BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES - 2018 TEACHER RESOURCE KIT THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF - NZ Festival

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BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES - 2018 TEACHER RESOURCE KIT THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF - NZ Festival
THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF

BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES
                             EVENT PARTNER

2018                         SCHOOLFEST PARTNER

TEACHER RESOURCE KIT
BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES - 2018 TEACHER RESOURCE KIT THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF - NZ Festival
CONTENTS
1. CURRICULUM & LEARNING AREAS

2. CAST & CREATIVES

3. ABOUT THE SHOW

4. ABOUT THE COMPANY

5. BIOGRAPHIES & STATEMENTS

6. FURTHER RESOURCES & READING
    A. VIDEOS/TRAILER

    B. REVIEWS

    C. OTHER RELATED VIDEOS/MATERIALS

7. YOUR SHOW EXPERIENCE

8. BACK IN YOUR CLASSROOM

TEACHERS SCHOOLFEST 101 PACK
DOWNLOAD HERE
This is your guide to getting the most out of your SchoolFest experience. The
pack includes top tips for attending performances, dress code, schools’ ticket
collection, Festival venues, accessibility and more.
BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES - 2018 TEACHER RESOURCE KIT THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF - NZ Festival
2018 SCHOOLFEST
BARBER SHOP
CHRONICLES
CURRICULUM LINKS                        Dance, Drama, Music

ACHIEVEMENT OBJECTIVES & LEARNING OUTCOMES
Level 3–8
Dance
AS90860 – 1.4 Demonstrate understanding of the elements of
dance
AS90861 – 1.5 Demonstrate understanding of a dance
performance
AS90005 – 1.6 Demonstrate knowledge of a dance genre or
style
AS91211 – 2.7 Provide an interpretation of a dance performance
with supporting evidence
AS91212 – 2.8 Demonstrate understanding of a dance genre or
style in context
AS91594 – 3.7 Analyse a dance performance

Drama
AS90998 - 1.3 Demonstrate understanding of features of a
drama/theatre form
AS91217 - 2.5 Examine the work of a playwright
AS91516 - 3.5 Demonstrate understanding of the work of a
drama or theatre theorist or practitioner
AS90011 - 1.7 Demonstrate understanding of the use of drama
aspects with live performance
AS91219 - 2.7 Discuss drama elements, techniques, conventions
and technologies within live performance
AS91518 - 3.7 Demonstrate understanding of live drama
performance

Music
AS91425 - 3.10 Research a music topic

                                                                 Photography credit: Dean Chalkley
BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES - 2018 TEACHER RESOURCE KIT THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF - NZ Festival
CAST & CREATIVES
Writer 				Inua Ellams
Director 				Bijan Sheibani
Designer 				Rae Smith
Lighting Designer 			        Jack Knowles
Movement Director			         Aline David
Sound Designer 			           Gareth Fry
Music 					Michael Henry
Fight Director 			           Kev McCurdy
Staff Director 				          Stella Odunlami
Barber Consultant 			        Peter Atakpo
Company Voice Work 		        Charmian Hoare
Dialect Coach 			            Hazel Holder
Tour Casting Director 		     Amy Ball
Design Associate 			         Catherine Morgan
Lighting Associate 			       Laura Howells
Sound Associate 			          Amir Sherhan
Costume Supervisor 		        Lydia Crimp
Wardrobe Supervisor 		       Louise Marchand-Paris
Production Manager 		        Richard Eustace
Company Stage Manager 		     Joni Carter
Deputy Stage Manager		       Fiona Bardsley
Assistant Stage Manager 		   Naomi Brooks
BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES - 2018 TEACHER RESOURCE KIT THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF - NZ Festival
Kwabena / Brian / Fabrice    Emmanuel: Cyril Nri      Musa / Andile / Mensah:
/ Olawale: Peter Bankolé                              Maynard Eziashi

Tanaka / Fiifi: David Ajao   Samuel: Bayo Gbadamosi   Winston / Shoni: Martin
                                                      Imhangbe

Kwame / Simon / Wole:        Abram / Ohene / Sizwe:   Tokunbo / Paul /
Abdul Salis                  David Webber             Simphiwe: Patrice
                                                      Naiambana

Ethan: Kwami Odoom           Elnathan / Benjamin /    Wallace / Timothy /
                             Dwain: Sule Rimi         Mohammed / Tinashe:
                                                      Tuwaine Barrett
BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES - 2018 TEACHER RESOURCE KIT THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF - NZ Festival
“This
wonderful
new play is a
revelation. It’s
a flamboyant,
musical,
movable
feast” ★
THE TIMES
BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES - 2018 TEACHER RESOURCE KIT THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF - NZ Festival
ABOUT THE SHOW
One day. Six cities. A thousand stories. For generations, African men have gathered
in barber shops. Sometimes they have haircuts, sometimes they listen, more often
than not they talk. Barber shops are confession boxes, political platforms, preacher-
pulpits and football pitches... places to go for unofficial advice, and to keep in touch
with the world. Barber Shop Chronicles is a heart-warming, hilarious and insightful
new play, set in Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos, Accra and London.
The play invites the audience into a uniquely masculine environment where the
banter may be barbed, but the truth always telling. The barbers of these tales are
sages, role models and father figures, they are the glue that keeps men together.
Fuel has produced Inua Ellams’ work for theatre since his debut play nine years ago.
Opening at the National Theatre in May 2017, Barber Shop Chronicles has received
huge critical acclaim and taken social media by storm with audience feedback.
Looking ahead to 2018 and beyond, Fuel are now exploring potential touring
partnerships to collaborate with regional and international programmers to bring
the play to their audiences.
BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES - 2018 TEACHER RESOURCE KIT THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF - NZ Festival
ABOUT THE COMPANY
Fuel
Fuel produces an adventurous, playful and significant programme of work – live,
digital, and across art forms – for a large and representative audience across the
UK and beyond. We collaborate with outstanding artists with fresh perspectives
and approaches who seek to explore our place in the world, expose our fears,
understand our hopes for the future, create experiences which change us and in
turn empower us to make change in the world around us.

Fuel Director Kate McGrath and Inua Ellams met in 2008, after Kate saw the
beginnings of what became Inua’s first play, The14th Tale, at BAC. Fuel helped
Inua develop this debut and produced it, premiering it at the Edinburgh Festival,
winning a Fringe First, touring it in the UK and internationally and presenting it at
the National Theatre. Since that first meeting, Fuel has worked closely with Inua,
producing Untitled, Knight Watch, The Long Song Goodbye, Black T-shirt Collection,
The Spalding Suite, and Barber Shop Chronicles since its inception. Fuel is also
currently touring Inua’s An Evening with an Immigrant where with poems, stories and
extracts from his plays, he tells about his life through the lens of his experience of
immigration.
BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES - 2018 TEACHER RESOURCE KIT THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF - NZ Festival
BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES - 2018 TEACHER RESOURCE KIT THE WETA DIGITAL SEASON OF - NZ Festival
BIOGRAPHIES &
STATEMENTS
Inua Ellams, Writer:
Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a cross-art-form practitioner, a poet, playwright, performer,
graphic artist, designer and founder of the Midnight Run – a nocturnal urban excursion.
He is a Complete Works poet alumni and a designer at White Space Creative Agency.
Inua Ellams’ previous plays at the National include The 14th Tale (Fringe First award) and
Black T-Shirt Collection. Other plays include The Riddler at Theatre503; Knight Watch at
Greenwich + Docklands Festival; Mostly Like Blue for Islington Community Theatre; Cape
at the Unicorn; The Long Song Goodbye at Battersea Arts Centre; Fastcuts and Snapshot
at West Yorkshire Playhouse; Marsh Orchids & Concrete for China Plate; Reset Everything
and An Evening with an Immigrant at the Soho and on tour, which was awarded the
Liberty Human Rights Award in 2017; and Turned at Trafalgar Studios. Radio plays include
The Ballad of Abdul Hafiz and Wild Blood. He has published three pamphlets of poetry
‘Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars’, ‘Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales’ and ‘The
Wire-Headed Heathen’. His poetry is published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches,
and several plays by Oberon Books. His new book #Afterhours is published by Nine
Arches Press. inuaellams.com

Bijan Sheibani, Director:
Bijan Sheibani is a theatre and opera director. His work in theatre includes Our Class, The
Kitchen, Emil and the Detectives, A Taste of Honey and Romeo and Juliet for the National;
Giving at Hampstead; The House of Bernarda Alba at the Almeida; Moonlight at the
Donmar Warehouse; Eurydice and The Brothers Size for the Young Vic and ATC; Ghosts for
the Arcola and ATC; Gone Too Far! for the Royal Court, Hackney Empire, Albany and ATC;
The Typist for Riverside Studios and Sky Arts; Other Hands and Flush at the Soho Theatre;
One for the Road and Party Time at Battersea Arts Centre; and Have I None at Southwark
Playhouse. Work in opera includes Nothing at Glyndebourne and Danish National Opera;
The Virtues of Things and Through His Teeth at the Royal Opera House; and Tarantula in
Petrol Blue at Aldeburgh. He directed the short film Groove is in the Heart, which was
selected for the BFI London Film Festival and other international festivals. He also wrote
and directed the short film Samira’s Party, which was selected for the BFI London Film
Festival 2017, and funded by Film London and the BFI. His production of Gone Too Far!
won an Olivier Award for outstanding achievement in an affiliate theatre and he was
nominated for Olivier Awards for Our Class and The Brothers Size. He was artistic director
of ATC from 2007 to 2010 and an Associate Director of the National Theatre from 2010 to
2015. In 2018 he will remount his production of The Brothers Size by Tarell McCraney for
the Young Vic, and direct a new production of Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie
Baker for Home in Manchester. He will also direct a new opera for Streetwise Opera at
the Sage Gateshead.
FURTHER RESOURCES
& READING
VIDEOS & TRAILER

                   Barber Shop Chronicles | NZ Festival Trailer
                   https://www.festival.co.nz/2018/events/barber-shop-chronicles/#watch

                   Barber Shop Chronicles | In the rehearsal room
                   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok5oDvktgO4

                   Barber Shop Chronicles | What’s it all about?
                   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1TJgVVvkFE

                   Inua Ellams’ Barber Shop Chronicles Teaser
                   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtsyrNu4Tlw
Barber Shop Chronicles | Question Time: Part One
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIrQL4NBWGY

Barber Shop Chronicles | Question Time: Part Two
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYIc6sTkocw

Inua Ellams on Barber Shop Chronicles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VEeXxu_fas&t=49s

Barber Shop Chronicles | Improv Scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB8w4G21Xzs&t=9s

Barber Shop Chronicles | Audience Reactions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xceGAS2TSY
REVIEWS

“It makes the average white British male’s belief that you simply go in for a haircut look decidedly
dreary. The acting is first rate. It’s a richly enjoyable play” The Guardian
★★
“The sinewy pulse and lissom beauty of Sheibani’s production, which throbs with energy and
heat. A hypnotic use of song signifies each shift in location, while his crack cast move with
limber grace. This is a show full of sadness and great joy.” Daily Telegraph

“Staged with an exhilarating dynamism. This is a joyous piece of theatre. Such an ambitious
piece and so life-affirmingly realised. Go.” The Independent

“Barber Shop Chronicles is a pleasure to experience. The level of joy in the room is high.” The
Stage

“...a sharp-edged insight into African masculinity.” TimeOut

“This wonderful new play is a revelation. It’s a flamboyant, musical, movable feast” The Times

“Funny, fast, thoughtful, moving. An absolute cracker.” Financial Times

“Bijan Sheibani’s production is irresistibly joyful. A festival atmosphere dominates with dancing
to rap, hip hop afro beats and vocal harmonies between scenes” Daily Mail

“Rae Smith’s terrific design sets the action underneath a large wire globe. Bijan Sheibani’s
production skids from one scene to another on caster chairs, music and a flap of barbers’
capes.” The Observer

“Ellams’s play has warmth, casual wisdom and global reach with a light touch.” Sunday Times

Barber Shop Chronicles: Acclaimed theatre production coming to Wellington
https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/stage-and-theatre/97794674/barber-shop-chronicles-acclaimed-
theatre-production-coming-to-wellington

Barber Shop Chronicles, National Theatre, London, review: Staged with an exhilarating
dynamism
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/barber-shop-chronicles-dorfman-
national-theatre-t-london-review-a7779761.html

Barber Shop Chronicles review at National Theatre, London – ‘rich and exhilarating’
https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2017/barber-shop-chronicles-review-national-theatre-london/
“Funny, fast,
thoughtful,
moving. An
absolute
cracker”
FINANCIAL TIMES
OTHER RELATED VIDEOS/MATERIALS

Videos

Inua Ellams “Candy Coated Unicorns And Converse All Stars”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNT_-vb1vio

Shame Is The Cape I Wear – Inua Ellams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VioAPex9HXo

Introduction to Inua Ellams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLjaAKtOMA4

TEDXBrixton | Inua Ellams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG7Fb7E5nOk
YOUR SHOW
EXPERIENCE
Before seeing a theatre production
– Research the story and content upon which the performance is based, for instance,
barbershops and their protocol around the world.
– View and analyse videos/photos of the creative team’s past works.

Things to think about during the show
Before entering the theatre:
– How, if at all, does the exterior of the theatre capture my attention?
– How does this theatre exterior compare to other theatres I have seen or are nearby?
– Who else seems to be attending the show? What is the make-up of the audience (i.e.
age, gender, ethnicity, race, etc?)
As I enter the theatre:
– What sense of energy do I feel in the theatre space?
– Which of my senses seem to be most activated? (Touch, sight, sound, smell?)
– How do I navigate the building to find my seats?
Once in the theatre:
– What strikes me about the design of the theatre? The physical space? The lighting?
Looking at the frame of the stage (proscenium etc.), does anything catch my eye?
– What do I notice about the set design or curtain when looking at the stage? What
might I understand about the production before it even starts?
Observations about the production:
– What captures my attention during the play? Is it the actors? The set? The music? Why?
– Does the plot engage me? Do I care about the characters? Why?
– How do the actors seem to interact with one another? With the set and the world of
the play?
– How do the director, actors and designers (costume, lights and set) stage the action
to focus the drama for me?
– What questions do I have about this production? What is the meaning of the play?
– How did it feel when the lights came up and I was brought back to the reality that I was
in a theatre and it is now time to leave?
BACK IN YOUR
CLASSROOM
ACTIVITY 1
Positive, negative & interesting

Following the attendance of Barber Shop Chronicles, ask your students to reflect on the
questions below. You might choose to have them answer each individually, in groups
for round-table discussions or all together as a class.

1. What was your overall reaction to Barber Shop Chronicles? Did you find the
production compelling? Stimulating? Intriguing? Challenging? Memorable?
Confusing? Evocative? Unique? Delightful? Meaningful? Explain your reactions.

2. What were the most compelling characters or themes in the play and why did you
find them interesting?

3. Do you think that the pace and tempo of the storytelling were effective and
appropriate? Explain your opinion.

4. If you were asked to describe Barber Shop Chronicles to a friend who didn’t see the
play using only one sentence, what would that sentence be?

5. Which characters were you most drawn to in Barber Shop Chronicles and why?

6. How were the qualities of character revealed by their action and speech?

7. Was there a character whose personality or ideas you most related to?

8. In what ways did your favourite characters reveal the themes of the play? Explain
your response.
ACTIVITY 2
Favourites & the five ws
What were your favourite three key moments in the production? Which characters and
relationships were involved in these moments? Answer the five Ws (What, Who, Why,
When, Where) for each of these three key moments.

          Moment 1                    Moment 2                   Moment 3

                                 What happened?

                                 Who was there?

                                Why did it happen?

                               When did it happen?

                               Where did it happen?
ACTIVITY 3
Production technologies used in Barber Shop Chronicles

In the boxes below, describe one example of each production technology you saw in
the show.

1. Lighting                     How did it help to communicate the ideas of the
                                show. Why was it effective?

2. Costume                      How did it help to communicate the ideas of the
                                show. Why was it effective?

3. Sound/Music                  How did it help to communicate the ideas of the
                                show. Why was it effective?
ACTIVITY 4
Write a review

Have your students take on the role of theatre critic by writing a review of the production
of Barber Shop Chronicles.
A theatre critic or reviewer is essentially a “professional audience member”, whose job
is to provide reportage of a play’s production and performance through active and
descriptive language for a target audience of readers (for example, their peers, their
community, or those interested in the arts).
Critics/reviewers analyse the theatrical event to provide a clearer understanding of
the artistic ambitions and intentions of a play and its production; reviewers often ask
themselves, “What is the playwright and this production attempting to do?” Finally, the
critic offers personal judgment as to whether the artistic intentions of a production were
achieved and effective.

Your performance review should include:
Introduction
• Include the name of the production, production company and key creatives (writer,
director, leading actors).
Body paragraphs
• Tell the reader something about the major themes/ideas of the production.
• Make judgements about the production but make sure you justify your opinions.
Conclusions
• Make an overall recommendation about why people should see this performance.
Don’t forget to include a snappy headline that encapsulates the show.
Note: Encourage your students to email their reviews to the New Zealand Festival
SchoolFest team on schoolfest@festival.co.nz for publication.

ACTIVITY 5
Recreate it!

Choose one of your favourite moments/scenes from the show and recreate it. Perhaps
change a character, location or issue to make it personal to you. Try adapting it for New
Zealand; a New Zealand story, cast and location.

Perform it to the rest of the class and see if they can guess which moment from the
production you picked.
You can also read