CITS MA students took part in a new performance staging at the Astrakhan Youth Theater!

This July CITS students were helping with the interpretation during the rehearsals at the Astrakhan Youth Theater, as part of their practical studies. German stage director Wolfgang Negele is known for his opera performances, but this time the director staged at the Astrakhan Youth Theater a play based on three fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm. Yulia Goverdovskaya and Tatiana Arzamasova, second-year MA students, worked with German and English languages, correspondingly. The stage director preferred to conduct rehearsals in his native language, so German was the main working language for online rehearsals.

After completing the work at the theatre, students shared their impressions with us:

“I always thought that staging a play is mostly about actors rehearsing it on stage,” says Yulia Goverdovskaya. “However, it turned out that the technical component is a no less significant part of creating a play: costumes, set design, lighting, etc., therefore, in addition to the rehearsals, I was interpreting during the stage director’s meeting with the stage workers. A special glossary has been prepared for this meeting. In the process of working on the stage design, such issues as quality, types of fabrics used for costumes and masks, sizes of set pieces and usage of the materials were discussed. At first I was a little worried, realizing all the responsibility entrusted to me. However, the communication between the stage director and the actors via Skype was not much different from an on-site one. The director gave the actors artistic freedom, and therefore the rehearsals were held on a high level that involved some improvisations. The actors’ professional acting engaged me into the process, and I forgot all the worries. The rehearsals lasted for three hours a day, the whole July. All this time spent at the theater, I was surrounded by talented people, and I really enjoyed participating in the rehearsals and practicing the German language.”

Tatiana Arzamasova also shared with us her own impressions: “I have never worked with this type of interpretation, so this experience was very interesting and unusual. The stage director was in Germany, the actors were in Russia, communication was carried out via Skype with the use of a projector transmitting the director’s image. Often the connection wasn’t very good, and it was very helpful that the director duplicated his notes in writing, this helped us to overcome communication problems as well as to interpret at a proper level. I am not used to work like this, but I liked it. Despite the distance, the director and actors actively interacted with each other, asked questions, offered their ideas, sometimes using field-specific theater terms, which were interpreted with the help of the glossary prepared beforehand. Also it is worth mentioning the play itself. There is a concept in it that combines three Brother Grimm’s fairy tales into one. The story is based on the reunion of family members who play out these fairy tales in order to get closer after a long separation. It was new and very exciting, so it was a pleasure to interpret this play.”

Rehearsals will continue in November, with the premiere scheduled for January 2021.