Tim- the sequel
Although you may not know it to look at me, I have ADHD. When I was much younger I was a bit full-on, and my mum thought ‘what better way to exhaust a child than throwing them into a drama school!’ Thus, I was introduced to the world of performance.
As time went on, school and my dramatic extra-curricular activity became more and more diametrically opposed. In year 10 I quit the drama-school to ‘focus on my studies’ of a distinctly mathematical and scientific flavour.
It was some time before drama again entered into my life. It occurred when I volunteered to help run a Christian kids holiday program (on a team with about 45 other leaders). We had the choice between being involved in the music team or in a serial drama that ran every night of the program. I chose the drama.
It was there, at an open theatre that drama found me again. Apart from my continued involvement with the kids holiday program, I continue to write, direct and act as often as often as possible. I love dramatic performance and the expressive medium that it is.
My involvement with drama in Tertiary studies has been varied and has affected me deeply as an artist and a person (but would take me quite severely over the approx. 300 word count). One specific thing that has affected and inspired my take on drama occurred during my second semester at Deakin ‘Modern and Postmodern Drama’. It was there that I was introduced to… and fell in love with Antonin Artaud. While I do not agree with him on every point, a couple of things have stuck with me… his unbridled passion for the theatre… and his concept that the theatre is like a boil to society, ‘it brings whatever would have remained noxious, hidden and festering to the surface- and expels it’ (1977 p. 19)
Yours truly,
Timothy Richards
Oh… I suppose I should provide the reference :S
Bermel A., 1977, Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, Taplinger, New York