Full Tilt was founded in 2004 at Bath Spa University by the Head of the Department of Drama, Professor Gunduz Kalic. As the founder and first Artistic Director of Full Tilt, Kalic instilled in the company and its work the core values that remain with us today; vitality, liveliness and re-invention.
In late 2008 the management of Full Tilt was passed to Sam Grogan, Subject Leader for Performing Arts at Bath Spa University.
Full Tilt continues to showcase new, devised and reinvented work by an internationally active body of staff , professional practitioners and students working in, or with the BA (Hons) Performing Arts course at Bath Spa. Full Tilt continues to build its reputation for cutting edge, innovative and passionate work. The exciting fusion of staff, practitioners and professionals working together on productions make it a unique experience for both audiences and performers.
At the core of our work is the overriding notion of ensemble. We work, play, rehearse, devise and make as a group. This creative ethic carries over into all areas of production, from set building and design, to tour management, to performance. Full Tilt uses the heightened bond of trust that is created through extensive ensemble work to enable its performers to emotionally, physically and conceptually explore and experiment freely, creating truly risk-taking, multi-disciplinary theatre that continually excites, amazes and challenges both the audience and the actor alike.
Sam Grogan
Full Tilt Theatre Company
- Michael Budmani
In 1996 Michael joined the Royal Shakespeare Company as Stage Manager. He was Stage Manager for many productions in all the RSC’s five home theatres in Stratford Upon Avon and The Barbican Centre in London, as well as the annual residencies in Newcastle and Plymouth. He was also Company Stage Manager for two RSC productions, including the West End transfer of The Unexpected Man by Yasmina Reza. In 2001 he joined Scottish Opera as Stage Manager (later Head of Stage Management). Michael was Stage Manager for over 40 operas, including the internationally renowned project, Der Ring Des Niblungen, directed by Tim Albery.
In 2006 Michael was promoted to the newly created role of Head of Technical. He was Line Manager to all the Running Departments (Stage Management, Stage, Electrics and Running Props). During his time in Scotland, Michael guest-lectured in Opera Stage Management at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, and Queen Margaret’s University in Edinburgh, and on Production Process at Glasgow University. He was also the National Council of Drama Training independent assessor for the RSAMD course in Theatre and Production Arts. He joined Bath Spa University in September 2008, and is thrilled to be working alongside the next generation of theatre practitioners in the stimulating, fun and creative and environment.
- Emma Gersch
Emma’s work is characterised by radical reinvention and a passion for blurring the lines between audience and players. Her production of ‘Macbeth’ in 2007 opened at a Glastonbury style rave, where the witches were ravers and Malcolm their DJ – and the audience danced along with them. Her most recent reinvented production of ‘Orestes: Re-examined’ invited the audience to be the jury for the trial of Orestes; most interesting when it played in prisons in the South West and the prisoners were asked to determine the outcome of the trial. Emma is passionate about creating work which is daring and fresh, and where ensemble and play is at the heart of the work. Her productions have sought to bring together professional actors, graduates and trainee actors working side by side.
Emma is Senior Lecturer in Drama, and Senior Teaching Fellow for Artswork at Bath Spa University, and is founder and director of ProActive Productions, based in London. Emma trained at Hull University and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and started out as an actor in theatre and film in the UK, Europe and USA, before moving into directing in 2003.
- Sam Grogan
Sam is interested in theatre as lyrical, hard-hitting movement poetry and a highly evocative, sensory experience for the actor and the audience alike. Characteristically his work fuses high-impact ensemble movement, storytelling, dance and original live text and songs set against a recorded back drop of beats, rhythms and spoken text. His work is frequently placed in intimate settings where the distance between performer and audience is diminished; a sense of immediacy and vulnerability evolves.
‘And The Little One Said’, ‘Frightening, gripping…palpable realism’ (review Arc Theatre Trowbridge 2005) saw the cast of seven players spend the entire piece in, over and under a four poster bed, confessing all to a diary camera, whilst in 2006 ‘Hunting For Moby’, (Rondo Theatre, Bath, Arc Theatre, Trowbridge) a reworking of Melville’s classic tale of adventure on the high seas, presented the narrative through a unique and stirring blend of puppetry, movement, and original live songs and music.
This sense of immediacy in ensemble playing was again mirrored in Complex: Oedipus, (Camden People’s Theatre, 2007) a radical reworking of Sophocles’ Oedipus, recasting the narrative in bold tones for a 20 strong ensemble, immersed in exhausting movement and an original vocal score sung live and acapella by the actors in continual five-part harmony.
Sam ‘s work creates the theatrical experience as an immediate, visceral and intensely physically poetic journey. Through the performers complicity with each other and the audience he aims for the work to transport the viewers to the world of the piece and immerse themselves in rhythm and pictures.
Sam’s current piece of work is the culmination of a prolonged and ongoing fascination with the power and relevance of storytelling, fairytales and myths. Beast is a subverted, twisted reinvention of Beauty and the Beast, its essence and truth pulled, contorted and squeezed into a contemporary frame, relevant to our world today.
Sam is Subject Leader for the BA (Hons) Performing Arts course at Bath Spa University, and a Bath Spa University Teaching Fellow. Sam trained at Bretton Hall before embarking on a performance career in physical and dance theatre across the UK, Europe, America and beyond.
- Terri Power
