THE MERLIN IS MUCH MORE THAN A THEATRE

Frome's Merlin theatre is looking forward to its final outdoor event of the season, Shakespeare's, Twelfth Night. Performed by the UK's longest-running professional open air touring company, Illyria. And, with the venue planning its upcoming autumn/winter programme, having a laugh is definitely on the menu - including BBC Mock The Week regular, the pun-tastic Mark Simmons coming to town.

However, the Merlin theatre offers a lot more than sitting and watching others! It is already a training ground of budding young actors, putting on its weekly Youth Theatre, Musical Theatre and Drama Clubs for children and young people, in term time. 

And now in addition to specialist Stagecraft and Screencraft workshops with well-known professional film director, writer and Olivier-nominated actor Mark McGann, Director, Claudia Pepler, welcomes a brand new series of workshops for Writers and Directors.  

Taking place on Tuesdays, starting in the first week of September, 'Directing For The Stage' will comprise a five-session exploration of the skills needed to stage a piece of theatre, including how to work with actors, designers, writers and devisers.  'Writing For The Stage' will be a five-session programme that covers the main areas of writing for the stage: motivation and ideas, research and development, story and plot, character and dialogue, structure, formatting, and drafting.  

These new offerings will be led by multi award winning professional playwright, theatre director, and teacher for the past 40 years, Anthony Clark, who explains "These workshops will be about giving dramatic form to your tastes, your interests and your experiences. In short for writers, they'll be about finding 'your voice', and for directors your 'signature'."

Anthony Clark's career has included work for Contact Theatre in Manchester, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Hampstead Theatre as well as the National Theatre and the RSC. Now a Frome resident for almost a decade, Anthony considers he has been lucky to do work he is passionate about and these new Writing and Directing workshops at the Merlin are an opportunity to offer his support to others to do the same with their work.  He tells us, "I welcome this opportunity to share my knowledge and gain from the experience of others in series of skills workshops at the Merlin. Frome is a hive of artistic endeavour, with a flourishing theatre scene, and I'm thrilled to be contributing to that in whatever way I can". 

Those wishing to join either, or both, of the new Writing For The Stage/Directing For The Stage series should make contact directly with Anthony at Theatre Accord; full details of how to apply for a place on adult or children's workshops as well as timings, pricing etc. are on the Merlin theatre's website  www.merlintheatre.co.uk