January 2011
1 post
Call for interest Jan 2011
Northern Creative Theatre are a theatrical think tank who employ new approaches to creating theatre by blending traditional play writing with experimental technique. Story and character form the foundation of our work, ensuring that it remains accessible as we innovate with structure, style, form and process. We are an emerging company who are participating in a 12 month development scheme...
December 2010
2 posts
Announcement
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/pci/Incubator.html Posted via email from northerncreative’s posterous | Comment »
Good news
I graduated yesterday, gown and ceremony, proud parents and partner and all that. Such a peculiar yet satisfying thing to do. Ceremony is perhaps underated. Maybe we need more of that to mark and celebrate our achievements and that which we value and appreciate in general. Northern Creative Theatre have been successful in their application to the University of Leeds ‘Incubator’...
November 2010
1 post
November update
It’s been a while. Only a little while but long enough for me to feel it’s necessary to fill in the blanks. As I approached the MA deadline I looked forward to all the things I’d be able to do once I had passed the finishing point. The reality of finishing has been different to what I expected. Bizzarely, despite the pressure passing, I have been tense and restless and have...
September 2010
1 post
Done
The MA is done. I ran out of time and didn’t get the final submission professionally bound. Glancing back briefly over the document, I have spotted various errors. As my thoughts reorganise in my mind I realise that some of my arguments were a little unsubstantiated and possibly revealed a certain naivety. But it is out of my hands now and I can move on. It feels strange. I had been...
August 2010
4 posts
Four weeks to go...
Gulp. Sometimes the best work comes together last minute and flying by the seat of my pants has certainly been my working method of choice in the past. I have a very active inner critic, and (apart from the weeks spent castigating myself for not being a better student/employee/playwright/general-all-round-individual) being a last minute wonder has been a way of silencing that critic. As it gets...
a couple of quotes i've picked up today
‘…experience is no mere additive process. Each individual experience is mirrored on an entire background of past experiences and each new experience is constantly interwoven into the fabric of the whole of the individual’s experiential life. It is, therefore, possible to recall the whole of a long series of experiences at a particular moment without mentally reliving the entire...
a couple of quotes i've picked up today
‘…experience is no mere additive process. Each individual experience is mirrored on an entire background of past experiences and each new experience is constantly interwoven into the fabric of the whole of the individual’s experiential life. It is, therefore, possible to recall the whole of a long series of experiences at a particular moment without mentally reliving the entire...
Writing Words about Stuff
I met with my supervisor, Javier, this week having sent him through the first draft of the script that I will submit as part of my final MA project. Javier was very encouraging about the shape and the energy of my script. I was expecting him to try to persuade me to spoon-feed the storyline to the audience but this was not the case. In fact he advised me that going into detail about the story...
July 2010
3 posts
Finding the story
Another reminder for myself. I don’t always know the story right from the outset. I seem to get places and characters who say random things and flashes of images/stage possibilities before I get a coherent whole. It comes in fragments first. It’s not logical at all. I don’t think I’m suited to plot heavy, twisty turny stuff. I’m more psychological. I get phases...
Eight weeks to go...
It seems that I may be able to write a play after all. And perhaps I do have a process; an approach; a ‘voice’. I’m writing this so I remember for next time. Tai Chi really helps. Too much sitting in front of lap top screen, play text or book causes tension in the neck. A tense neck impairs relaxation necessary to have the head space and confidence for the creativity to flow....
Nine weeks to go...
Emerge festival came and went. The response to Elephant in the Room was really fantastic. To prepare Harriet for the Emerge performance (Harriet was replacing Tanja who couldn’t perform on the Emerge date due to being in Glastonbury) we all revisited the psychology of the piece. In doing so we reinterpreted it and improved certain parts that weren’t working as well as they could...
June 2010
1 post
Elephant in the Room at Emerge
Northern Creative Theatre will be showing Elephant in the Room at the Emerge new work festival on Thursday 24th June.The work will be shown along with several other short pieces from emerging companies. The venue is Seven Artspace in Chapel Allerton. It would be great to have you in the audience. There’ll be the opportunity to give feedback after the performance. Posted via web ...
April 2010
1 post
Northern Creative Theatre at Carriageworks 24th...
Elephant in the Room will be showing as part of Midget Gems at the Carriageworks in Leeds on 24th April at 20.00 If you would like to come, please do book your ticket as this event usually sells out and it’s unlikely that tickets will be available on the door. Posted via web from northerncreative’s posterous | Comment »
March 2010
6 posts
Elephant in the Room
Elephant in the Room Saturday 6th March 16.30 - 17.30 Stage@leeds as part of Newstages 2010 Tickets are £5 (advance booking recommended) (or £7.50 for a festival day ticket or £12.50 for a two day festival ticket) BOX OFFICE 0113 343 8730 Following their success on the Midget Gems tour in 2008 and at Newstages 09, Northern Creative Theatre presents ‘Elephant in the...
Rehearsal report 16
The cast of all three components of ‘Elephant in the Room’ assemble along with Hannah (design), Naomi (lighting) and Maddie (sound). My plan for the evening is to do a couple of runs of the whole piece and to look at/think about moving set and props on and off in between the scenes. It takes a while to get the sound equipment set up so we run ‘Nature Nurture’ with me reading in the sound cues...
Rehearsal report 15
One last session with the Nature Nurture cast before we move into focusing on the technicalities of the production as a whole. There’s a lot of work to be done to explore performance styles against a sound scape backdrop. Now that the performers have a greater sense of what’s happening they have begun to take ownership of their performances. I am really pleased to see them exploring the silences,...
Rehearsal report 14
It’s make or break time for Nature Nurture. Outside of the rehearsal room I have scrutinised the recording we took at the last rehearsals and put together an order that I am satisfied suggests/resonates the story and the points that we have been trying to make through our explorations of the subject matter. This creates a framework for the rehearsal ahead. I have a clear idea of the ‘scenes’ and...
Rehearsal report 13
Ruth and Sarah Lou are with me on a Saturday afternoon to rehearse Mother and I . We begin with a lines run which panics me as Ruth and Sarah Lou seem to struggle with their lines. For a moment I feel like the piece has taken a step backwards! I must remember that a lines run is for lines only, not for character and emotional intensity. We begin to work on the scene in the space and my concerns...
Rehearsal report 12
We begin to work on the silences in Nature Nuture. We go straight into character and into the improvisation. The agreement is that I will coach while the performers are improvising. We don’t see how notes could be given retrospectively when the cues are looks and silences, how would the performers know which silence I was referring to? We see the same banal domestic scene and it continues to...
February 2010
13 posts
Rehearsal report 11
Working on ‘Also Pink’, the third and final component of the project, a monologue. Harriet who is playing ‘Yvonne’, the career driven, maternal instinct denying protagonist whose husband has quite different ideas about the direction their marriage is taking, has memorised the six minute monologue and has been rehearsing on her own. Harriet has already done a very good job of bringing some...
Rehearsal report 10
I let the ‘Nature Nurture’ cast know about my ‘eureka’ moment and my realisation about the shape and form of the piece. I now believe that the piece is about the impact of the death of one of the children of the family, and the suppressed grief following the accident that caused the death. The accident/loss is the elephant in the room that no one speaks about and the ten minutes that we will show...
Rehearsal report 9
‘Mother and I’ rehearsal with Ruth (playing Lucinda) and Sarah-Louise (playing Fiona). We’re expecting our writer friend Ewan to come in to look at our work to give us an outside view of the piece. In advance of Ewan’s arrival I give Ruth and Sarah-Louise a revised script. I point out that I have removed the ending as it was written (a ridiculously extreme ending statement which seems to come...
Rollercoaster
For the past four days I have been experiencing an emotional rollercoaster of epic proportions. I’ve been surprised by the veracity of it. I have been feeling intense fear in waves that have made me feel physically ill, I have been feeling utterly helpless, there has been a horrible sinking feeling that I thought would never stop. Just to confuse matters, intermittently I would feel just fine...
Rehearsal report 8
A four hour session to work on ‘Nature Nurture’ We begin with improvisation exercises. This time the emphasis is on getting the three performers comfortable with spontaneously trying out ideas in given situations and also bouncing off each other to generate exchanges. We then go into character using an exercise called ‘Fast Food Laban’ where we establish how the character moves and which part...
Rehearsal report 7
In advance of the rehearsal I had transcribed improvisations from the previous session and restructured the script; adding in the new material we’d talked about and improvised around, and had a stab at an ending. I am not fully convinced by the work I have done on the script so the rehearsal/workshop’s aims were clear. To establish what does and what doesn’t work and to try to work out how to...
Rehearsal report 6
It has been over a week since the cast of ‘Nature Nurture’ met for a workshop/rehearsal but I have been thinking about the piece in their absence. There are questions that I am still not able to answer about the family dynamics and I aim to tackle these in the rehearsal room . However, I don’t feel fully equipped to facilitate exploration of these through improvisation exercises. I realise that...
Rehearsal report 2
I don’t think I communicated exactly what I wanted when I set the cast of ‘Nature Nurture’ off on a task to find an alternative reason for the giving of a birthday gift in the scene I had written (where the gift turns out to be a very constrictive jumper, so constrictive that it’s actually a kind of straight jacket). Need to work out how I can make sure I communicate/set tasks so that I get the...
Rehearsal report 5
Ruth, Sarah Lou and myself get together for a Sunday afternoon workshop rehearsal for ‘Mother and I’ I have been able to prepare for the session by reading the chapter about status in Keith Johntsone’s book ‘Impro’. I have also transcribed the improvisation I recorded on my dictaphone and written the beginnings of a scene so that Ruth and Sarah Lou can explore the characters’...
Rehearsal report 4
Prior to rehearsal I meet with Dan Bye, a theatre writer and director from the region, to find out about his writing/devising process. This conversation is affirming; Dan describes a couple of different approaches and I pick up a few practical tips about how to shape improvisation and how to use it to its best advantage (‘coach’ the improvisation by calling things out to the...
Rehearsal report 3
This week work began on the second component of ‘Elephant in the Room’, ‘Mother and I’, a two hander that explores the nature of denial in addiction (alcoholism in this case) as experienced by ‘Lucinda’ and her daughter ‘Fiona’. Ruth and I begin rehearsal/workshops in the absence of the other actress required for the piece. I have held back from...
Review - Me and Me Dad
I had another reviewing assignment for whatsonstage.com at Hull Truck Theatre. This time we got to go to the press night and were provided with delicious fish pie, a recipe which featured in the play! Here is my review : http://www.whatsonstage.com/reviews/theatre/northeast/E8831264875308/Me+and+Me+Dad+(Hull+Truck+Theatre).html Posted via web from northerncreative’s...
Rehearsal report 1
The first meeting of the cast for one third of ‘Elephant in the Room’ took place yesterday evening. I ran through ‘housekeeping’ things, a health and safety induction (i had to risk assess ‘falling from standing’ and ‘falling from chair’ believe it or not) and practicalities of the rehearsal space and schedule. I also touched upon the other two...
January 2010
3 posts
Other creative people on procrastination
Have had responses from other creative people following my recent posts about procrastination and productivity. This blog post : http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/avoiding-avoidance.html - thanks to Supriya who found it and a recommendation to look up Ellen Degener (who has something to say on the subject) ‘s ‘Here and Now’ from Mattie . Posted via web from...
Pareto Principle
Here is a quote from Brian Tracey’s book ‘Eat that Frog - 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time ‘ ‘You have probably heard of the ‘Pareto Principle’, named after it’s founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who first wrote about it in 1895. Pareto noticed that people in his society seemed to divide naturally into...
The year twentyten - looking forward
It seems so cliched to write a new year post but I really feel like I have to do write one to crack on with what lies ahead. First and foremost, I have to write ‘The Elephant in the Room Trilogy’. I have been working on the project with a light touch for the past few months but now the deadline for delivery of the project is looming. I have to organise casting in the next week and...
December 2009
3 posts
Review - Pinocchio (Hull)
I went to Hull at the weekend to review Hull Truck’s Pinocchio for WhatsOnStage. You can read my review here : http://www.whatsonstage.com/reviews/theatre/northeast/E8831260824562/Pinocchio+(Hull).html Posted via web from northerncreative’s posterous | Comment »
One week, three genre
Nothing focusses the mind like a deadline.
My final MA class was a week last Tuesday (not Tuesday just passed, Tuesday before that) and it wasn’t until that class that I really formulated the idea I had for the portfolio that I needed to submit for assessment. Portfolio hand in (interim hand in, not final deadline) was yesterday. My Tutor told us that a balanced portfolio would consist of a...
Image thanks to BitBoy
I came across this image when I google searched ‘Elephant in the Room’. It’s a photograph taken at Banksy’s ‘Barely Legal’ exhibition which was on in LA in 2006. The photographer, BitBoy, has given me permission to use the image as publicity for my trilogy. I am really pleased. I think using the striking image will assist with my next interaction with the...
November 2009
3 posts
progress
I heard back from the Newstages Committee. They were sympathetic to my workload and rather than producing a full script at the beginning of December they’ll be happy for me to present a project plan. I’m really pleased that they haven’t rejected ‘The Elephant in the Room Trilogy’ by default just because i don’t have a script yet. Standards and expectations seem...
project proposal
I have put a proposal in to the Newstages 2010 Committee. Newstages 2010 is a festival that takes place at the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds. This is where i am a part time MA Student studying ‘Writing for Performance and Publication’ in my second (and final) year. Last year one of my pieces of work ‘Antithesis’ was in the...
Northern Creative blog →
Now also on blogger platform, lots of functions on blogger that there aren’t here on Tumblr.
October 2009
2 posts
supermarket sweep
‘And they’re off!’ announces Brian into the microphone, in as enthusiastic a manner as his cynicism might permit. The small crowd of silver haired OAPs, clutching their baskets on wheels, surge forward in anticipation, a gathering of overcoats in washed out pastel shades, barely contained by the temporary barriers assembled for the event.
The clatter of the motion of shopping trolley wheels...
short story, 2nd person, present tense
You loiter in the communal passageway of the council flat complex where I live. There are two stair wells, rubbish chutes on every floor and several areas where residents can hang their washing. There are lots of places where you can remain unseen for long periods of time, and even if you are seen it is assumed that you are a resident or the visitor of a resident let in via the entry system on the...
September 2009
1 post
“I am a way of life. I am a place of connection and communication: a temple of...”
– f | theatre (p. 1) (via dramagirl)
August 2009
5 posts
holiday time again...
i’m away to the Bay of Elounda in Crete as of 05.30 tomorrow morning. i’m very much looking forward to a week of relaxation in this small Cretian fishing village; time on the beach, swimming in the sea, reading this & this and enjoying my Boyfriend’s company, eating fresh seafood in lovely restaurants.
august has been fantastic. i’ve had chance to really get myself...
“Feedback is the breakfast of champions”
– Ken Blanchard
part time
in February, when i was at a very intense period in my MA and really feeling the impact of pushing myself out of a comfort zone, i requested that i reduce my employment from 5 days to 3 days a week.
i didn’t really expect the school where i work to agree to this, i thought they’d say that they needed my position in place on a full time basis, but to my suprise they did agree!
6...