Spanish students take to the stage

A unique collaboration between the University of St Andrews and the Byre Theatre will see a group of Spanish students take to the stage tonight (Friday 6 May 2011).

The initiative between the local theatre and the University’s Department of Spanish will see sixty-six first year students perform one of the most ambitious plays of the twentieth century entirely in Spanish.

Working on the premise that plays are written to be performed, students will perform Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s most famous and challenging play Luces de bohemia, rather than study it through the traditional means of lectures and seminar discussions.

The production, which will be staged for one night only tonight, offers Spanish speakers and students of Spanish a unique opportunity to watch the famous play.

Students have been divided into groups with specific responsibilities for staging different scenes with different students playing, in some instances, the same characters, at different stages of the play.

The initiative is the brainchild of Professor Fowler. He  commented, “Our students have only had three weeks to put this production together.  None of them are professional actors, and they have had to memorise lines in a foreign language. We still hope that this will be a memorable experience for the performers and audience alike.”

The initiative goes back to 2005 when 94 first-year students staged Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s Romance de lobos at the Byre as part of their undergraduate studies.  This successful production was followed in 2007 by the staging of Valle-Inclán’s extraordinary play Divinas palabras.

Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s Luces de Bohemia [1924] will be performed at the Byre Theatre in St Andrews on Friday 6 May 2011 at 7.30pm.

Tickets are only £2 and can be acquired from the Byre box office (01334 475000).

For further information, please contact the School of Modern Languages on 01334 463670, email [email protected] or Professor Nigel Dennis on 01334 462954, email [email protected].

ENDS

Issued by the Press Office

Contact Gayle Cook on 01334 467227, email [email protected]

Ref: Spanish play 050511