I met agents Marcus and McCrimmon who want the help of Actor Awareness to build a drama school which is accessible to people of all backgrounds. Also preperations for the Actor Awareness launch party are in full swing with the night filled with a range of acts. The official Actor Awareness launch party, is for us to finally burst our selves into the arts world and put this incredible campaign on the map. The phenomenal work Actor Awareness has been achieving will be showcased in this 1 night, with some of our top scratch night pieces, mixed in with singers, comedians, raffles and speeches explaining the campaign. Its a night not to be missed and a perfect opportunity to learn how to get involved with our work and network with industry professionals. The line up is as follows:

Hosted by Helen Scott

● The cast of Tolkien a new musical- Alexa Terry

● Monologues Of A Tired Nurse – Stephanie Perry and Emelia Marshall Lovsey

● Birth of a Nation- Dave House

● Alice Marshall – Comedian

● Interval where we announce the winner of the CCP competition and do the raffle where there is industry prizes to be won

● Love And All That Crap – Oliver Nip Retter

● Route – Marie Myrie

● Ionica Adriana- Singing

● Sketches by MD’S Comedy Review

● Netflix and Chill with Bae- by Tom Stocks

The for the raffle are looking incredible

● 2 tickets to News Review at The Canal Cafe Theatre

● A 3 hour 1 to 1 workshop with award winning director Adam Morley on either acting or directing

● 10 tickets to the Actor Awareness workshop “how to create a comedy character and sketch writing”

●  A bottle of champagne

● A £50 voucher on Alishia Love headshots

● A Signed programme from ShowBoat

● A 1 to 1 with award winning John byrne

● A Signed Autobiography from John Challis A.K.A Boycie from Only Fools and Horses

● A 12 month free Actors Centre membership

● Wine from Corney and Barrow

● A 50% discount voucher for a meal for 2 at Caminos Spanish tapas bar

● 10 tickets to a workshop by Cosme and Scott casting directors

● An Actor Awareness t- shirt

● 2 tickets to hit West End musical Guys and Dolls

● Signed programme from Guys and Dolls

●  To film an entire showreel from scratch by Artistan Showreels

36 prizes to be won! Please come on down and buy a ticket you don’t want to miss this. Buy tickets here they are selling quick http://www.theatren16.co.uk/#!actors-awareness/qku6z

Submissions for our Class Night are now closed we gave 4 incredible shows, which everyone involved are getting paid, the first ever scratch night to do so. The 4 shows are

Auf Achse(On the road)

BY Joe Staton & Patrick Renton

THE ROBBING CLASS

By Michelle Payne

Fresh With Promise

By Felicity Huxley-Miners

CLASSIFIED

By Jayne Woodhouse

The 4 shows all explore the theme of social class which is such a topical subject considering the current economical and social climate.

Tom’s the Word

Another busy and exciting month for Actor Awareness. Starting off with the incredible success of Women’s Night where 7 shows written and directed by an array of fantastic female talent. The night was a completely sold out, the audience was filled with agents, producers and directors. 1 show is off to Edinburgh fringe and 2 others received strong interest to be funded, expanded and taken into various venues. All 7 shows went down a treat, because of the talent on display all the shows are being expanded, will be taken on by The Canal Cafe – to be in the Actor Awareness season where they will do a full run of each show. On the same note preparations for the LGBT night are in full swing and the 6 incredible shows will be ready for the 15th of March in The Bread and Roses Theatre. Tickets are now on sale so please come and support http://www.breadandrosestheatre.co.uk/actor-awareness.html

 Also this month I got interviewed by The Observer newspaper about the rise of Actor Awareness which should be published this month, which is very exciting and keeps giving more publicity to the ever growing campaign. We also very excited to have acquired a new member to the team in the form of Adam Morley, who is our new executive producer. He will bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to the campaign.  The documentary with Inside Film is heading into a string of exciting interviews, we interviewed John Challis earlier in the month and he gave an incredible, in-depth insight to his success with Only Fool and Horses. He also gave a very interesting look into the history of TV and theatre, also how much it his changed from when he started out. In March we are holding a very exciting interview with Sir Peter Bazalgette, Arts Council chairman and now new ITV chairman. All in all a very exciting busy month ahead with the campaign.

Tom’s the Word

 

What a Fantastic start to 2016 Actor Awareness has had! Our Women’s Night submissions have closed but our LGBT night submissions are open! We are looking for 6 shows! This will take place at the Bread and Roses Theatre on the 15th of March and the submission deadline is 24th of February. So the theme is LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) the interpretation of the theme is down, you personally do not have to be LGBT to enter, your play has to just follow that theme. Actor Awareness has now secured 3 incredible venues to put on regular scratch nights such as The Bread and Roses Theatre, The Canal Theatre and Theatre N16. The current events we have planned is The Women’s Night on the 16th of February, LGBT Night on the 15th of March, Health Night on the 30th of May and the Actor Awareness Cabaret launch night in June. The documentary is going brilliant, we have some incredible interviews lined up such as John Challis, The Actors Centre and many more. Please if you want to get involved in any of our projects, get in contact.

Tom’s the Word

Another fantastic month for the campaign. After the incredible success of the working class scratch night, Actor Awareness has been asked to come back and do another!  Now because the night was so positive, the next scratch night will take place in February, would you like to be involved? Im looking for 6 new 15 minute shows to put on in February at the Canal Theatre. There has been a huge out cry of various gender issues within our industry so I thought this theme would be perfect. So the next theme is “Womens night” the only 3 rules are…

 

1. Just women writers and directors can take part
2. Do not exceed 15 minutes 
3. Submissions have to be in by the 24th of January

 

Interpretation of the theme is down to you as long as you follow the 3 rules above.  If you would like to be involved then please get in touch. To give you a better insight to our scratch nights below is the review of our last shows, check it out.

http://theblogoftheatrethings.com/2015/12/21/review-actor-awareness-scratch-night/

This month the Actor Awareness live ITV interview hit 13,000 views with myself and Andrew Ellis from This Is England, which is a huge step forward in spreading the word on the campaign. We also had the launch of the new website which looks incredible so thank you to Susan Omand.

This is the last Newsletter of 2015 so lets look back at what we have achieved this year. So what a fantastic 2015 Actor Awareness has had! I just wanted to say a huge thank you to all the Actor Awareness supporters. Here are just some of the Highlights!

●  Started the Actor Awareness monthly meetings, where you come down meet me and the team and give feedback on ideas and find out how you can get involved! The next meeting is the 9th of January, 5-7 in Village Bar, Soho.
● The incredible £1000 Donation!
● The Actor Awareness live ITV interview with Andrew Ellis and me!
● The first Actor Awareness scratch night under the theme of working class stories!
● The monthly Actor Awareness Newsletter full of industry discounts, workshops and promotions. Which you can find here http://www.actorawareness.co.uk/p/httpsactorawareness.html
● Our writing workshop with BAFTA winning writer Jonathan Asset
● The Actor Awareness working class Documentary is now in full swing, already some incredible footage and interviews.
● The Actor Awareness campaign film The Industry was released, about the struggles of working class actors. Watch it here! http://www.actorawareness.co.uk/p/the-industry_16.html

• Finally of course the website and the logo being launched! http://www.actorawareness.co.uk
  
  This year could not have been so successful without your incredible support! 2016 looks to be even more successful. Please come get involved with the campaign, such as the Scratch nights for actors, writers and directors, please attend the regular meetings we hold to get involved in future projects and workshops, finally please follow us on twitter and Facebook to keep up to date on all Actor Awareness news! 2016 WERE COMING FOR YOU!

TOM’s the Word

So it has been another fantastic busy month for Actor Awareness.

We had the meeting on the 7th which had a fantastic turn out. The meeting was full of potential ideas and projects which will add to this incredible, ever-growing campaign. [If you would like a copy of the minutes to the meeting, please just ask]

The release of our campaign film “The Industry” was released this month. This is the first film of new company, Type40Films.

John and Simon are both actors sharing a flat in London; but they come from very different backgrounds. John comes from a single parent family in Manchester, where as Simon comes from an affluent family in greater London.
John struggles to find the time to chase the dream that brought him to the Capital, and he finds himself ever more frustrated by the ease of which Simon seems to get by. Tensions rise and the divide between these two friends becomes more pronounced until eventually, John can take no more. A huge thank you to all the cast and crew involved and especially the writer, actor and director of the film, Marcus Armstrong, all of which we couldn’t do without him.  https://vimeo.com/145694444

On the 4th of December there’s a writing workshop that Actor Awareness has set up in The Actors Temple . It is being run by BAFTA winner and writer of “Starred Up” Jonathan Asser. The writers bring something they want to discuss and get feedback on, So please email ASAP on tanheartssteph@gmail.com if you want to be part of it. The workshop is £10! We want to cultivate stories through these meetings, maybe it will lead to some of the writing being shown at a scratch night.

The First Actor Awareness scratch night is this month on the 14th, 6 shows 1 night! The first Actor Awareness scratch entails a range of different shows under the theme of working class. What is working class? Interpretation of the theme is down to you and an interesting subject to explore, under the current social and economical climate.

Please come support some incredible new writing and acting talent

BOOK TICKETS HERE
http://www.canalcafetheatre.com/EventPage.php?EventId=44307

Hello and Welcome

Hello beautiful readers, thanks for stopping by, this is the official newsletter of Actor Awareness.

 

Word from Tom

Hey guys, I’m so glad that Steff and Charlie have agreed to be my Editors in chief and putting together this Newsletter. This is the perfect opportunity for you to promote yourselves and learn about affordable workshops to further your careers and some exclusive Actor Awareness discounts for performances and headshots etc. Now this column is my chance to give you a monthly summary of what me and Actor Awareness have been up to.

As most of you know it has been a huge month for the campaign starting with the ITV News interview. I am so grateful for Andrew Ellis to coming on the show with me. It wasn’t the longest segment, however we managed to say what was needed and this campaign in to the public eye. After the interview the aftermath was just overwhelming, with the video reaching nearly 10.000 views and of course the incredible feedback messages the campaign received so thank you all so much. This really set the tone for the month opening a number of doors and meeting such as Equity, The Arts Council and The Stage.

Also  The big news was obviously that fantastic donation of £1000, which is a huge help. This money can now obviously go in to setting up various projects we have planned, the first being the Scratch Nights. These will at first take place in The Canal Theatre. So Every 6 weeks we plan to put on regular scratch nights where 6 short 15 min plays are put on but for new diverse writing, actors, directors etc. to get involved and finally create work. So every 6 weeks we would change the plays/ writers at the scratch night along with the actors and crew to get a good turnover of diverse professionals in the industry. Every scratch night will have a theme such as disability, class race, sexuality, etc.. this is giving a plethora of experience, diverse story telling and that opportunity to learn your craft and feedback on various ideas, with a chance to showcase ourselves. Deadline is 7th November. 15 minutes, under the theme of working class? What is working class? Interpretation of the theme is down to you and an interesting subject to explore, under the current media light. I am working with Adam Morley to put this project on if it goes well the opportunity to obviously put on more and keep giving you guys that platform.

Future Projects and what the money will be used for will be discussed at the next Actor Awareness meeting on the 7th of November at 12;30 in The Phoenix Artist Club. I hope to see you all there and join in our Actor Awareness community and have your say! See you guys there.