Drawing: Daniel Mays in Trelawny of the Wells at the Donmar Warehouse

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

British actor Daniel Mays’ impressive list of credentials extend beyond the screen to the stage. Recently part of the stellar cast in Mojo at the Pinter, Daniel preceded it with his role as the pretentious thespian Ferdinand Gadd who fervently believes his audience can no longer be denied his Orlando in the wonderfully funny Trelawny of the Wells at the Domar Warehouse in London in 2013.

After directing such films as Atonement and Anna Karenina, this was Joe Wright’s first play, and he chose Pinero’s warm hearted tibute to the theatrical medium itself, written in 1898. Daniel was nominated for the WhatsOnStage Best Supporting Actor Award for his roles in both Trelawny and Mojo

Drawing: Gillian Anderson in A Doll’s House at The Young Vic Theatre

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Kfir Yefet’s staging of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House played London’s Donmar Warehouse through the summer of 2009. I’ve been carrying this sketch around with me ever since. Well, not this specific sketch and not ever since. I originally did another one which I carried arouond with me, hoping to get Gillian to sign it since I missed her at the theatre (note to self: never leave signings to the last performance). Gillian was a regular at screenings, premieres, film festivals and press nights, so I carried the sketch just in case. When I didn’t have the sketch, Gillian would make an appearance. In the end I mailed it to her via her agent and re-drew this one, which I have carried around ever since (and when I haven’t, déja vu!)

My chance came last night. Gillian has returned to the London stage to rave reviews as Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire at the Young Vic. He opened this week after a short preview season. It’s a long play which can be a help or a hinderance for ‘graphing. After three and a half hours of “shatteringly powerful” performing I guess the last thing she would want to do is meet, greet and ‘graph with the gathered throng.

Normally at the Young Vic I position myself near the interior stage door that opens out onto The Cut Bar, but the two security persons (first time I’ve seen that at the Young Vic) corral to a line near the ticket desk. It’s well after 11pm, so the bar’s closing. “Programmes and tickets only,” one of the security guys told the handful of people waiting.

“Ms Anderson will only be signing programmes or tickets, so don’t offend her by offering anything else.”

Gillian popped down and stood behind the ticket desk and started signing. I waited until everyone had finisihed then approached her, apologising that I didn’t have a programme or a ticket, but a sketch from 2009, which I showed her and asked if she could sign it “to Mark”. She looked at it, smiled and said, “is that with a ‘c’ or a ‘k’?”

“A ‘k’,” I replied, and left thanking the security on my way out to catch the last train.

Sketch: Felicity Jones and Finty Willilams, in Luise Miller

Posted on July 31, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Kabale und Liebe, Love and Intrigue, Love and Politics or simply Luise Miller, are all titles for the same play written by the German dramatist Friedrich Schiller in 1784.

The Donmar Warehouse in London chose Luise Miller in June and July 2011, directed by Michael Grandage, working with translator Mike Poulton on a more contemporary version of this landmark bourgeois tragedy.

In the title role was East Londoner Felicity Jones, who turned down a major film role to do the play. She plays the wholesome daughter of a modest violinist in a tale of “precarious liaisons, shadowy desires, backroom skulduggery and the iniquities of class snobbery.” It’s Schiller’s answer to Romeo & Juliet with melodramatic tendencies.

Having just won the special jury prize at the Sundance Festival for Like Crazy, she was in great demand for more film roles. “I want to keep a balance,” she said, “West End won’t lose me to the movies.”

Her ‘mother’ was played by Finty Williams, described by one review as “a sweet natured blabbermouth”. I had drawn a sketch of the both of them with a fine black biro. Whilst waiting outside the Donmar on a balmy summer’s evening for the cast to emerge (which took a bit longer because I think the were doing a Q+A session with the audience) I drew a quick pencil sketch of Felicity with my 2B – which in the balminess became a softer 4B! This was based on a publicity photo pinned to the Donmar Wall.

Drawing: Alfred Molina in Red at the Donmar Warehouse

Posted on July 26, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Alred Molina played celebrated abstract artist Mark Rothko in John Logan’s RED in London and New York. The play opened at the Donmar Warehouse in December 2009 to excellent reviews and sold out performances before moving to Broadway in March 2010, winning six Tony Award including Best Play.

Marcus Rothkowitz emigrated with his family to the US from Russia as a boy in 1903. He became a central figure in the postwar American abstract expressionists, the so-called New York School. The group, who couldn’t really draw, also included Barnett Newman, Clifford Still, Franz Kline and Jackson Pollock. They sought refuge in abstractionism to camouflage their modest artists talents.

RED revolves around Rothko’s last decade of his life when his palette reduced dramatically from glowing oranges and yellows to the sombre shades of red and black – banal work on a large canvas!

“There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend… one day the black will swallow the red.”

At the centre of it is his undertaking of the Four Seasons restaurant commission in Manhattan’s Seagram Building in which he famously declared that his paintings would “put all the rich bastards off their food.” In the end, due to his moral conflict of interest, he returned the $35,000 advance and refused to have his work hung in the restaurant.

Alfred signed my ‘representational impressionist’ piece at the Donmar in January 2010. Unlike Rothko who experimented with a lot of mediums, including glue and eggs, I stuck to more conventional rendering materials such as black biro , crayons and a felt tip pen. I did allow colour to add impact and reinforce the play’s ttitle. In this case ‘red swallows the black!’

Drawing: Elena Roger in Passion at the Donmar Warehouse

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Elena Roger is an Argentine actress and singer who won the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 2009 for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in Piaf.

She was discovered in her home city of Buenos Aires when Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group were researching for the 2006 West End revival of Evita and was cast as Eva Peron. She won critical acclaim and an Olivier nomination. She reprised the role last year at the Marquis Theatre.

Elena signed this black fineliner drawing on the final night of Passion at the Donmar in November 2010. She played Fiona in Stephen Sondheim’s musical about a young soldier in 19th Century Italy and his obsessive love with her character, earning yet another Olivier nomination.

Drawing: Birgitte Hjort Sorensen

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Danish actress Birgitte Hjort Sorensen took the role of Roxie Hart in the 2007 production of Chicago at the Del Ny Theatre in Copenhagen. Based on that success she reprised the role in the London production at the Cambridge Theatre. Birgitte gained international prominence playing the crusading reporter Katrine Fonsmark in the Danish radio and television production Borgen.

She returned to London last year to play Virgilia in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus opposite Tom Hiddleston at the Donmar Warehouse, where she signed this sketch last week.

Drawing: The Recruiting Officer, signed by Josie Rourke, Nicholas Burns, Nancy Carroll, Mackenzie Crook, Kathryn Drysdale, Mark Gatiss, Gawn Grainger, Tobias Menzies and Rachael Stirling

Posted on November 22, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

George Farquhars 1706 Restoration comedy The Recruiting Officer was Josie Rourke’s first play as the new artistic director at the Donmar Warehouse in 2012. She assembled an impressive cast for this pacy and complicated piece in which big themes (love and war) are presented amid a riot of bed-hopping, social blockades, meddling servants and enticing legacies. Described as an unashamed celebration of love, lustiness and victory in battle and in the bedroom, it was a critical success, ensuring Josie’s tenure at the Donmar got off to a bright start.

On the 12th of April 2012, I managed to get all the cast on my sketch (Nicholas Burns, Nancy Carroll, Mackenzie Crook, Kathryn Drysdale, Mark Gatiss, Gawn Grainger, Tobias Menzies and Rachael Stirling) to sign it – not an easy feat given that there were eight of them leaving through various exits and often at the same time.

Drawing: Elliot Cowan, Rachel Weisz and Ruth Wilson in A Streetcar Named Desire

Posted on June 30, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Tennessee Williams 1947 Pulitzer Prize winning play A Streetcar Named Desire had a hugely acclaimed revival at London’s Donmar Warehouse from July to October in 2009.

It featured Oscar winner Rachel Weisz as the drunken, pretentious Southern belle, Blanche DuBois; Ruth Wilson as her self-effacing sister, Stella Kowalski and Elliot Cowan as Stanley Kowalski, the primal, brutish husband. All three signed for me in September 2009.

The first West End staging starred Vivien Leigh and was directed by her husband Laurence Olivier in 1949.

Both Rachel (Best Actress) and Ruth (Best Supporting Actress) won Olivier awards for their performances.

Drawing: Eddie Redmayne and Alfred Molina

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Eddie Redmayne’s star is certainly on the rise. Apart from his obvious talent, he is one of the nicest people in the film and theatre world and always has time to stop and chat and sign some ‘graphs. He has appeared at London’s Donmar Warehouse twice over the last few years – in John Logan’s RED and Shakespeare’s RICHARD II. In the former he played Ken, the fictional assistant of the American abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko (Alfred Molina). After its London run it transferred to Broadway’s John Golden Theatre for a 15 week engagement till June 2010. For his role Eddie won both the Olivier and the Tony Award. Playing the title role in RICHARD II also garnered him a gong, this time the London Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Best Shakespearian Performance in 2012. Eddie recently appeared as Marius Pontmercy in Tom Hooper’s musical film LES MISÉRABLES and when he’s not on stage or on the screen, he models for Burberry… and signs my sketches!

Drawing: The Weir at the Donmar Warehouse

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Conor McPherson’s The Weir is currently playing at the Donmar Warehouse. It’s the first major revival of an undoubted modern classic, directed by Josie Rourke.

On its premiere in 1997, at London’s Royal Court, The Weir won the Evening Standard Critic’s Circle and Olivier Awards for Best New Play.

Set in a rural bar in Ireland, a publican and three of his regulars attempt to spook a newcomer from Dublin, but end up frightened themselves.

My sketch was signed by Dervla Kirwan, Brian Cox and Father Ted’s Ardal O’Hanlon on Saturday 4 May.