Q&A with visiting director TD Moyo

LAMDA students collaborate with visiting directors, creatives and technicians on all of our public productions (as well as in many other areas of our courses). Working alongside seasoned professionals provides them with invaluable insights and useful experience of industry working practices. 

We recently spoke to TD Moyo, who is currently working with our BA (Hons) Professional Acting & Production & Technical Arts students on our upcoming production of Love and Money, about the piece and how theatre-making has changed in a post-lockdown world.

How did you end up working on Love and Money?

During the pandemic I was connected with people working at LAMDA and we had great conversations about theatre and its capacity for reform especially in drama school spaces. A couple of years later I read the first scene of Love and Money and immediately fell in love with its desperate urgency. It's such a weirdly, honest show. I find it funny that I observe honesty as weird but perhaps that is the state of our world and this is what makes plays like Love and Money special - their unapologetic honesty.

Can you tell us about the piece and your approach to the material?

The piece is about 'things' and a frantic desire or obsession to attain things that we can touch and feel whilst simultaneously exploring the human part of our nature in which we desire to be seen and held. The text explores these themes through a bed of romantic and platonic relationships and a side order of financial distress. My approach is always language. Engaging with the text and building emotional responses from there. My approach to this play has looked like conversations, textual analysis and finding the borders for intimacy.

What's it been like working with LAMDA acting and PTASS students so far?

It's been great. There is a lot of raw talent which excites me. That being said it is visible to me that post-lockdown our world has changed and therefore so has theatre-making and learning. The old ways didn't really work for everyone and I think we're all still figuring out what theatre-making and learning needs to look like in a forward moving industry.

What - if anything - is different about directing a play in the context of a drama school?

I think there are a lot of differences but the most useful similarity to share is that the essence of a rehearsal room will always be the same. A safe space to explore, make mistakes and find magic. That doesn't change in the 'real world'.

What do you think is important about actor training?

The discipline! Discipline breeds integrity and the hope of integrity is honesty. All three are key in our industry.

Photography by Sam Taylor