By Callum Ludwig
Having started out in theatre before drifting away for a while, Mark Brereton moved to Warburton in 2014 and has gotten back into it, joining the Mad Hatter Theatrics group and now hosting character development workshops.
From Tuesday May 31, Mr Brereton will be hosting a workshop every Tuesday until August 2, at the Koha Centre on Dammans Rd in Warburton at 7.30pm.
Mr Brereton said he wants to share what he learned being on the job as a theatre professional with actors of all experience levels.
“In community groups people come from all sorts of backgrounds,there’s people that have got no experience as people with a deluge of experience. Some people go there, and aren’t quite sure what to do,” he said.
“Character development workshops give people a road or a path in which they can develop their characters for a stage show. Performances are all about character development, it’s all to develop a character and to portray it to the audience.”
Anyone who is interested in any type of character development can benefit from it, with Mr Brereton welcoming actors who wish to take the traditional path through theatre, to aspiring Youtubers who post their work online, to writers or poets who are looking to create characters through words.
Mr Brereton said the workshops are a tool to help actors prepare for auditions or the performance stage, and will help motivate actors.
“The biggest motivator is self-confidence. Any performer will tell you if you know your character, you’re performing better. With YouTube, there are a lot of people getting on there and doing what they do, but they don’t develop their own character,” he said.
“For theatre, this is basically setting up a tool for working from scratch from when you get the script to when you first meet the director from when you first show the director what you think your character is going to be what the director inputs until the final performance.”
Mr Brereton started out performing in high school shows before he entered the industry as part of touring theatre company doing ‘musicals with a moral’ performances for high schoolers.He went on to write a one-man show he toured with for three years, before directing his own big show in 1987. It was after the show his hiatus from acting began until he moved to Warburton.
“In 2014, I teamed up with Cat Print theatre out here, doing quite a number of shows with them and have now joined up with Mad Hatters,” he said.
“I always missed it while I wasn’t doing it, but it’s great to be back in touch with it again.”
For any further information, Mark Brereton can be directly contacted at 0410 408 827 or mbrereton28@gmail.com
