Response Theatre Company, a UK-based, female-led company led by Christie Lee Manning, is developing what could be the first Meisner-based movement theatre practice.
“Over the past three years, the company has been developing the Response Movement Method, which applies Sanford Meisner’s acting principles to movement, choreography and music rather than traditional text,” Manning explains. “In this work, movement becomes the dialogue and music becomes the scene partner, while maintaining the immediacy, listening and truthful response at the core of Meisner training.”
This method has already begun being explored in drama schools across the UK, as well as in Canada and New York. It is also being fully realised in Response Theatre Company’s debut production, I Made You a Mixtape, a dance-led theatre work following nine women navigating friendship, identity and the music that shapes our lives. The show will be heading to Edinburgh Fringe this summer.
I Made You a Mixtape throws the viewer straight into the heart of a ‘90s college dorm hang, complete with lava lamps, folding tables, plastic cups, boardgames, camcorders and the best music of the decade. What begins as a carefree evening of music and dancing unfolds into a deeply soulful collage of friendship, nostalgia, heartbreak and joy.
Using the Response Movement Method, with the cast treating the music as their scene partner and the choreography as their text, allows the story to emerge in real time. No two performances are ever exactly the same.
I Made You a Mixtape had its premiere on April 6 and 7, and will have its Fringe previews from June 12-14.
For more information, visit www.responsetheatrecompany.com.
