David Hunt

ACT NOW! DRAMA COMPANY ADMINISTRATOR - For news on ACT NOW! Drama Company Productions & workshops. David Hunt trained for three years at The Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. He has worked extensively as an actor/director and tutor in the West End, on tour, TV & radio. The Act Now! Drama Company was established by David in September 2007 with the aim of exploring diverse acting genres and applying the exploration to professional performance. Rehearsals and classes are geared towards people who have had some experience of drama training and want to pursue the craft to a higher level. All of the original intake had trained and worked in performance to varying degrees. Sessions consist of 10 x 2½ hour acting classes and rehearsals running one evening a week between 7.30pm-10.00pm, plus additional weekend workshops. The rehearsals result in a performance relating to a genre subject studied over the 10 weeks. Rehearsals take place at Mycenae House, Blackheath and cover voice, movement, scene and text exploration, improvisation, directing etc. The genre subject enables all members to be working on the same topic so that they can build their knowledge on a specific performance related area and also add selected works by the writer to their repertoire of audition speeches or dialogues. There are also devising classes not always connected to the genre subject. Subjects covered so far are Federico Garcia Lorca, August Strindberg, Alan Ayckbourn, Henrik Ibsen, Noel Coward,Restoration, Absurdist Theatre, Greek and William Shakespeare. The actor Tony Slattery has also taken a very successful Improvisation Workshop for the company in February 2011. There are also occasional Saturday Workshops running at Wigmore Hall, Union Chapel, Islington and St Gabriel's Hall, Pimlico which cover voice, devising and genre subjects including Steven Berkoff, Restoration Theatre and Shakespeare Scene Study. In January 2008 the Act Now! Drama Company performed their first production The Tragedy of Federico Garcia Lorca to a full house at The Broadway Theatre Studio, Catford. Their second production Mind Games - looking at the works of August Strindberg and Alan Ayckbourn - was also performed at The Broadway Theatre Studio in April 2008. The company premiered their new comedy play That Happy Feeling! written by David Hunt, in September 2008 at the Broadway. The show ran for a week with great public response. This was followed by The Passion of Henrik Ibsen in September 2008. In January 2009 Coward's Way, looking at the comedy scenes, monologues and songs of Sir Noel Coward was performed at the Broadway. Their production of a new translation of Sophocles’ Greek tragedy Electra ran in March 2009 for a successful short run at The Courtyard, London. This was followed by Something Wicked This Way Comes - looking at Shakespeare's villains and villainesses which ran at The Greenwich Playhouse in July 2009. The company returned to The Greenwich Playhouse for a two week run of their zany devised comedy The Adventures of Royston Cockfosters in July 2010.