Angharad Price is a trained professional actress based in the United Kingdom. She has scored many roles in theatre, television and film, having impressed casting directors with her versatile range of skills including dancing, singing, modelling, violin and stage combat, to name but a few.
Chloe Stevenson has a natural flair for writing and has successfully had her own novels and poetry published. She is now writing and developing a stage play 'Dirty Cash' with Angharad, in which they are also both performing.
In this interview we get first hand insight into the play, which previews at the end of June before they tour the Etcetera Theatre, Camden (September 30th & October 1st 2016) and the Clapham Fringe in October.
What attracted you to working in theatre?
Chloe: I wanted to work in the theatre because I enjoy the fantasy and the more fertile and vivid your imagination is the better. It’s done in a medium that’s constructive and people enjoy, instead of using the energy destructively like with alcohol. People love make believe, stories, dressing up and people love to be taken out of their everyday lives.
Angharad: I love the buzz you get from a live audience, I think it’s just so much more electric. Something like Dirty Cash, that’s so sort of visceral and a bit weird and zany, I think that comes across so much better when you’re there with these actors rather than watching it on screen where there’s a barrier between you.
Angharad you trained at the Guildford School of Acting from 2013-14. How did your training prepare you for working in the industry?
Angharad: (laughs) I did the masters course which is described as the BA in a year, so you basically do 8.30am til 9pm. They work you very very hard and nothing I’ve found in the industry has been that hard, nothing at all! Something I think was really good at GSA was they did a whole module in industry prep, where every week you do a new monologue which suits your casting, you have to come into the room with a CV and headshot and think of the group as a group of casting directors and do a monologue. When it’s 15 of your peers who are encouraged to criticise constructively, I have never found an audition in the real world scary after that. There’s nothing scarier than going into a room with 15 people you know, maybe had a bit of a thing with or that your friends with and them just being like that was bad, that was bad! Then in the real world everyone is a lot nicer. GSA is good because it gives you a worst case scenario and if you can handle that, you can handle anything.
Which artists have inspired you creatively and why?
Chloe: Marilyn Munroe, Liz Taylor, all the old Hollywood black and white movies, hay day era films, golden age of Hollywood, I love all that with the glamour, the escapism and mad women like Barbara Stanwyck doing crazy things for cash! All the old 60’s and 70’s music and the rock stars like Jim Morrison, Led Zeppelin all inspired me. Whenever I need inspiration I watch old documentaries, films and listen to music and it makes me feel energised and inspired to try and create like they did. Without the arts people succumb to depression, addiction but watching a great play, seeing a sculpture, listening to music and creating artistic work, elevates the human condition into giving you a sense that there is something more to life than the mundanity of everyday life.
Angharad: Just to go on what Chloe said; Chloe is more into old films than anyone that I’ve ever met! Anytime we rehearse she gives me a DVD or a recommendation of an old classic. A lot of humour in Dirty Cash, comes from the old classics, which is something I really admire because I don’t have that sense of humour at all. My type of humour comes from watching re-runs of Friends. I find I’m inspired by the track of people’s career, so people like Julie Andrews. People like Helen Mirren; how can you not be impressed with the trajectory of her career! Fun fact, I have a shirt of Helen Mirren’s that she once used at the National, that came to the school in which my mum works in a load of donated clothes and it was in the costume department for years and my mum found it and rescued it for me! It’s now my good luck shirt. I wore it once in a panto where I was playing Jim in Treasure Island. I am inspired by people I know and their careers. People like Sharron Spice (founder of Elicit Theatre Company who Angharad is currently performing with) and Ida Thomasdotter (a director and actress who is also performing with Elicit Theatre Company alongside Angharad) who has shown that hard work pays off.
What have been some of the most gratifying moments of your career to date?
Chloe: When I wrote my collection of poems called Desire, another one was when I finished my novel called Amelia in the sands which was 55000 words. Another one was when I crossed over from writing novels to writing a play, that was a lightbulb moment for me because the attraction of writing a play is so immediate, it is really fulfilling and rewarding.
Angharad: Last August I did the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time and that was a definite highlight. It was amazing, I’d never been before, I’m very excited to go again this year and I’m hoping next year maybe Dirty Cash will go, who knows. It’s amazing with all these creatives everywhere, it’s incredibly vibrant. I was doing this play called One Green Bottle which was written and directed by Leah Eates who was there on a production level and I was performing it. Then I went straight from the Edinburgh fringe onto a Megabus and 8 hours later I was performing in the Camden Fringe and that was awesome, it made me feel like I was really doing it! Since I moved to London, I managed to get onto BBC Two’s Charlie Brooker’s Election Wipe, so I worked with the BBC in an acting capacity for the first time, it was a wonderful experience. I worked with Miranda Robinson, a comedian I love and I did a scene with her and that was very exciting.
On June 27th your play Dirty Cash will preview at the Camden People’s Theatre. You have written, produced and are performing in the show together. Describe the process you undertook to get the play from the page to the stage and any challenges you faced?
Angharad: I found Chloe through Gumtree. We emailed back and forth and she sent me the script which was at that stage about eight lines. They were a very funny eight lines. I met her in a café and she explained her vision. She said she wanted someone who’s committed, I want someone who’s going to help develop this and I was like great because I need a project. I really wanted to be able to do my own stuff. We then met up in my lunch hours, we met up after work, we went to each other’s houses and the script very quickly actually snowballed into this quite comprehensive script. It sounds silly but I didn’t really find any challenges because the play can be set anywhere, we have a lot of props like clothes and shoes which we already have but no specialist props. Chloe is so good to work with because I think challenges especially in creative endeavours come from differences of opinions but we haven’t really had any and when we haven’t liked something there’s never really been any bone of contention we say ‘ok fine’.
Chloe: I agree. From day one I said I wanted the process to be fun, interesting, free and easy because I needed that at the time. She made it easy as well because she came up with good ideas, she’s got a sweet face and she’s got a very nice aura. I think it was something that was waiting for us to tap into. Because it’s just the 2 of us it’s good because we don’t have to get a large group of people together that in itself if a nightmare. We didn’t have to worry about money for sets, props or a cast and because we wrote it ourselves there’s no copyright issue. And we’re in London which is the best place in the world, so if we can’t make it here, we can’t make it anywhere.
What in your opinion makes a good play that gets people talking?
Angharad: I like stylized plays, I like something that’s weird. In Dirty Cash we have that. It is naturalistic but there are some elements that are non-naturalistic and almost quite Brechtian in their repetitiveness and I that, I find really interesting. In terms of this it will get people talking because it has a message.
Chloe: The title Dirty Cash is so important because it is about money. Money plays such a big part in people’s minds and I wanted to put that message into the play in a comedic way, so it’s not a preachy play. I wanted it to be fresh and zingy and zany but people will also see that it is tragic.
How do you feel budding theatre practitioners could be supported more in the United Kingdom?
Angharad: Arts funding in general is not what it should be, because you can’t get it for love nor money. A lot of independent people are raising money themselves, Chloe and I are doing a car boot sale and in other projects I’m in it’s colour runs. One of the awful things about this industry is that you pretty much have to spend money to make money. In what other industry do you go to university or drama school and train for three years and still have to put money into your business? That’s outrageous! I think what could be done is more places like the Bread and Roses Theatre who do Box Office splits. Not all places can, but if you can, that’s a wonderful because the venue benefits, the performers benefit and at the end of the day you’re not going to cripple people that just don’t have the finances to hire the venue. The Arts Theatre in the West End has a space above it, called the Arts Studio and they do Box Office splits, but they only put on what they call ‘daring, unconventional and innovative new writing’ and I think that’s wonderful. Limit it if you will but they are taking a risk and people don’t take risks anymore, most things are the same. It’s so refreshing when you see something like Comedy About Bank Robbery. That company started out like Chloe and I, they started writing their own stuff, started playing in small venues, toured it and was picked up. They should be pushing out some of the bigger shows in the West End and making room for some of the new writing. That would help.
What projects are coming up for you both?
Chloe: For me, I am putting all my time and energy into the play, because I believe in doing one thing well instead of five things half well.
Angharad: I’m quite dissimilar to Chloe. I’m a little Duracell bunny because I am not happy unless I’m busy. In July I’m in a play called The Merry Regiment of Women, written by Rae Shirley which is a very funny play, I’d thoroughly recommend, in which is about disgruntled Shakespearean women who meet and talk about their disgruntled Shakespearean lives and the fact they don’t have any good parts or lines. A couple of men turn up and put the spanners in the works. That’s with a company called Elicit Theatre Company and I am actually going with them to Edinburgh for the whole month. I’m in a play there called Femmetamorphosis, which is another comedy and I’m playing a character called Ruth who is like the glue that holds everything together. There’s a lot of very odd characters, very big characters, very tragic and extreme characters. We come back and do a few shows in London, including the Leicester Square theatre, which is very very very exciting. I’m also in a film currently called Discarnate, which is a horror film. I play a character called Hannah, who has a glorious monologue and gets killed rather graphically. And I’m in a kids play, Wind in the Willows. There’s some variety there.
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