Gunduz Kalic
Encyclopedia
Gunduz Kalic is a theatre director, acting coach and actor especially interested in the renewal of theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 as popular gathering. Awarded the title Professor of Theatre by Bath Spa University
Bath Spa University
Bath Spa University is a university based in, and around, Bath, England. The institution was previously known as Bath College of Higher Education, and later Bath Spa University College...

, UK where he worked until late 2008, Kalic's career has centred on play based actor training, theatre for non-theatregoers and radical political theatre. Over five decades, he has worked in Turkey, Greece, the UK, Australia, Holland, Canada and India and taught and / or collaborated with a broad range of artists - including actors, directors, poets, writers, composers, songwriters, singers, musicians, Applied Drama
Applied Drama
Applied Drama is an umbrella term for the wider use of drama practice in a specific social context and environment. This practice doesn't have to take place in a conventional theatre space...

 workers, cabaret artists, designers, painters and sculptors.

Turkey

In the mid 1960s, Kalic became a founder-member of Asaf Çiğiltepe's Ankara Art Theatre (Ankara Sanat Tiyatrosu), where he appeared in a number of productions including Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...

 (Godot’yu Beklerken)
by Samuel Beckett, Dead Without Graves (Mezarsız Ölüler) by Jean Paul Sartre, The Hostage
The Hostage (play)
The Hostage is a loose 1958 English version, with songs, adapted in a much longer text from a one-act Irish language play An Giall, by its author, Brendan Behan.-Plot:...

 (Gizli Ordu)
by Brendan Behan and Dead Souls
Dead Souls
Dead Souls is a novel by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1842, and widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. Gogol himself saw it as an "epic poem in prose", and within the book as a "novel in verse". Despite supposedly completing the trilogy's second part, Gogol...

 (Ölü Canlar)
adapted by Arthur Adamov (from the novel by Gogol). Next, he played alongside the legendary Ulvi Uraz in the premiere and throughout the long running Istanbul 'West End' production Commotion in Moonlight (Gozlerimi Kaparım Vazifemi Yaparım) by Haldun Taner
Haldun Taner
Haldun Taner is a well-known Turkish playwright and short story writer. He was born on March 16, 1915 in Istanbul...

. The cast included the then young talents Zeki Alasya
Zeki Alasya
Zeki Alasyam is a Turkish actor and director. Alasya is of Turkish Cypriot descent and is the cousin of Kıbrıslı Mehmed Kamil Pasha....

 and Metin Akpınar
Metin Akpinar
Metin Akpınar is a Turkish actor. He has been one of the most successful comedians in Turkey.-Biography:He was born in Aksaray,Istanbul, and graduated from Pertevniyal high school. He pursued his university career in Faculty of Law and Literature at Istanbul.His professional career started in 1964...

. Meanwhile, Kalic acted in a number of films including the award winning Kanlı Döğüş. He then founded his own theatre company, Halk Oyuncuları Birliği, which was resident at the Arena Theatre in İstanbul. Members of the company included Ali Poyrazoğlu, Deniz Türkali, Celile Toyon and Mete İnsel. Kalic directed a production of Revenge of the Snakes (Yılanların öcü) adapted from the novel by Fakir Baykurt, which precipitated his departure from Turkey.

Europe / Canada

After leaving Turkey, Kalic studied at the Athens Theatre and Cinema Academy and then enjoyed short internships with Jean-Louis Barrault
Jean-Louis Barrault
Jean-Louis Barrault was a French actor, director and mime artist, training that served him well when he portrayed the 19th-century mime Jean-Gaspard Deburau in Marcel Carné's 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis .Jean-Louis Barrault studied with Charles Dullin in whose troupe he acted...

 (Theatre d l’Odeon), Giorgio Strehler
Giorgio Strehler
Giorgio Strehler was an Italian opera and theatre director.-Biography:Strehler was born in Barcola, Trieste to an Austrian father and a Franco-Slovene mother; he grew up speaking Italian but spoke French well and his German was passable. He became suddenly fatherless at the age of three, his...

 (Piccolo Teatro d Milano), Eduardo De Filippo
Eduardo De Filippo
Eduardo De Filippo was an Italian actor, playwright, screenwriter, author and poet, best known for his Neapolitan works Filumena Marturano and Napoli Milionaria.-Biography:...

 (Teatro Ca Foscari) and other luminaries of 1960s theatre.

Kalic's involvement with the Joan Littlewood
Joan Littlewood
Joan Maud Littlewood was a British theatre director, noted for her work in developing the left-wing Theatre Workshop...

 founded East 15 Acting School
East 15 Acting School
East 15 is a British drama school in Debden, Loughton, Essex. At the main campus, Loughton, it occupies an 18th century mansion, Hatfields, and has its own theatre, the Corbett, which is adjacent. The Corbett Theatre is an adaptation of a 15th-century barn...

 began when he was invited to take a role in an E15 troupe's production of Lysistrata
Lysistrata
Lysistrata is one of eleven surviving plays written by Aristophanes. Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC, it is a comic account of one woman's extraordinary mission to end The Peloponnesian War...

at the first Istanbul International Theatre Festival. After moving to the UK in the late 1960s, Kalic became an instructor at E15 and subsequently Co-director of the School. As Artistic Director of the adjoining Corbett Theatre he produced some 40 plays from 1971–76, including Ears, one of the first rock musicals, and led touring companies to major summer festivals in Holland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and France. During this period and throughout the 1970s and 80s Kalic also regularly guest directed and conducted master-classes at the Toneelacademie Maastrict, in Holland.

In the late 1970s, Kalic taught and directed (in the forerunnner to the current School for the Contemporary Arts) at Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...

 in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, Canada, producing the work Terrorizm, about the Red Army Faction
Red Army Faction
The radicalized were, like many in the New Left, influenced by:* Sociological developments, pressure within the educational system in and outside Europe and the U.S...

, in collaboration with the proto-punk band Active Dog.

Australia

In the 1980s Kalic led the Theatre Arts programme at Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University
Charles Darwin University
Charles Darwin University is an Australian public university with about 20,000 students in 2007.The University offers a wide range of Higher Education degrees and Vocational Education and Training courses with flexible study options, including part-time, external and online.CDU has campuses in the...

) in Darwin, Australia. He was also Artistic Director of Territory North Theatre (TNT), carrying out much new play development and facilitating Theatre-as-Education work in Darwin and remote areas of the Outback
Outback
The Outback is the vast, remote, arid area of Australia, term colloquially can refer to any lands outside the main urban areas. The term "the outback" is generally used to refer to locations that are comparatively more remote than those areas named "the bush".-Overview:The outback is home to a...

.

In 1991, Kalic relocated to Queensland and launched the Australian Theatre As Education Project (TAE). Part-funded by the Commonwealth Government Priority Country Area Program and devoted to Shakespeare-in-Schools and language and human relationships education, TAE toured throughout the enormous geographical expanse of outback and provincial Queensland, conducting over 1600 performances and workshops for 48,000 parents and children. As well, at about the same time, Kalic designed and supervised the delivery of short theatre and performance based programmes for unemployed and at risk youth for Bundaberg TAFE College and a Commonwealth Government agency.

Kalic and his ensemble also developed a repertoire of popular entertainments - highly participatory theatre for adult non theatre goers - incorporating distinctive larrikin, stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...

 and musical elements. These popular entertainments included adaptations of Shakespearean and Restoration classics and a series of half a dozen original intercultural works including the Australiana-derived On The Wallaby. Kalic's version of The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...

, staged in a boxing ring, and other works were filmed and screened on SBS-TV's Imagine programme.

In 1993, the original political comedy/rap musical That's Twice, co-written and directed by Kalic, premiered at Australia's Parliament House in Canberra. Of this act of guerrilla theatre, the Canberra Times wrote: ‘they lambasted the political powerbrokers in their own den’. A subsequent production of this play was described by one critic as ‘a two-fingered riposte from Australia’s forgotten people delivered with enough cartoonish energy to fuel our manufacturing industries for a year, if we had any’.

Kalic's ensemble became Taking Liberties Theatre Company, basing itself in Brisbane. Taking Liberties continued to produce popular entertainment based theatre for non-theatregoers, becoming a staple act on the club and hotel circuit in South East Queensland and beyond. Popular audiences enabled the company to survive un-subsidised in a performing arts ecology dependent on government subsidy. That's Twice lived on as a continually updated commentary on current affairs played in stand-up and conventional theatre venues, with characters from the show confronting leading politicians including the Prime Minister of Australia at public events and featuring regularly in a political satire segment on ABC's Stateline Current Affairs programme in 1996.

Through this period Kalic also penned op-ed articles on arts policy and theatricality in politics for The Australian Financial Review
The Australian Financial Review
The Australian Financial Review is a leading business and finance newspaper in Australia.Fairfax Media publishes it in a compact format six days a week, Monday to Saturday....

, The Courier-Mail
The Courier-Mail
The Courier-Mail is a daily newspaper published in Brisbane, Australia. Owned by News Limited, it is published daily from Monday to Saturday in tabloid format. Its editorial offices are located at Bowen Hills, in Brisbane's inner northern suburbs, and it is printed at Murarrie, in Brisbane's...

(Brisbane), the Melbourne Herald Sun
Herald Sun
The Herald Sun is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia. It is published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Limited, itself a subsidiary of News Corporation. It is available for purchase throughout Melbourne, Regional Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital...

and the Canadian neo-situationist journal Adbusters
AdBusters
The Adbusters Media Foundation is a Canadian-based not-for-profit, anti-consumerist, pro-environment organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia...

. One of these pieces, The Death of Reality, argued that the entertainment industry was complicit in such events as the Port Arthur massacre in Australia and in the Dunblane massacre
Dunblane massacre
The Dunblane massacre was a multiple murder-suicide which occurred at Dunblane Primary School in the Scottish town of Dunblane on 13 March 1996. Sixteen children and one adult were killed by Thomas Hamilton before he committed suicide.-Timeline of events:...

 in Scotland.

UK

In 2001, Kalic commenced teaching at Bath Spa University
Bath Spa University
Bath Spa University is a university based in, and around, Bath, England. The institution was previously known as Bath College of Higher Education, and later Bath Spa University College...

 in the UK, where he founded and was Artistic Director of Full Tilt Theatre Company. Full Tilt mounted productions of his adaptations of Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

, Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...

 and The Comedy of Errors
The Comedy of Errors
The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's earliest plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors is one of only two of Shakespeare's...

 at an annual on campus Shakespeare-by-the-Lake event, at the Minack Theatre
Minack Theatre
The Minack Theatre is an open-air theatre, constructed above a gully with a rocky granite outcrop jutting into the sea...

 in Cornwall and elsewhere. The Cornish News wrote of his 2008 The Comedy of Errors: An Identity Affair: ‘No errors in this vibrant show…impossible not to succumb to the total commitment, confidence and considerable charm of these many, mainly young players’. Subsequently, the show toured to parts of the United States and Canada. Kalic also created an original Bollywood Carmen after Bizet incorporating original music by Maestro of Santoor, Kiranpal Singh Deoora. Gunduz Kalic retired as Head of Department of Drama at Bath Spa University in late 2008.

Coaching

Stage and screen professionals coached or taught by Gunduz Kalic or with whom he has collaborated include Zeki Alasya
Zeki Alasya
Zeki Alasyam is a Turkish actor and director. Alasya is of Turkish Cypriot descent and is the cousin of Kıbrıslı Mehmed Kamil Pasha....

, Ali Poyrazoğlu, Metin Akpınar
Metin Akpinar
Metin Akpınar is a Turkish actor. He has been one of the most successful comedians in Turkey.-Biography:He was born in Aksaray,Istanbul, and graduated from Pertevniyal high school. He pursued his university career in Faculty of Law and Literature at Istanbul.His professional career started in 1964...

, Peter Armitage
Peter Armitage
Peter Armitage is a statistician specialising in medical statistics.Peter Armitage attended Huddersfield College and went on to read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. Armitage belonged to the generation of mathematicians who came to maturity in the Second World War...

, Janine Duvitski
Janine Duvitski
Janine Duvitski is an English actress, known for her roles as Jane Edwards in Waiting for God and Pippa Trench in One Foot in the Grave. She also created and played the role of Angela in Mike Leigh's play Abigail's Party.-Personal life:Duvitski was born in Nottingham. Her father was Polish...

, Alan Ford
Alan Ford (actor)
Alan Ford is an English actor. Ford was trained at East 15 Acting School. He is perhaps best known today for his roles in the Guy Ritchie crime capers Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, and guest starring in The Bill...

, Robert Gwilym
Robert Gwilym
Robert Gwilym , sometimes known as Bob Gwilym, is a Welsh actor.Robert Gwilym is from Neath in south Wales, where his family owned a clothes shop...

, Jonathan Kaye
Jonathan Kaye
Jonathan Andrew Kaye is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour.-Biography:Kaye was born in Denver, Colorado. He graduated from the University of Colorado in 1993 and turned pro that same year...

, Kevin Lloyd
Kevin Lloyd
Kevin Reardon Lloyd was a British actor, born in Derby, and trained at East 15 Acting School, London. Best known for his part of DC Alfred "Tosh" Lines in Thames Television's The Bill....

, Christopher Ryan
Christopher Ryan
Christopher Ryan is an English actor. Ryan is perhaps best known for his role as Mike "The Cool Person" in the BBC comedy series The Young Ones.-Early life:...

, Tony Scannell
Tony Scannell
Tony Scannell is an actor whose best-known role is probably DS Ted Roach in ITV’s The Bill. His debut in the show was on 23 October 1984, in an episode called A Friend in Need....

, Alison Steadman
Alison Steadman
Alison Steadman OBE is an English actress. She established her career with roles such as Beverley in Abigail's Party and Candice Marie in Nuts in May for the director Mike Leigh, to whom she was once married. In addition to her stage and radio work, she has had lead roles in The Singing Detective,...

, Gwen Taylor
Gwen Taylor
Gwen Taylor is an actress who has appeared in many British television programmes, including Z-Cars, Murder Most Horrid, Yes, Prime Minister, Inspector Morse, Midsomer Murders and Belonging...

, Oliver Tobias
Oliver Tobias
Oliver Tobias is a UK-based film, stage, and television actor and directorBorn Oliver Tobias Freitag in Zürich, Switzerland, he is the son of Austrian-Swiss actor Robert Freitag and German actress Maria Becker. He came to the United Kingdom at the age of eight and trained at East 15 Acting School,...

, David Yip
David Yip
David Yip is an English actor.Yip, of Asian and English descent, was born in Liverpool and trained at East 15 Acting School, London...

, Heather Johansen, Mike Bradwell (founder Hull Truck Theatre
Hull Truck Theatre
The Hull Truck Theatre is a theatre in Kingston upon Hull, England which presents high quality drama productions.It also tours its productions on a regular basis....

 and long-time Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre
Bush Theatre
The Bush Theatre is based in Shepherd's Bush, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It was established in 1972 above The Bush public house by Brian McDermott, and has since become one of the most celebrated new writing theatres in the world. An intimate venue renowned for its close-up...

), Michael Foot (founder Footsbarn Theatre Company ), Hilary Westlake (founder Son and Lumiere), Andy Noble (founder Orchard Theatre Company), the late Howard Lloyd-Lewis (formerly of Manchester Library Theatre Company ), Pavel Douglas
Pavel Douglas
Pavel Douglas is a Polish-born, British-based actor. He was born in Krakow, Poland, six years after the end of the Second World War, and was naturalised in 1959...

, Gijs Scholten van Aschat, Hans Kesting, Joke Tjalsma, Pierre Bokma
Pierre Bokma
Pierre Henri Martin Bokma is an award winning Dutch stage, television and film actor.In November 2007 he won an International Emmy Award for his roll in the movie De uitverkorene...

, Wivinneke van Groningen, Chris Haywood
Chris Haywood
Chris Haywood is an English-born, Australian-based film and television actor/producer.-Early life:Haywood was born in Billericay, Essex, England. He spent his early childhood in Chelmsford before moving to High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire where he attended High Wycombe Royal Grammar School from...

, Stephen Hyde, Monte Dwyer
Monte Dwyer
Monte Dwyer is an Australian TV personality and author, best known as the weatherman who pioneered the traveling weatherman blueprint for Channel Nine's Today Show during the 1990s.- Early life :...

  and Lori Dungey
Lori Dungey
-Voice-over roles:*Power Rangers: Ninja Storm: Beevil*Power Rangers: Mystic Force: Screamer*Power Rangers: Operation Overdrive: Crazar-Television roles:*Xena: Warrior Princess: Kellos...

.

External links

Gunduz Kalic website at http://www.gunduzkalic.com

Taking Liberties Theatre Company archive/website at http://www.takingliberties.org
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