For those of you who are interested in doing the characterisation workshop with Annie Lee I managed to grab hold of Annie on her one day back in Brisbane between various State tours and comedy festivals to interview her on her performing arts background and some of the things which inspire her as an actor, writer, director and teacher.

I have known Annie for almost 20 years since I met her at her brother’s house in the early 90’s.  At the time I was taken aback at her amazing presence and later at her raw talent.  I have seen Annie doing street theatre at Woodford, singing in Women in Voice and more recently on TV performing as Mourne in The Kransky Sisters. At the end of 2009 I got the opportunity to work with Annie at the Woodford Folk Festival on the Disturbia Project which was a whole town conceptualized and built by Annie and her team in the middle of the festival grounds.  The experience was both chaotic and inspiring but left me with the feeling that I must work more with Annie and see if I could get her to help the Edge Improv community take our performances to a new level.  Annie and I sat down with her schedule and we have managed to squeeze in some time in between tours to come and teach some workshops with Edge Improv specifically for people in the Brisbane Impro community.

Annie, could you please tell me a little about your background and history in the performing arts?

Yes certainly because I think this journey has greatly informed how I work now and how I teach.

I came from the coast of Tasmania and as a child would stand on the hill next to the lighthouse, looking out and wondering what lay over there for me on the other side….on the big mainland. I came from a fundamentalist religious background and those times at the lighthouse were my escape from the confines of the religion and a somewhat disturbing family life. It was the dreaming I did then, this escape through my imagination that led me to the work I do today. We are very much shaped by our past, and our response to things.  Looking back I think it was that dreaming that made me realize how important a friend is the imagination.

Well, I eventually did escape and at the age of 17 moved to Brisbane.

It was some years later, that I began a career in the performing arts. I first worked in live bands to slowly develop confidence performing. During my time in Tasmania I had always written stories, songs and poetry and was interested in performance, and developing the confidence this might bring to me. I went on to study Performing Arts Theatre and when I graduated, worked as a stage actor for some years, before developing several original solo works which I toured extensively throughout Australia and overseas.

So how did you find this transition from being on stage as a singer where you are relating to the audience more as yourself to being on stage in a play where you have the fourth wall and you are having to pretend to be someone else?

This was a real test for my self-confidence because I did not have the microphone to hide behind anymore. I found it both wonderful and terrifying at the same time. There is also something about doing other peoples material which took me outside my comfort zone.  There is something comforting about doing your own material because you know it so well.

One of the things I was told in my first year studying performing arts Theatre, was that it appeared I did not think I had the right to be on stage, “You don’t seem to feel you deserve to be up there.” was the note from my teacher. That was fantastic because it was absolutely true and it made me question my attitude to my whole life.  I realized that this was why I had come to this place, because it was something I had to do out of necessity. There was something there I had to overcome. I had to own myself somehow, get to know myself, and to this day, I think the arts has helped me to do that.

During my time studying, I had the great opportunity of playing several wonderful characters in the works of Shakespeare, Peter Weiss, Frank Wedekind and Bertolt Brecht. After my graduation, I had the great opportunity of working professionally for various companies playing roles in some excellent plays including Berkoff’s Metamorphosis and Decadence, Dario Fo’s Elizabeth By Chance A Woman, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the plays of Bertolt Brecht and many more. This experience gave me a great appreciation of the work that goes into developing a character, and what you can personally gain from this type of intense work.

I know this is a hard question to answer but how do you begin to find the character whether it is one you are creating or if it is one that someone else has given you?

Becoming the vehicle for someone else’s writing, is much harder work than that of working from your own writing as it is not coming from the same organic place.

The ultimate thing is to be able to be free to the character you play, to give yourself up to it completely.  The character comes out of the imagery you have in your mind that transfers into your feelings, which in turn affects your voice, body language and attitude.  This is what character work is about, fully becoming the character through using the whole of your imagination.

I totally agree, and this is so important in Improvisation because we also need to be able to imagine the whole world we are in as well as who we are. So what was it that made you decide to move more into performing your own work?

After working in theatre companies I got to the point where I wanted to be able to apply more of my skills, such as my singing, writing and song-writing.  I started out putting together a show that was a compilation of poetry and songs of German writer’s works whom I admired, as this had become a passion of mine through having performed in German plays. I felt close to the German style of performing which was quite direct to the audience, coming in and out of the fourth wall.

This in turn led me into writing several solo one-woman shows that followed in the same style.  I was on the outside looking in as myself, and the character was on the inside looking out.  

I began working more and more on my own solo works which meant I was able to develop characters over time and the longer you get to spend with a character and the stronger that character gets the easier it is to write for that character. The more you do a character the more history there is.

Here we are showing human frailty and yet seeing the humour there at the same time.  There is something powerful about sending up the things we tend to fall in to as human beings that tend to trip us on our path.  That is the kind of work that I am interested in, that every character has a weakness or vulnerability.  Once you find that in your character, even if you are working against this on stage, it is there and it makes you more human and more believable as a character.

How do you feel your earlier training in the more traditional acting techniques such as Method Acting and performing in scripted theatre has informed what you do today?

Doing other peoples work and studying The Method has informed my practice and though in some circles it may have gone out of fashion some of the greatest actors around use method acting. 

What is it about The Method that works do you think?

Just like a carpenter builds a table an actor builds a character from a set of basic rules. There are keys to finding a character which involve this process for example when you are finding the voice of your character it is not just a matter of having a go at speaking funny, but having in your mind and heart the thoughts that then send the right message to your vocal chords. The stronger the thought and the imagery, the stronger the character will be. 

And how does this transfer into your teaching?

What I am about is getting people to use their imagination more acutely and I am interested in finding out what it is that people need to work on individually to make this an easier task for them. Some people might be really good at that process and want to work more physically with their characters.  I like to see what it is that people are doing and support them in whatever way is needed.

INSIDE THE CHARACTER workshops w Annie Lee

Saturday 1st May

10am to 4 pm

Metro Arts Basement

109 Edward Street, Brisbane

Cost: $70

Call (07) 3369 5058 or mail workshops@edgeimprov.com for bookings