Current projects

Check out my credits, references and production photos

I’ve just staged my devised black comedy Chopped Onion at the Battersea Arts Centre. This month I’m directing Lucky Stars, a ‘bloody farce’ by Charles Inge, for Little Pieces of Gold at the Etcetera Theatre. I’m also directing Sprint, a short comedy about fertility by Karen Morash, at the Brockley Jack Studio Theatre.

In December I’m directing Militant, a new play about civil war by Pittsburgh-based playwright Eoin Carney, at the Lost Theatre, and a short new play (title tbc) at the Cockpit Theatre.

I’ve recently run workshops/playreadings of Hedda Gabler (Ibsen) and The Seagull (Chekov) for actors at Transmission Workshop and for Charm Offensive. I regularly run drama workshops for children’s organisations in Islington.

Performances: Chopped Onion (working title)

A short black comedy that I’m in the process of devising with actors and dancers.

Battersea Arts Centre, October 13th – 15th

Brockley Jack Studio Theatre, November 20th

Cockpit Theatre, December 5th, 7pm

Read about Chopped Onion

Performances: Lucky Stars, a bloody farce

I’m directing Charles Inge’s new play for Little Pieces of Gold

November 7th, 7.30pm and 9.30pm, Etcetera Theatre, Camden

Performances: 5-minute new play

November 28th – December 1st, Lost Theatre, Stockwell

Workshop: Hedda Gabler: How to Own the Stage

Saturday September 3^rd, 3pm – 6pm, Charm Offensive theatre company, Rag Factory, London, E1.

To join the workshop, email me

Read the workshop outline

Workshop: Developing a Physical Performance through Folk Dance – The Seagull

Saturday Septembr 10th, 3pm – 6pm, Charm Offensive theatre company, Rag Factory, London, E1.

To join the workshop, email me

Read the workshop outline

Workshops: Islington Brownies and Guides

Various dates

I run drama workshops for Brownies and Guides units based in St. Paul’s, Hornsey and Haringey.

Dates and venues
Monday July 25, 6.00pm – 9.15pm

Saturday September 3, 3.00pm – 6.00pm

The Rag Factory, 16 Heneage Street London, E1 5LJ (just off Brick Lane)

To book, just email Kati

How to Own the Stage – A Mildly Violent Workshop for Actors

Develop your stage presence using vocal and physical exercises developed by Patsy Rodenburg, Steven Berkoff and others. You’ll focus on key scenes from ‘Hedda Gabler’ (Ibsen), which Kati is planning to direct in 2012.

One of the challenges of playing a hero(ine) is that you’ve got to ‘own the stage’. You’ve got to give the audience the impression that you are physically and vocally in charge of the space in which you’re acting. If you can’t pull this off, the audience won’t believe in your character, your fellow actors will underplay their roles and the emotional power of the play can be lost.

Using the script ‘Hedda Gabler’ (Ibsen), you’ll use vocal and physical techniques to build your stage presence. You’ll try Patsy Rodenburg’s ‘breathing the room’ technique, you’ll do physical work in the style of Steven Berkoff, you’ll be a catwalk model, you’ll get rough with your fellow actors and you’ll play games in which you compete for the audience’s attention.

PS Feel free to wear something Ibsen-like to this workshop. Women: a long skirt and some hard-soled shoes? Blokes: not the skirt, just the hard-soled shoes and maybe some kind of fitted jacket or coat.

Recommendations for this workshop

“Fantastic workshop Kati – brilliantly conceived and executed.”

Gavin McAlinden, artistic director, Charm Offensive

“Just wanted to say what a great workshop I thought you ran. There was so much practical benefit to go along with the theory. A great actor’s workout.”

Olumide Akintoye, actor

“Thank you for yesterday, I learnt an incredible amount. In particular I thought the competitive games, like trying to out-do each other in pairs, and the catwalk game, were really useful because it really made you lose your inhibitions and called on your instinct. And thanks for the tip on exploring the set before a performance, will definitely be using that one! Hope to see you again!”

Emily Florence Blanchard, actor

“Excellent workshop, Kati Rynne – really got a lot out of it. Would love to be involved in further development.”

Kate O’Rourke, actor

About the director – Kati Rynne

Kati is staging her short black comedy Chopped Onion at the Cockpit Theatre and the Brockley Jack Studio Theatre (additional theatres tbc) in Nov/Dec. She has recently run playreadings and workshops on Hedda Gabler with Charm Offensive and Transmission Workshop and plans to stage the play in 2012. Kati was assistant director at York Theatre Royal and at the Trestle Theatre Company and has directed plays by Shakespeare, Beckett and Sophocles at the Drama Barn York. She has spent several summers performing at the Edinburgh Fringe and the London Fringe (Sadler’s Wells, Bridewell Theatre, Wilton’s Music Hall). Kati has won awards for choreography (dance) and has choreographed aerialists at the Circus Space. She trained at the École Philippe Gaulier and the École de Mime Corporel Dramatique and recently studied ‘Devising Theatre’ with Peader Kirk. She is a qualified teacher of English literature and drama (secondary schools) and has spent several years directing youth theatre.

Get in touch if you’d like to be notified of future dates and venues for workshops.

Two videos from my workshop ‘How to Plot a Novel’

At the workshop I challenge writers to figure out how these maps, toys and card-games could be used to help them to plot.

Writers try out the ‘Why/How Chat’ activity which I’ve invented to help them develop a chain of cause and effect in their narratives.

Two photos from my recent drama workshops

I use my bear and a sketch of a theatre to teach the Brownies about giving positive criticism on stage.

I use these strange lemons in physical and vocal warm-ups for the Guides. The lemons become the main prop as we rehearse and perform a scene from The Lemon Sisters by Jeremy Pikser.

For the vocal warm-up, I’ve invented this tongue-twister: ‘Yellow lemons/Lovely melons/Yellow lemons/[Actor mimes biting into a lemon] Oo! [Actor pulls sour face]‘ (Repeat the verse three times.) For an added kick, I give the Guides lemon juice to suck on before saying the tongue-twister. It gives the mouth and tongue a mighty kick and prepares the voice for anything!

(Thanks to one of the Guides for this photo of our lemons.)

Any other business

If you’re looking for one-to-one support with your fiction-writing, sign up for one of my fiction coaching services. I take on a handful of new clients each month - from £35.

At the Young Poets’ Network, we’ve been collaborating with poet Inua Ellams to deliver a collaborative poetry-writing project. A hundred young people have taken part, following Inua’s instructions on Twitter and using them to write poems in real-time. The theme? Superheroes. (Cor.) We’re due to release an ebook of the poems next week.

As fiction writing coach I can read your manuscript and give feedback either face-to-face, by email or on Skype. I can also meet you fortnightly/monthly for one-to-one coaching sessions. Take a look at my bargain-price services or come to my plotting workshop (Bethnal Green) where we’ll be making use of maps, storyboards, toys and talking activities as tools for plotting. Recent client Chris Pink recently interviewed me about my approach to supporting novelists.

I’ve received positive recommendations from clients whose novels include snakes and American presidents, robots and ecological disasters, fairies and adultery… At night their narratives fuse together in my head and give me strange dreams. Occupational hazard?

Meanwhile, in my other life as a theatre director, I’m refurbishing my flat in order to create room to do drama in. It’s out with the big couches, tables and cabinets and in with slimline flat-packed products which I’ve spent hours assembling in the middle of the night. I’m currently developing a series of drama workshops for Brownies and Guides.  I catch my neighbours staring through my window as I prance about my empty living-room to film-noir music with dolls and hula-hoops and face-paint, planning the drama exercises. It’s good to have an audience.

This week I’m drafting a report with if:book director Chris Meade on the use of digital fiction in schools. Check out the feature on Poetry Games we commissioned for the Young Poets’ Network.

I’ve knocked out the first iteration of a website for my dad’s band. Based in Boston (Lincolnshire), KeySax is a keyboards/sax/vocals duo available to hire for gigs, fêtes and private functions. Dad’s also talented at writing music for other people’s lyrics. Get in touch

I’ve come up with what I reckon is an original idea for a drama course for young people and I’m excited about kicking it off. I’m meeting with contacts at local schools and youth organisations with a view to running some taster workshops and I’m recruiting drama graduates as my assistants.  (By the way, here are a few of the youth productions that I’ve either directed, acted in, choreographed for or produced.)

Theatre directing: it’s all about looking really intense. You know?..

Meanwhile, the novel-coaching is going great guns! My clients are writing some really imaginative novels about magic spirits, travel adventures, stroppy teenagers and unrequited love; it’s gripping to see the plots develop month by month!

On free evenings I light candles, play relaxing ocean sounds (!) and settle to tweaking my own novel.  I want to publish it as an ebook with embedded multimedia. It’s a project that I’m going to manage myself rather than outsourcing it to a publisher, so a lot of production work lies ahead of me but I can’t wait to roll up my sleeves and do it because it’s such creative work.

At if:book I’m supporting Chris Meade in the development of online content for the Young Poets’ Network, including weekly video/text features on digital publishing topics. This week we ask poets Claire Askew and Andrew McMillan to discuss what makes a good poetry blog. Some of the video interviews that Chris has produced are rather cool. Here’s the wonderful Holly Gramazio, lead games developer at Hide & Seek, talking about interactive literary games.

I’m lucky to have a friend who sources me free tickets to plays and ballets. This month I was blown away by the Diaghilev programme at the ENO and alarmed at the very adult content of The Three Musketeers at a leading UK children’s theatre, The Unicorn. The origami-based play, The Paper Washi Wish (Lyric, Hammersmith) seemed much more child-friendly! At the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch the Wild West version of The Taming of the Shrew was spot on for the musical-loving local audience, who laughed and groaned and called out. I’ve rarely seen an audience so relaxed and engaged! Totally inspiring! Here’s a bit of the Diaghilev in rehearsal.

Here’s a video in which I chat to teenagers at the Young Poets’ Network about a simple way to use technology to develop poems. Later this month it’ll be posted on the nearly-finished Young Poets’ Network website alongside some information about an accompanying collaborative writing ’challenge’ for young writers. Join the Facebook page.

At Northwood Primary School (Bexley) and at St. John’s Primary School (Enfield) I’ve been working for if:book/Winged Chariot to investigate how digital stories might have an impact on learning in MFL/with EAL pupils. Admittedly I nearly fell prey to one of the chairs in the ICT suite because it turns out they’re designed to help children to tilt and rock…

… otherwise, the research is going smoothly.

if:book and I are planning to scale up two schools-based collaborative writing projects: Project Wonda and Hotbook. Both projects are about encouraging children to interact with a virtual author, whom they help to develop plots and characters for adventure stories. Children communicate via a simple blog with embedded multimedia which can be tailored to suit the curriculum requirements of individual schools.

If:book and I managed to stay up for fourteen overnight hours in the Hornsey Library for World Book Night. At 6 p.m. we began luring visitors into the Unlibrary area…

gathering visitors’ writings about dreams and nightmares on neon cardboard stars…

and by 6 a.m. next day I’d published them on an if:book blogsite, with accompanying images.

To celebrate, Chris Meade (director, if:book) played his ukulele while the rest of us sang and ate porridge. Wild, eh?!

I’ve seen a lot of good theatre this month at little London venues like the Southwark Playhouse, King’s Head, Pentameters Theatre, Upstairs at the Gatehouse and Barons Court but top of the pops were the writers and actors of Life = Sitcom, a seriously funny and intelligent TV sitcom pilot, workshopped at the Soho Theatre. Watch out for Kris Dyer and Dave Marks – they’re the real deal when it comes to comedy. Here’s some behind-the-scenes footage of their BBC Radio 2 series On the Blog.

Stories to Touch is a series of multilingual story apps being designed and built by Neal Hoskins of Winged Chariot for use on iPod Touch.  Chris Meade and I recently met with a group of teachers at the Free Word Centre to kick off our research into how the apps might be used with KS2/KS3 pupils. We’ve designed an audit to establish how ICT is used at participating schools and I’ve drafted a worksheet that pupils can use to investigate the use of first languages and foreign languages at school. We’re creating a wiki for the sharing of project information and resources between schools. Next month we’ll visit the six participating schools to observe the excellent work that’s going on in literacy, with a focus on pupils with EAL. Here’s Scruffy Kitty, the leading character of one of Winged Chariot’s digital stories.

Book in a Night is the all-night digital publishing event we’re throwing for World Book Night at the Unlibrary (Crouch End). If you like writing and have nothing planned for Saturday night, come along! We’ll use simple technology to write a collaborative piece on dreams and nightmares; we’ll get it illustrated and published (digitally) by dawn! If you haven’t heard about the Unlibrary, here are Unlibrarians Chris Meade and Anke Holst with a little explanation.

Keep an eye on the Facebook page for the Young Poets Network, set up by if:book in conjunction with the Poetry Society. I’ll soon be making an appearance on the page in a video interview, alongside more impressive people like poet Benjamin Zephaniah and Holly Gramazio, who is the lead game designer at Hide and Seek. We’re there to share our ideas on how budding poets can make use of the web and digital devices to enhance their writing practice.

Come on, world!

I’m planning the production of multimedia for the story, including a casting session, a day of filming, the creation of a website/online community and other shenanigans. I’m capable of doing most of these things myself but I should probably also approach a book publisher, in case they fancy doing it for me. The publisher could sell the ebook to a large, established audience of young readers and save me a lot of time and effort but they’d probably also want me to relinquish my creative control of the project. Hmm….

Meanwhile, on planet if:book, I’ve been helping director Chris Meade with a funding bid and planning an all-night collaborative writing event, to be held at the Unlibrary in March. The details aren’t yet decided but it’ll be something along these lines.

On dark evenings, I’m curling up in theatres to watch shows. I wasn’t convinced by Rory Kinnear’s Hamlet (a pretty slovenly excuse for a prince, I thought!) but the Winter Wassail at the Globe was merry. Plays on DVD have included the 1975 Royal Court production of David Storey’s breathtaking play In Celebration, Chekov’s The Seagull and the 1961 movie of J. B. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World. I couldn’t resist watching Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party twice, back-to-back, mainly for Alison Steadman’s orange dress and groovy moves. Is it wrong that I really want to go to this terrible party? Here’s something every lipstick-wearer should know.

This photo was taken of my Unlibrary profile box when I was in the midst of rewriting chapter nine. I’ve subsequently finished rewriting all 22,000 words of the original. The subject matter has a natural structure to it which is easy to translate into a story, so I’ve really enjoyed the writing process – no pain, no pulling out my hair by its roots. I’ll publish the novel as an ebook with embedded video later this year. The target audience is the ten-year-old girl (-ish); I hope she’ll enjoy reading it.