20 Questions…. Rabab Ghazoul

Continuing my series of interviews with writers, poets, sculptors, directors, creatives, and now the wonderful visual artist Rabab Ghazoul. I first met Rabab in Cardiff in the early 1990′s, when she was devising and directing experimental live performance. Over the past two decades it has been a delight and education to observe her evolution as an artist.

20 Questions…. Rabab Ghazoul.

Rabab Ghazoul

Rabab Ghazoul is a visual artist whose practice draws upon a range of media and processes to explore our negotiations and constructions of the political. Part social observation, part investigation into the realm of public narrative, her work has seen her referencing or re-staging existing ‘texts’ – from news media footage to an existing art work – by way of exploring the coerced and de-stabilised nature of our affiliations. Born and part raised in the Middle East, her experience of dual cultures informs an ongoing interest in belonging and identity, but often at their point of fragmentation or dissolution. In this sense her chosen ‘text’ is less the culture of home, and more the ever-present effects – or ‘home’ – of late capitalist culture, through which we continue to rehearse our prescribed and ritualistic movements. Born in Mosul, Iraq, she has lived and worked in Cardiff for the last 20 years.

 

What first drew you to your particular practice?

When I graduated I started making experimental devised performance after studying theatre at college…then in my late 20’s I found myself making much more visually-oriented work, using installation, space, objects, and my inspiration was in the main lots of – visual artists! I figured I probably wasn’t a theatre maker any more, I wanted to work in this other way…

What was your big breakthrough?

I’m not sure I’ve had one. There was a point, after I’d moved away from theatre and was showing my work in galleries I liked and respected – that was definitely a kind of breaking through I suppose – from working in one discipline to being taken seriously in another. But ultimately, I think breaking through is always about your own crap as an artist…for years, I wanted to make work like person X or Y, or be this or that kind of artist, but then there came a point where I just accepted: I do. What I do. I make this kind of work. Get with it. 

What is the most challenging aspect of your work/process?

Self doubt…procrastination…too many ideas…not enough ideas…fear of starting ideas…life being too short to realise all one’s ideas…chaos of the mind…melancholy of the heart…being utterly inefficient…being control-freakishly efficient…working alone…working with others… 

Is there a piece of art, or a book, or a play, which changed you?

Well there are memorable moments. Probably the first time I saw Pina Bausch’s work…it was a video of one of her shows, I must have been around nineteen, and I couldn’t believe this is what theatre could look like. Later on, the work of people like Santiago Sierra shifted my head and thinking. And I remember a rare intake of breath seeing Alfredo Jaar’s “The Eyes of Gutete Emerita” because – with both a precision of means and an excess of means – he managed to say something about the unsayable – about the most monstrous humanity has to offer…I think that’s extraordinary in art.

What’s more important: form or content?

They’re interchangeable.

How do you know when a project is finished?

Deadlines for showing take care of that: time’s run out, you gotta share ready or not. 

What advice would you give a young writer/practitioner?

I’m really not sure, but above my desk I’ve got this pinned up, which is what Jeremy Deller said when he was asked what advice he’d give to artists:

“Don’t listen to everybody, actually don’t listen to many people, just do what interests you and what you like. And if you do that within your work people will understand that maybe… And don’t look and see what other people are doing too much and get upset by what they’re doing. It’s important to just think about yourself really, so be selfish really. And be open. Be selfish and open, and be willing to change your plans but not necessarily compromise…”

What work of art would you most like to own?

A Cy Twombly…Magritte’s Day and Night…One of Michael Landy’s beautiful pencil drawings of weeds…anything by Caravaggio…

What’s the biggest myth about the creative process?

“Suffering artist in garret”, “Creativity being unique to artists”, “It happens when you’ve got plenty of time to concentrate and focus.” As to the last, that never happens. Creative stuff just falls out when it wants to, it tumbles, it trips over itself, in between bouts of Abso-Lutely-Nothing…So I’m not obsessively beavering away in a studio for hours on end…My physical studio is the place where I store old bits and pieces. But the real studio is in my head, and wherever that’s at – and the setting is usually pen, notebook, laptop, camera, conversations.

What are you working on now?

I’m researching a project based on Blair’s testimony to the Chilcot Inquiry, it’s ambitious and I suppose if it ever goes ahead it’ll be a project inviting communities to reframe that shameful moment. I’m also starting a new video work about the culture of benefit gigs and fundraisers. And I’m making applications for future projects that may or may not happen and in the meantime this is frying my brain.

What is the piece of art/novel/collection/ you wish you’d created?

Jeremy Deller’s ‘The Battle of Orgreave’.

What do you wish you’d known when you were starting out?

Nothing other than what I did and didn’t know really. Though I got there eventually in my 30’s, maybe knowing when I was younger that I could’ve gone to art college would have helped? But I think I’d still rather have gone my own circuitous route, if I hadn’t I’d be someone else making different work.

What’s your greatest ambition?

Fulfil my potential as a member of the human race.

Fulfil my potential as an artist.

Earn enough money to hire a permanent PA.

How do you tackle lack of confidence, doubt, or insecurity?

Buddhism. I chant. To deal with that stuff.

What is the worst thing anyone said/wrote about your work?

The worst things have probably been things I’ve thought and said about my own work. ‘That was humiliatingly bad’; ‘your attempts to be an artist are doomed’, ‘you lack courage to make what’s in your heart.’ Progress is that I don’t think these things anymore. I’m sure others have hated and loved things I’ve done in equal measure but I’ve not been privy to their thoughts…

And the best thing?

Can’t remember, but some nice things happily…I recently created a sung artwork in a gallery that involved 43 singers to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of the second Gulf War. People said lovely things after, but mainly that they’d felt moved. For me that’s one of the best things people can say about your work, that their heart was involved in their experience of it.

If you were to create a conceit or metaphor about the creative process, what would it be?

You start climbing a mountain. You think it’s going to take X amount of time to get to the top. It takes way longer. The views are great. It can get really cloudy. You feel exhausted. At a certain point you wish two men with a stretcher would appear to carry you down. You get to the top. It feels incredible for about two minutes. The climb down flies by. You’re at the bottom of a mountain.

What is your philosophy or life motto?

‘Late starters of the world unite’

What is the single most important thing you’ve learned about the creative life?

Don’t try and make anything other than the thing you can make.

What is the answer to the question I should have – but didn’t – ask?

All the sadness in the world, in the same boat, as all the happiness…

*

Some further links and information about Rabab and her work:

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=14080

http://www.axisweb.org/ofSARF.aspx?SELECTIONID=19470

http://www.planetmagazine.org.uk/html/newsite/avdetails/rabab_ghazoul_lecture.html

Insight, process, opportunities, competitions, TanzKongress

I originally started this blog to write about process from the inside, making three projects and bringing them to production in 2012. Since those furiously creative days, I’m relieved to say my work has been different (I would easily have burned out otherwise!) and I’ve been engaged in several other writing projects, all at different stages in development, more of which, below.

This blog initially was about documenting various processes for a playwright/dramaturg/co-creator, working towards production  (these posts are still available in this blog’s archive). This is still a focus, for I’m interested in exploring the breadth and diversity of the skills a writer may need within any creative process – and it is something I will document again, when in production.

I think there is a myth that we do just one thing – write – (as though that weren’t demanding and challenging enough!). I’m curious about the other elements required for a writing life – the other tools we may need to survive, which include everything from accountancy skills and being able to write outstanding grant applications, to the social skills required for collaboration in the rehearsal room. This is an area I intend to blog about in the future. But I am even more curious with how other artists do it – how do we survive a bad review, little success, disappointing sales, and that doubting dark night of the soul..? This is one reason why I started ’20 Questions…’ to learn from other artists, writers, actors, sculptors and those engaged professionally with creativity how and why we continue to do this. And to be reminded of the inherent value – even necessity – of this compulsion.

And so this blog has continued to evolve, bringing in other voices and opinions rather than being focused solely on my own process when in the doing (although I will for sure do this again, when the opportunity arises). I also have been using it to highlight certain political debates (‘cripping up’, the use of black face in German theatres, ageism and sexism within the profession, etc), and also highlighting certain opportunities and competitions for writers within the UK as well as internationally. When I began this blog, I always wanted to create something that would be useful – and hope this will be the experience for those who trouble to read it.

In the spirit of this, I want to draw attention to the approaching deadline on 31st May 2013 of The Bridport Prize, whose mission is ‘to encourage emerging writers and promote literary excellence through its competition structure.’ Well established, it offers £15,000 in prizes for poetry, short stories, and flash fiction, with judges including Wendy Cope and Michele Roberts. For details of the competitions, please go to: http://www.bridportprize.org.uk

As to me…. so far 2013 has been primarily about completing one large long-standing prose project, delivering the first draft of a theatre commission and initiating new projects in media drama and live performance. Some are my own projects as a solo writer, but others are international collaborations with the Llanarth Group: an Irish/Welsh/Singapore-Chinese/American/South Korean co-creation in the Summer and the other a cultural exchange in Japan late in the year. Meanwhile I will be continuing my fellowship at Freie Universitat’s international research centre ‘Interweaving Performance Cultures’ in Berlin, reflecting on the relationship between ‘mainstream’ and disability cultures.

As part of this, I will be presenting at dance conference  TanzKongress in Dusseldorf on Saturday 8th June: ‘Border Control: Framing the Atypical Body. “You say radical, I say conservative, you say inclusive, I say subversive.”’

The schedule is overwhelming and looks incredibly exciting. For further details go to:

http://www.tanzkongress.de/en/programme/congress-programme.html?date=2013-06-08#event-76-0

20 Questions… Gabriel Gbadamosi

Continuing my 20 Questions… series, this time with poet, playwright and debut novelist Gabriel Gbadamosi. Gabriel and I first met in Belfast many years ago, and walked the city at night, endlessly talking. Since then. we have collaborated with Jonathan Meth, Peter Arnott, and Sarah Dickenson with writernet and The Fence, an international network of playwrights and dramaturgs we co-founded. Gabriel’s first novel, Vauxhall, has recently been published and is proving to be one of the must-reads of 2013.

Gabriel Gbadamosi

Gabriel Gbadamosi is a poet, playwright and essayist.  His London novel, Vauxhall, won the 2011 Tibor Jones Pageturner Prize.  He was AHRC Creative and Performing Arts Fellow in European and African performance at the Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths, and a Judith E. Wilson Fellow for creative writing at Cambridge University.  Book collaborations with visual artists include Coffee Incognito with Rod Hill, Sun-Shine, Moonshine with Conroy/Sanderson, and The Second Life of Shells with Mandy Bonnell.  Plays include Shango (DNA, Amsterdam), Hotel Orpheu (Schaubühne, Berlin) and for radio The Long, Hot Summer of ’76 (BBC Radio 3) which won the first Richard Imison Award.  A sample essay on African art, An Informal History of the Male Nude, can be found online at BBC Radio 3.

What first drew you to your particular practice (art/acting/writing, etc)?

I became a writer in primary school.  My ‘daily diary’ became a way to speak out to my parents and be heard among my brothers and sisters.  They often spoke of it.  But I became a poet as a teenager.  And a playwright in my twenties.  An essayist in my thirties.  And yes, a novelist in my forties.  Now I’m in my fifties, I no longer keep a diary.

What was your big breakthrough?

 That hasn’t happened.  But I once wrote a poem at the speed in which I could speak it.  That felt like a breakthrough.

 What is the most challenging aspect of your work/process?

 Loneliness.  Self-censorship.  Loss of confidence.  The un-hinging of my social self.

 Is there a piece of art, or a book, or a play, which changed you?

 No.  Love has changed me; death on the road (it took me 10 years to recover from that).  But Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra changed the way I feel, and King Lear the way I think.

 What’s more important: form or content?

 I was always told they were the same thing.

 How do you know when a project is finished?

 When it won’t let you back in.

Do you read your reviews?

 I had a friend who started with writing a review, and then wrote the play, and then directed it, and then published the review (under another pseudonym). How good is that?

 What advice would you give a young writer/practitioner?

 Do something else.  And if you can’t, do your best.

 What work of art would you most like to own?

 Apart from one I could sell for a lot of money, something from my son or daughter.

 What’s the biggest myth about writing/the creative process?

 That only talented or specialized or professional people can do it.

 What are you working on now?

 An online walking tour of Vauxhall, where I grew up, where my novel is set, where the pleasure gardens were from the 17^th to the 19^th century and the security state is now (MI6, etc).

 What is the piece of art/novel/collection/ you wish you’d created?

 Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater.

 What do you wish you’d known when you were starting out?

 That life is short and love is mortal.

 What’s your greatest ambition?

 To write a great poem.

 How do you tackle lack of confidence, doubt, or insecurity?

 I don’t so much tackle these things as sustain myself despite them.

 What is the worst thing anyone said/wrote about your work?

 Stop writing.

And the best thing?

 Carry on writing, but you’ll never write anything which could be better than this.

 If you were to create a conceit or metaphor about the creative process, what would it be?

 Banging a nail in the tooth of death.

 What is your philosophy or life motto?

 I don’t have one.

 What is the single most important thing you’ve learned about the creative life?

You can hand it on.

 What is the answer to the question I should have – but didn’t – ask?

Mine’s a pint of cider.

Vauxhall by Gabriel Gbadamosi. Published by Telegram

.

.

.

Only a poet could have written Vauxhall … clean, swift yet with flashes of lightning 
- Bonnie Greer

.

.

.

Gabriel Gbadamosi reads an extract from, and talks about his novel Vauxhall

http://vimeo.com/63403887

Further information on Gabriel and his novel can be found at:

http://gabrielgbadamosi.com/about-vauxhall/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vauxhall-Gabriel-Gbadamosi/dp/1846591465/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368027668&sr=1-1

Reviews for the book:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-2325487/DEBUT-FICTION.html

Playwright vs performance writer

There’s an interesting discussion going on National Theatre Wales’s on-line community in the writers’ group re- the difference between ‘plays’ and ‘live performance’, ‘playwrights’ and ‘artists/performance writers’, and the opportunities available to each. This has prompted me to engage on that site, and now here, with what is a very old chestnut indeed…

For years I’ve been contesting the separation of ‘playwrights’ and plays from ‘performance writers/makers/artists’ and texts. At various gatherings and symposia I’ve attended over the past decade and more (usually around that other unnecessarily loaded term ‘dramaturgy’), I’ve  almost come to blows when denying and descrying what I see as an odd and artificial schism. On one memorable occasion about eight years ago, I was denied kinship with the cool crowd of live performance makers because I’d written a three act play for the Birmingham Rep’ in 2000 and was therefore a ‘playwright’ and into realism and naturalism and the fourth wall and other forms of conservatism… When I challenged this with reference to my other work deemed by critics and academics as ‘experimental’ and ‘post-dramatic’, they didn’t know where I should belong, for it seemed never the two should meet….

It seems to me definitions have generally been:

Playwright = one often working alone, primary or solo voice/vision, usually (but not always) in more established classical Western theatrical forms (naturalism/ three act structure)

Performance writer = one working perhaps collaboratively, usually in more ‘experimental’ or less conventional forms (ie, not our three act structure with the 4th wall, etc).

It seems to have been useful for some in the past to create this division, and going by the NTW site, it still is causing disruption and discord, as well as engaging and interesting debate.

It reminds me again of the debates I was involved with last year at West Yorkshire Playhouse over ‘the end of new writing’ with Lyn Gardner, David Eldridge, Suzanne Bell, Dawn Watson and Fin Kennedy. Worth having a look again, if you’re interested, and Alex Chisholm’s original essay (links, below).

As to me… I just reiterate what I wrote on the NTW site: a writer is a writer is a writer and if we can be flexible in our approach and the forms we write in, so (in my experience, at least) can the funders and commissioners….

I’m sure I’ll come back again to this subject, but meanwhile leave you with those links past and present:

http://community.nationaltheatrewales.org/group/writers  (but you need to join the community before you can comment)

http://kaiteoreilly.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/the-end-of-new-writing/

http://exeuntmagazine.com/features/the-end-of-new-writing/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2012/may/18/new-writing-all-black-play

Progressive dramaturgy….

I recently met David Lane at a workshop I was leading in ‘Alternative Dramaturgies’ at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol. We were looking at how a script ends up being the shape that it is, considering some of the other dramaturgical elements involved in making a blueprint for live performance outside dialogue, characterisation and action. My interest was in exploring the organisational principles which might inform process and the dramatic structure, including aspects such as logic, tempo rhythm, metaphor, poetic/dramatic schema, and so on…

This exploration of dramaturgy continued this morning, when David sent me an email about his involvement in Hannah Silva’s The Disappearance of Sadie Jones, currently in production at Exeter’s Bike Shed Theatre. David and Hannah were in discussion earlier this week about process and dramaturgy, and a transcription of that conversation is available on Hannah’s blog, at the link, below. David wrote:

‘Our hope is that it not only creates a useful window on the work of the dramaturg but also opens up some vital questions about how new plays are developed, why progressing our dramaturgical thinking around what a play is might be useful, and how embracing different development processes for writers might entertain a broader range of new plays being produced.’ 

I fully support this and feel wider discussion is necessary. Lyn Gardner, Suzanne Bell, Fin Kennedy, Dawn Walton, David Eldridge and myself came to similar conclusions about the necessity for more flexible developmental processes for writers in our panel discussion at West Yorkshire Playhouse’s festival last Spring. Perhaps if we keep having these discussions, and publicising the debates, change may happen…?

(I’m hopeful…We’re playwrights and dramaturgs… we’re optimistic…we know about change…)

http://hannahsilva.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/progressive-dramaturgy/

20 Questions….. Kiruna Stamell

Continuing the 20 questions series… I ask playwrights, performers, sculptors, directors, novelists, poets, dancers, short story writers and anyone else creative and interesting in between the same 20 questions, with various results. This time I ask the fabulous Kiruna Stamell to participate….

20 Questions… Kiruna Stamell

Kiruna Stamell

Kiruna Stamell is an actress with more than 13 years’ experience, as well as a classically-trained contemporary dancer.  In 1999 she got her first professional gig while at University, making her début in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge. She used the pay cheque to come to England and study Shakespeare and Jacobean Theatre at London Academy of Music and Recognisable for her roles on the BBC’s ‘All The Small Things’, ‘Eastenders’, ‘Life’s too short’ and Channel 4′s, ‘Cast-offs’, she will this year be appearing alongside Geoffry Rush in Guiseppe Tornatore’s film ‘The Best Offer’. Her contemporary dance work has taken place between Australia and Sweden with choreographers such as John O’Connell (Aus), Sue Healey (Aus), Shaun Parker (Aus) and Christina Tingskog (Sweden), as well as Mimbre (UK) for a season at Watch This Space outside the National Theatre.

20 QUESTIONS…..

 What first drew you to your particular practice (art/acting/writing, etc)?

 I think it was a television programme in Australia called ‘Young Talent Time’. I love dancing and as I got older I developed an interest in debating and public speaking too. At high school my speeches moved closer towards performance and monologue. At university words and movement had an opportunity to really mesh when I got involved in the drama society and contemporary dance scene.

What was your big breakthrough?

‘Moulin Rouge’ directed by Baz Luhrmann, it bought me financial freedom to learn to drive and come to the UK. I was able to access new places and communities where my dwarfism was viewed positively and culturally enriching, rather than as a barrier to an arts career (which was the predominant view in Australia). It was an opportunity to get about without my parent’s help and experience a financial and cultural independence.

What is the most challenging aspect of your work/process?

Finding meaningful and fulfilling work as an actress with dwarfism. It is the lack of security in being self-employed, that also makes that particularly hard. I could sell out and ‘exhibit’ myself in nightclubs because there is still a market for that in our society and live quite well off that income. However, I want to reflect the real world and change people’s prejudice’s not reinforce their already restrictive ideas. The representation of people with dwarfism in the mainstream media is mostly hostile and ridiculing, with the exception of a few roles.

 Is there a piece of art, or a book, or a play, which changed you?

‘Peeling’ a play you wrote had a massive impact. ‘Stone’s from the River’ a book by Ursula Hegi, I wish they’d turn that into a film… maybe I should… Betty Adelson’s, Dwarfs from ‘public curiosity to social liberation’. I also have to mention ‘The Station Agent’.

They all highlighted the richness of the lives of little people and removed themselves from the horrible fascination many things written about us never quite get over and seem to get stuck on.

What’s more important: form or content?

Content

How do you know when a project is finished?

When you begin to feel like you are putting more energy and passion into it, than you are getting out of it.

Do you read your reviews?

Yes.

What advice would you give a young writer/practitioner?

Just keep doing it. Toil away and find alternative ways to get your work out there. Don’t be too humble either, good work doesn’t always get noticed. Listen to feedback from people you trust. Pay attention to rejection, it gets you closer to being on the right path and working with the people who do appreciate your talent and want to be on your team.

What work of art would you most like to own?

There is a bookshelf that is really well designed by a French interior designer Olivier Dolle. It is shaped like a tree branch and reaches out from a corner of the room across a long wall. I’d like to have that for my books.

What’s the biggest myth about writing/the creative process?

That it just happens, requires no effort, is not worthy of being a real job. All untrue.

What are you working on now?

Starting up my own company to produce a two-hander stand-up rom-com written by me and my husband Gareth Berliner. The show is called ‘A Little Commitment’. Also I am about to get stuck into some contemporary dance/theatre in Australia with choreographer Shaun Parker and another dance based project with choreographer Marc Brew.

What is the piece of art/novel/collection/ you wish you’d created?

I am happy for those original authors/artists to keep their names to their creations. If I had created them, they wouldn’t be the works they are… they’d be something else entirely.

What do you wish you’d known when you were starting out?

That an accounting qualification could really help. Or that having something you can dip into casually when you aren’t funded for your creativity can take the fear out of a mortgage.

What’s your greatest ambition?

To change perceptions of difference and challenge the body fascism that’s become so pervasive in our culture. I hope in someways I do this just by being and getting on with my life and vocation. Maintaining integrity is so important to this goal.

How do you tackle lack of confidence, doubt, or insecurity?

Occasionally, I curl up and ignore the world for a day. I accept support from friends, family and the cultural community.

What is the worst thing anyone said/wrote about your work?

“I wasn’t expecting that… I wasn’t expecting that… [repeated several times]” Kimberly Wyatt, when surprised by my being able to actually dance, on sky’s Got To Dance.

And the best thing?

“Petite dynamo sparkles in energetic body of work.” A review of my first ever piece of choreography.

If you were to create a conceit or metaphor about the creative process, what would it be?

It’s a discipline, to which you must apply yourself.

What is your philosophy or life motto?

Each project should aim to be a personal best. This isn’t always going to happen but that should be the aim.

What is the single most important thing you’ve learned about the creative life?

Getting a casual day job as a waitress or barmaid, if you have dwarfism is almost impossible.

What is the answer to the question I should have – but didn’t – ask?

I think it asks how much you really wanted ‘it’. 

For further information on Kiruna, see:

www.kirunastamell.net and www.alittlecommitment.com

Things I wish I’d known when starting out: the difference between a ‘sketch’ and a short play

I recently was acting as mentor for a group of emerging playwrights. I read individual sample scripts and fed back to them in one to one sessions on how to develop the work and identify the weaker elements that needed enhancing. I believe in the old adage ‘good writers work on their strengths, but great writers work on their weaknesses.’ When I’m in a similar position, getting feedback and responses to new work I’m developing, I far prefer to have what isn’t clear or not working pointed out to me than be soothed with compliments, and so assume the same of those who have sought out my opinion on their draft.

During the day of feedback, I kept hearing the same phrases coming out of my mouth. ‘This isn’t working as a short play; this isn’t drama per se.’ My lovely enthusiastic writers were putting in the hours, but as novices they were still unfamiliar with the basics.

Several chose to write what could be defined as ‘sketches’ – short, sometimes whimsical pieces that revealed an idiosyncrasy or linguistic misunderstanding, usually at the expense of one of the (invariably naïve) characters. Others were comedy sketches, complete with an imagined drumroll and sardonic ‘wah-wah-wah’.

Now, there is nothing wrong with writing sketches. They require skill, timing, good pace and tempo-rhythm and an often quirky, fresh way of viewing the world. The short pieces I was given to critique showed promise and potential, but the writers wanted to move on to longer, fuller length pieces, and this is where their inexperience showed. None felt confident they could ‘stretch’ their material to cover a longer time frame than ten minutes.

The pieces they were writing were ‘sketches’ as the material was ‘thin’ – they had ‘sketched in’ mouthpieces, comedy stereotypes to deliver the material, which only existed to serve the punch line. They hadn’t yet created complex, three-dimensional characters who could be imagined to exist beyond the given scenario. The locations were often generic: ‘a shop’ – but where? Windsor, Isle of Snark, Barbados, Llantwit Major…? And what kind of shop, serving what kind of people, with what kind of life experience, aspirations, hopes, fears, antipathies, fatal flaws, intricate pasts?

But what of the material itself, the nub of an idea that a short play might be built around? We discussed the necessity of selecting material carefully, and identifying what might be rich rather than ‘thin’.

Many years ago I was at a masterclass Arnold Wesker gave on playwriting and one piece of advice always stayed with me. He said we needed to understand the difference between an anecdote and dramatic material. An anecdote he identified as something we tell across a dinner table. It is specific and engaging, but is gone the moment it is told. The stuff of dramatic material is something less definable – it is identifying what can be made powerful on stage.

‘Distinguish between… material that is anecdotal and material which resonates, carries meaning into other people’s lives across time and frontiers.’

From ‘Wesker on Theatre.’ Arnold Wesker.

The participants said they’d go away and think more about this and to take time with dreaming, compiling, selecting and distinguishing different kinds of raw material and its potential, rather than settling for the first possibility which presented itself.

I wish them joy and good luck.

What to remember next time…

‘You grab stuff, stick it in a mincer, turn a handle and this other stuff comes out. People go ‘mmm, this is nice’, or ‘it could have done with a bit more of that’ – and then you think ‘I must remember next time to put onions in it.’

Michael Rosen – poet, writer, broadcaster and former children’s laureate on the complex process of writing…

20 Questions… Andrew Loretto

Continuing my series…. Twenty questions asked to creatives: actors, poets, screenwriters, directors, sculptors, live art exponents, burlesque performers, novelists, dramatists, and anyone else who seems interesting in between… My next interviewee is director Andrew Loretto, who I collaborated with recently on 20 Tiny Plays About Sheffield, which opens next week – and is already sold out….

20 Questions… Andrew Loretto.

Andrew Loretto  For the Crucible Theatre Andrew has directed premieres of Lives in Art by Richard Hurford and LeanerFasterStronger by Kaite O’Reilly –

Andrew Loretto outside the Sheffield Crucible Theatre

part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. As Creative Producer for Sheffield Theatres, Andrew curated a range of projects with local artists including the Crucible 40^th Birthday fortnight, Crucible Writers’ Nights nd Sheffield Sizzlers.

Previous credits include: Dramaturg for Company Chameleon’s Gameshow; Artistic Director, Chol Theatre (2006-2010) - Beast Market (shortlisted for Huddersfield Examiner/Arts Council England Arts Award 2008), Space Circus (shortlisted for Brian Way Award 2009), Not For All the Tea in China (BBC2 Glastonbury highlights); International Young Makers Exchange; Sherman Theatre; Pilot Theatre; National Theatre Studio; Plymouth Theatre Royal; West Lothian Youth Theatre; Ulster Association of Youth Drama; Artistic Director, Theatre in the Mill, Bradford (1999-2003) and National Student Drama Festival (2003-2006).

What first drew you to writing/directing/acting?

Getting involved with extra-curricular music activities at school in Holywood, N.Ireland. Music fired up a passion for performing and making art; getting involved with school plays led on from that. To this day live music plays a big part in my theatre work where possible. Arts provision in schools is SO vital.

What was your big breakthrough?

To be honest, I don’t actually feel the breakthrough has happened yet! My career has been a slowly evolving one – but always with a focus on new work, multi-artform and creating opportunities for both experienced theatre artists and first-timers alike – of all ages.

What is the most challenging aspect of your work/process?

I guess I’m always asking organisations and individuals to take a risk on realising big ideas that can challenge the notions of what theatre is and what it can do. So in many ways that’s one of the biggest challenges – overcoming fear and/or set ways of thinking and being brave enough to forge on despite any reservations that might exist! The key is to bring on board like-minded collaborators, so that you’re not on your own.

Is there a piece of art, or a book, or a play, which changed you?

No – but I am influenced in infinitesimal ways by art in all its forms and by real life.

What’s more important: form or content?

I’ll give the politician’s answer: this really depends on the project – some pieces are led by form, whereas for others the content defines the form, and some projects have a mixture of both as prime motivator. They exist simultaneously as one in my head. It’s like asking what’s more important to make up a human being: a body or a soul?

How do you know when a project is finished?

A project never finishes. But alas we have defined production and performance dates and the money only pays for so much!

Do you read your reviews?

Yes. I don’t believe people who say they don’t. However I do absolutely understand and respect that some actors don’t like to read reviews whilst they’re still in a show.

What advice would you give a young writer/practitioner?

Get together with like-minded collaborators as much as you can and make your own work. Go and see as much as possible – there are lots of ways (especially for young people) that you can get cheap tickets for theatre. Do your research. Don’t leave it until your final year at university/college. Be polite to everyone – colleagues on your course will be future artistic directors/literary managers.

What work of art would you most like to own?

I fancy Tate Modern. All of it. I’d convert the top floor into a bijou city-living residence, the oil tanks could be dedicated rehearsal and performance spaces to make new work with lots of people. We’d have lots of people’s parties in the Turbine Hall. Can I apply for Grants for the Arts funding for this?

What’s the biggest myth about writing/the creative process?

That a writer sits in her/his own room as a tragic, isolated tortured soul. Rubbish: the writer is part of a collaborative process – if you don’t want to be part of a team, realising a live performance together, then theatre isn’t for you. That’s not to say that there isn’t an element of tortured isolation PRIOR to rehearsals though…

What are you working on now?

Andrew in rehearsals for 20 Tiny Plays About Sheffield, 2013.

I’m about to go into production week for 20 Tiny Plays about Sheffield – a massive project with a cast of 60 actors aged 12-85, performing 20 short plays – all of different genres about perceptions of Sheffield  in the 21^st Century. The show runs at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield from 8-13 April 2013 and has been fully sold-out for quite some time! We’re having to put in an extra public dress rehearsal so that people can see it. The 18 writers for the project are: Andrew McMillan, Andrew Thompson, Chris Bush, Chris Thorpe, DC Moore, Helen Eastman, Kaite O’Reily, Laurence Peacock, Louise Wallwein, Marcia Layne, Michael Stewart, Pete Goodland, Richard Hurford, Russell Hepplewhite, Sally Goldsmith, Stephanie Street, Tim Etchells, Tom Lodge.

’20 tiny Plays about Sheffield’ is the second production from Sheffield People’s Theatre – which I set up in 2011 for its first production ‘Lives in Art’ by Richard Hurford – achieving critical acclaim in the national press. I’m delighted that Sheffield People’s Theatre has since been awarded funding from Esmee Fairbairn foundation to develop its programme of work – of which ‘20 Tiny Plays’ is the first project to be supported. We’ve also got a Pearson Playwright bursary to support young Sheffield writer Chris Bush as part of the project and his year-long attachment to Sheffield Theatres. Chris’s work first came to our attention through the Crucible Writers’ Nights I’ve been curating over the past couple of years. Link to show:  http://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/event/20-tiny-plays-about-sheffield-13/

What is the piece of art/novel/collection/ you wish you’d created?

I loved the recent production of ‘Constellations’ – design, writing, performances, movement and direction all knitting together seamlessly. Lucy Cullingford, the movement director on the show, is one of my regular collaborators – it was a brilliant showcase for her precise, detailed and nuanced work.

What do you wish you’d known when you were starting out?

That I am just as entitled to have my voice heard at cultural tables as the posh Oxbridge boys and girls. Being a Celt, my default position is the ‘cultural cringe’.  

What’s your greatest ambition?

I’d love to get full eyesight back in my right eye (lost as the result of a violent attack in 2006) but I don’t think technology will evolve that quickly in my lifetime.

How do you tackle lack of confidence, doubt, or insecurity?

Surround yourself with good friends and confidantes – stay in touch with people. Invest in those friendships, give more than you receive. And make sure they’re not all involved in the arts!

What is the worst thing anyone said/wrote about your work?

Oh, I have fabulously bad review about the first full-length play I wrote. The reviewer was in a foul mood on the night he came to see the show – and I think my play just made him worse. I truly treasure it – it’s one of those reviews that seemingly starts off well, then the first cut is made. The knife plunges in and there’s a final twist at the end, leaving the entrails of the play steaming on the floor. Yep, one of THOSE reviews. Classic. I bumped into the reviewer at a Christmas party – he happily told me that the play in question was his single worst theatre experience that year. I’m happy to please.

And the best thing?

Oh it’s the personal testimonies from people who have been touched by seeing a show or by taking part as a participant and seeing how involvement with theatre projects can – literally – transform people’s lives.

If you were to create a conceit or metaphor about the creative process, what would it be?

I guess this is a cliché, but being a director is being like a mother: you conceive the baby, give birth to it, nourish, cherish and want the best for the baby as it grows into a young person, then a rebellious teenager. Then finally you have to let your baby go out into the world on its own as an adult – very often with little thanks for all the work you did other than the occasional card or phone call. That’s what directing new work can feel like!

What is your philosophy or life motto?

How do you want to live your life? (actually I stole that from my good friend Carri Munn, but it has stuck with me.)

What is the single most important thing you’ve learned about the creative life?

That the majority of people in the arts are generous and kind. A minority are not so – and that’s often down to insecurities and fears. Focus on the majority.

What is the answer to the question I should have – but didn’t – ask?

Age 17. Edinburgh.

…

London Sinfonietta’s Blue Touch Paper: Call for expressions of interest

Paul Klee Angelus Novus

.

.

.

.

In April last year I posted a blog revealing the correspondence between Kelina Gotman and I whilst she embarked on a project with London Sinfonietta: ‘Working towards clarity – excerpts from a mentoring process for dramaturg geeks.’  http://kaiteoreilly.wordpress.com/?s=working+towards+clarity

Kelina and composer Steve Potter were collaborating on London Sinfonietta’s Blue Touch Paper programme, which nurtures and promotes the next generation of composers and inter-disciplinary collaborators. I was working with them as mentor.

London Sinfonietta have just announced their latest call for composers, artists/writers and scientists interested in being involved in the next round of projects. Full information is available on the website: londonsinfonietta.org.uk

Meanwhile, any dramaturg geeks intrigued by Kelina and my correspondence of one year ago, can find a video of the work in process, 100 Combat Troupes on the London Sinfonietta’s website:

Blue Touch Paper work-in-progress preview: 100 Combat Troupes

The Blue Touch Paper preview event on 16 May 2012 at Village Underground showcased the culmination of a year-long collaboration between 3 groups of composers and multi-disciplinary artists.

This film features a work in progress preview of 100 Combat Troupes, by Kélina Gotman & Steve Potter which stages the urgency and ambivalence of dreaming other possible worlds, from the technicolor fantasies of Disney to the anarchist trenches.

http://www.londonsinfonietta.org.uk/video/blue-touch-paper-work-progress-preview-100-combat-troupes