~ The Later Years ~
This is the period after Dave Bere left, and Claire Jones joined the company. In 2000 Howard and Geoff directed a commedia showing of Romeo and Juliet for Hope Street, where they had been regular invited teachers. They recruited Claire and Nic Kellington to work on the next show - Robin Hood.
2000 had been a very successful year, with great Edinburgh reviews for Hunchback. 2001 saw the benefit of that with massively increased touring. 2002 would see the first new show in three years. It was fully funded by the Arts Council, which allowed the company to work again with Catherine, the designer, and to engage James Seabright as administrator/producer. He took the promotion of the company to another level - we had a properly printed program for the first time ever. But we are getting ahead of ourselves...
At the end of the 2001 tour, the company took the two new members: Claire Jones and Nic Kellington to Selavy for training. The rehearsal times for Robin Hood in 2002 wouldn’t allow for a trip to Selvay, and we wanted the new actors to experience the place that had been such a part of Ophaboom. There, and by accident, the training developed a little show called: Three Short Tales About Death. It used masks bought in Montreal in 2000, combined with the white face of Faustus. It was very buffoon, completely insane, and only ever performed once, to three ‘woofers’ (voluntary farm workers) at Selavy. Plans to develop the show further were super ceded by the success of Robin Hood.
Half way through the first tour of Robin, Nic Kellington snapped a tendon. The show was re-rehearsed as a four hander in the space of a couple of days, mostly in a car park in Liverpool. The new four parter show had an amazing tour, which went to Korea, and performed at the National Theatre’s open air festival. The show also had a successful three week run at the Riverside Theatre in Hammersmith, where it received great reviews and was a Time Out Christmas top ten show.
This period was also the first period that the company did not have a street show running along side the main show. Richard was retired, with it’s last show being, rather fittingly at the end of the Rue Des Calmes in Aurillac. With Claire replacing Dave in the company, it seemed a good time to retire Richard III, and Robin was such a success touring wise that there was not enough time to develop a new street show.
In 2004 the company changed everything. Always experimenting, we wanted to pursue another possible artistic direction. We decided to do an un-masked buffoon show, specifically designed for indoor theaters. Burke and Hare. It was to allow us to develop various ideas that had come up in rehearsals and training which never saw the light of day. Howard directed, Geoff and Sarah were in the show, and Claire was the musical director. We bought in two writers - Owen Powell and John Finnemore. We also auditioned for actors - Richard Nutter, ? and James Greaves.
Unfortunately the two styles of working - writers writing and us developing clashed too much. In the first developmental stage, where we were working with them in the studio, it worked, but when they went away to write and the company carried on developing the work in the studio, the two ways of working diverged.
The show opened at the Unity Theatre in Liverpool to a mixed response, went on a four date tour, and then performed in London. There were discussions at the end about redesigning the set, which was too big and bulky for touring - though beautiful. It would need a re-thinking in order to take it up to Edinburgh. Three weeks after the end of the show in London, the company were in France for a week performing Robin at (?) festival. It was here that it was decided that being on tour, with masks, with Commedia, with our beautifully designed, easy to erect stage, in France with theatre companies from around the world was what Ophaboom was. We shouldn’t try to do other theatre, we should stick to Commedia. It was what we were and where out hearts really lay.
Another full tour of Robin followed, and then we started to think about our Swan Song. The company had been together for 17 years. it had become successful, but had also led to some burn out amongst us. As a theatre company we weren’t in debt. We wanted to bow out on top. The recession was starting to hit, and funding prioritise had changed.
Our last show would be self funded, and it would be the most strictly Commedia show we would have done. To this end we brought in a number of people, and laid down some strict rules about characters and the like. Didi Hopkins was brought in as a movement coach, and also to give the two women roles as much oomph as possible - to allow Claire and Sarah to have a truly equal role in the development of the show, characters and roles they would play. Owen Powell was brought in as a script consultant - learning our lessons from Burke and Hare, he worked in the studio with us, writing script as needed. We also brought Ninnian Kinnear-Wilson, our mask maker, and John Broadbent, the fifth ophaboom (he really has played more roles than anyone I think!) as directors.
Thus was Casanova born. It was, we feel, the pinnacle of our research into Commedia. It toured for two years - going to France, Spain and for the first time Portugal in the Castle St. George in Lisbon.
And then, Ophaboom came to an end. It was the right time. We had had a wonderful 17 years, with so many amazing experiences. We were not in debt and it was time for the members to be able to do other things.
Geoff and Howard have gone on to teach Commedia and masks, as well as directing shows in the Ophaboom style together at theatre schools. Sarah has gone on to forge a successful career in acting, touring with a number or notable companies, and Claire is teaching and performing music.
2000 had been a very successful year, with great Edinburgh reviews for Hunchback. 2001 saw the benefit of that with massively increased touring. 2002 would see the first new show in three years. It was fully funded by the Arts Council, which allowed the company to work again with Catherine, the designer, and to engage James Seabright as administrator/producer. He took the promotion of the company to another level - we had a properly printed program for the first time ever. But we are getting ahead of ourselves...
At the end of the 2001 tour, the company took the two new members: Claire Jones and Nic Kellington to Selavy for training. The rehearsal times for Robin Hood in 2002 wouldn’t allow for a trip to Selvay, and we wanted the new actors to experience the place that had been such a part of Ophaboom. There, and by accident, the training developed a little show called: Three Short Tales About Death. It used masks bought in Montreal in 2000, combined with the white face of Faustus. It was very buffoon, completely insane, and only ever performed once, to three ‘woofers’ (voluntary farm workers) at Selavy. Plans to develop the show further were super ceded by the success of Robin Hood.
Half way through the first tour of Robin, Nic Kellington snapped a tendon. The show was re-rehearsed as a four hander in the space of a couple of days, mostly in a car park in Liverpool. The new four parter show had an amazing tour, which went to Korea, and performed at the National Theatre’s open air festival. The show also had a successful three week run at the Riverside Theatre in Hammersmith, where it received great reviews and was a Time Out Christmas top ten show.
This period was also the first period that the company did not have a street show running along side the main show. Richard was retired, with it’s last show being, rather fittingly at the end of the Rue Des Calmes in Aurillac. With Claire replacing Dave in the company, it seemed a good time to retire Richard III, and Robin was such a success touring wise that there was not enough time to develop a new street show.
In 2004 the company changed everything. Always experimenting, we wanted to pursue another possible artistic direction. We decided to do an un-masked buffoon show, specifically designed for indoor theaters. Burke and Hare. It was to allow us to develop various ideas that had come up in rehearsals and training which never saw the light of day. Howard directed, Geoff and Sarah were in the show, and Claire was the musical director. We bought in two writers - Owen Powell and John Finnemore. We also auditioned for actors - Richard Nutter, ? and James Greaves.
Unfortunately the two styles of working - writers writing and us developing clashed too much. In the first developmental stage, where we were working with them in the studio, it worked, but when they went away to write and the company carried on developing the work in the studio, the two ways of working diverged.
The show opened at the Unity Theatre in Liverpool to a mixed response, went on a four date tour, and then performed in London. There were discussions at the end about redesigning the set, which was too big and bulky for touring - though beautiful. It would need a re-thinking in order to take it up to Edinburgh. Three weeks after the end of the show in London, the company were in France for a week performing Robin at (?) festival. It was here that it was decided that being on tour, with masks, with Commedia, with our beautifully designed, easy to erect stage, in France with theatre companies from around the world was what Ophaboom was. We shouldn’t try to do other theatre, we should stick to Commedia. It was what we were and where out hearts really lay.
Another full tour of Robin followed, and then we started to think about our Swan Song. The company had been together for 17 years. it had become successful, but had also led to some burn out amongst us. As a theatre company we weren’t in debt. We wanted to bow out on top. The recession was starting to hit, and funding prioritise had changed.
Our last show would be self funded, and it would be the most strictly Commedia show we would have done. To this end we brought in a number of people, and laid down some strict rules about characters and the like. Didi Hopkins was brought in as a movement coach, and also to give the two women roles as much oomph as possible - to allow Claire and Sarah to have a truly equal role in the development of the show, characters and roles they would play. Owen Powell was brought in as a script consultant - learning our lessons from Burke and Hare, he worked in the studio with us, writing script as needed. We also brought Ninnian Kinnear-Wilson, our mask maker, and John Broadbent, the fifth ophaboom (he really has played more roles than anyone I think!) as directors.
Thus was Casanova born. It was, we feel, the pinnacle of our research into Commedia. It toured for two years - going to France, Spain and for the first time Portugal in the Castle St. George in Lisbon.
And then, Ophaboom came to an end. It was the right time. We had had a wonderful 17 years, with so many amazing experiences. We were not in debt and it was time for the members to be able to do other things.
Geoff and Howard have gone on to teach Commedia and masks, as well as directing shows in the Ophaboom style together at theatre schools. Sarah has gone on to forge a successful career in acting, touring with a number or notable companies, and Claire is teaching and performing music.