Blog

Albion Sky: Some Writing Backstory

This entry was posted in Beneath the Albion Sky and tagged Beneath the Albion Sky co-write Writing on May 7, 2013 by Corinne

Things I have never done before as a writer: co-write a play.

The decision to co-write Beneath the Albion Sky happened somewhat haphazardly (as I’m sure many of the best decisions do) in a phone call from a Canterbury to London train. The phonecall pretty much went along the lines of:

Corinne: Hi Charlie, I thought you’d better know – we’re going to scratch a show with the BAC at Latitude. Next week.

Charlie: [displaying an impressive amount of fortitude in the face of me Springing Stuff On Him At The Last Minute] Crikey.

Corinne: It’s about a man who walks the St Michael’s ley line which runs through Henham Park where Latitude is held. It’s sort of a fantasy travelogue – with stuff like dragons and Boudicca. Definitely Boudicca. But also, I want the audience to think this is actually a real travelogue. Also, there’s a thing about Paul – that’s the man’s name – a thing about Paul’s Dad.

Charlie: Have you thought about the writing of this?

Corinne: Not really.

Charlie: ‘Cause we could co-write it.

Corinne: Brilliant. Let’s do that. Seven days to write enough for a scratch. And, erm, rehearse it.

Charlie: I’ll get us an actor.

I am sure this will not go down in history as me being my most professional or measured when it comes to WBN projects. But what is the point of indulging in this if you can’t make a 15 minute piece of theatre in under a week because you want to go dance in a field to boys-with-guitars?

Given that we were most definitely On A Deadline we decided to go about the initial writing process by: talking a bit about Paul, discussing which bits of the walk we wanted to cover, doling them out, writing separate sections, swapping sections, swapping the sections again, indulging in minor line quibbles and then probably repeating these things a couple of times before we realised that we actually did need to sleep at some point in the week prior to Latitude.

If we exclude a minor panic (on my part) about the use of expletives, it all went well and we made a 19 minute script masquerading as a 15 minute one which we were both happy with. And, possibly fuelled by all the caffeine and the lack of sleep, we decided that i) we were both still interested enough in the script to continue writing it to full length and ii) we wanted to do this together.

And, on and off over the last year, that’s what we’ve been doing. After our initial scratch at Latitude we did a second, slightly longer and slightly less interrupted by sounds of Rhianna, scratch at the BikeShed in November. We then embarked on getting together a full-length script. Which culminated last night, at around 10.23pm, with my sending the We Promise To Make No More Changes To This Without Your Rehearsal Room Consent Draft to Andy, our actor for this incarnation of Albion Sky.

And then, because we’re cool like that, Charlie and I high-fived.

The One Where We Make A Play

This entry was posted in Beneath the Albion Sky and tagged Beneath the Albion Sky BikeShed Theatre Ignite on May 5, 2013 by Corinne

The photo above is something which simultaneously makes me excited and want to be a little bit sick. For, in those bits of paper, there is a play. A play with a beginning, a middle and an end (possibly even in the correct order). The play concerned is Beneath the Albion Sky and, in a month’s time, for the first time ever, we’re going to be performing it in its entirety to actual audiences in an actual theatre as part of an actual festival. If there’s anything that makes me want to take deep breaths into a paperbag then that sentence is it.

But – yes! – we shall be bringing walking boots and myths and legends and possibly even a tent into the BikeShed Theatre as part of Exeter’s Ignite Festival where we’ll be performing on the 4th June at 8.10pm and the 5th June at 6.30pm. And you can buy tickets here.

Having previously scratched extracts of Albion Sky with the BAC at Latitude Festival and the BikeShed’s own SCRATCH and with what Charlie and I are referring to as Draft 0.925 (snappy, right?) in hand we’re about to embark on three-and-a-bit weeks of Intense Scary Rehearsal. And, since I clearly do not have anything better to do than reveal my writerly state of panic through the use of CAPS LOCK, I’m going to be blogging the process. Even the bits where I have to go lie down in a darkened room. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Being a Freelancer

This entry was posted in Bloggery Reasons For Listing Workshops Write By Numbers on May 1, 2013 by Estelle Buckridge

Life has been (voluntarily) stressful of late what with the ‘running a theatre company whilst trying to make a living with lots of freelance jobs and also trying to have a life’ sort of thing. Instead of feeling sorry for myself or repeatedly kicking myself for all the mistakes I constantly repeat, I thought I’d write (in true Joseph Mills style) 16 facts I need to come to terms with about being a freelancer:

1. I will always have a home full of clutter, from books and workshop plans to random props, balloons and bits of string.
2. I will spend 1000s of hours a year on trains.
3. I will not be paid for these hours so should spend them reading high quality fantasy.
4. I will take on too much work. ‘Well, I’m in Hammersmith til 12 so I should be able to get to Wimbledon for a workshop at 2 then back to Hampstead for a meeting at 5pm, no problem’.
5. I will underestimate the emotional impact of my work.
6. I will have a complex love-hate relationship with my smartphone. I LOVE that I can read BBC News when I’m bored, turn on spotify and search for a song on the spur of the moment in a workshop, and use google maps to find a school when I’m running late. I HATE receiving work emails on the move, rubbish battery life, and google maps’ occasional lies!
7. I will forget I have to plan each session I do/meeting I have so I have to spend aforementioned travel time planning.
8. I cannot commit to regular evening activities.
9. I will go and see lots of shows that friends/colleagues are in (sometimes for free).
10. I will sometimes remember that I AM freelance and it’s OK to take a 2hour lunch!
11. I will get invited to awesome networking events and I go as me, not representing anyone else!
12. I can have creative meetings at midnight and enjoy them (although this mostly comes with living with WBN!)
13. I will constantly forget that if I work 20 days without a break my body will rebel and make me ill.
14. I will struggle to understand the concept of ‘the weekend’ and ‘payday’.
15. At the start of each new project I will completely forget what went wrong on the last one and remain steadfastly optimistic that this new project will be THE BEST EVER!
16. Whenever I get stressed I need to remember that being a freelancer is (usually) something that makes me happy.

OK, feeling a bit better now. Onwards!

Trio of firsts for Charlie of WBN

This entry was posted in Bloggery In Response Inspirations Performance Theatre and tagged dreamthinkspeak Fevered Sleep Performance theatre Theatre Blogs Unlimited on April 24, 2013 by Charlie

Despite the fact that things in WBN Towers are frightfully busy I have been trying to see as much theatre as possible.

As such, I have been fortunate enough to see three shows recently from three companies that I have always wanted to see and have always respected (until now, from afar). It has been a while since I saw each show but they have stuck with me in different ways.

First up was Unlimited Theatre’s show MONEY the game show (which I saw at the Bush). I have always wanted to see a piece by Unlimited (especially because Corinne is always going on about a show she saw of their’s in Leeds). This one did not disappoint. I think the main thing that has stuck with me is how satisfying it can be to see Money on stage… and on this occasion I actually mean in production values and literally. Firstly, the set made me feel like I genuinely was an audience member of a dodgy game show on Channel 5 (sorry C5). This really added to the fun and games that we as an audience took part in. This made the story (and our implication in the end) all the more satisfying and thought provoking. Money well spent methinks. The thing that trumped the production values however was the ACTUAL MONEY on stage. Ten thousand shiny pound coins, stacked on stage. Thrown around as if they were worthless, almost as if a pound coin only has value because we believe it has…
I do wonder if this will be the last show I ever see where a bouncer is required for insurance reasons as well. Nothing like a heavy in the room to add to the gravitas of the situation. The stats and figures the show gave towards the end might also be one of the most haunting things I have seen in a theatre… that’s numbers for you.

The second show I want to talk about is Fevered Sleeps‘ Above Me The Wide Blue Sky. I recently had the good fortune of doing a workshop with Kaite O’Reilly on Alternative Dramaturgies (she has a splendid blog if you aren’t aware of it) and one of the many things I found interesting from the workshop was how she spoke about work: the rhythm of it, the repetitions, the movement, the sound – far more in terms of qualities of music than maybe I would myself. It was in this mindset that I really engaged with Above Me The Wide Blue Sky. Like how my mind might wander at a concert, my mind wandered during this show. I found myself reflecting on its themes, looking for the repetitions, trying to find patterns and rhythms. My mind would drift and suddenly snap back at an image envoked by the performer that clearly struck something in my brain.
I think when we go to the theatre (especially in the 21st Century with the way TV has wired us up) we have expectations to be engaged, constantly stimulated and that we are going to be ‘active’ throughout a whole show as it take us on a (narrative) journey. It was refreshing to see a show that did not do this, but instead worked in the same way a classical concert might. It allowed the mind to wander – and that was okay, not some fatal flaw in its dramaturgy. The ‘feel’ of this show has stuck with me far more than anything else – a feel of calmness but also loss. A lament for nature. This show has affected me more as if it were a song, which I find myself humming every so often.

The final production I find myself writing about is dreamthinkspeak’s In the Beginning Was The End. I do love a bit of promenade site specific. Wandering around a building and delving underground – in a space I probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise. That was satisfying in its self. But this show really provided some powerful images, and the level of detail achieved for such a big project was really impressive. The main image that stuck with me was all the Customer Service workers shedding their clothes, and looking down from atop a spiral staircase at the audience looking up. This worked on so many levels for me. Firstly, there was the cycle of the workers leaving work, shedding their clothes and always going back – always going back to work. That repetition that necessity wouldn’t let them escape. But then there was the audience reactions themselves and how they fed in to it. After all, was had naked people. In front of us. Thus student girls were laughing and pointing at male bits, student guys were either being blokey or looking embarrassed. And that was just the student crowd. You had every audience reaction you could expect and, whilst the audience were looking up at them, gathered around a spiral staircase, the naked performers are looking down. Aware of this reaction and looking all the more sad for it. And then they go back to work, repeat the same process and wait for the next set of wandering audience to react in the same predictable manner. I watched this happen a couple of times.
I reckon I’m going to struggle to find another image this year quite so powerful and though provoking, without a single word being uttered.

Charlie of WBN

The List of Things That Made WBN Happy (Scarborough Edition)

This entry was posted in On Tour Reasons For Listing and tagged Libraries Lists Reasons For Listing Scarborough Literature Festival on April 17, 2013 by Corinne

Last week we (Corinne, Estelle and our splendid actor Andy) took Reasons For Listing up to Scarborough as part of the Scarborough Literature Festival. In keeping with the piece, therefore, we’re going to document the experience via a list of things that made us happy…

Corinne teaching Andy about what happens when you put caramel waffles on top of coffee.

Andy taking approximately 60 seconds to “improve” the process by speeding up insulation of said caramel waffle with the aid of a coffee cup lid.

Line runs in Coach F. East Coast Trains – you are welcome.

Completing the Guardian Quick Crossword between York and Malton (and only, possibly, making up one word).

Tea and coffee making facilities in our hotel room.

The sea! The sea!

Andy spending five minutes taking a photo of himself taking a photo of the view.

Seaside chips.

Getting soaked by a wave on our first walk by the sea front (this possibly made Andy happier than Corinne who spent the next 60 seconds yelling “THIS IS INAPPROPRIATE” impotently in the direction of the sea).

Yorkshire-priced rounds.

Andy and Corinne timing meeting Estelle’s train to perfection.

Finding a cooked breakfast for under four pounds. (Sensing a theme here?)

How lovely and well organised Scarborough Central Library was, including bringing us lots of tea.

Finding Joseph’s desk by the window in the reference area.

Having ten minutes post line run to entertain ourselves with The Books. (Estelle went for checking our surnames in “Who was Who” whilst Andy found out the origins of the word “Bristol”)

Our audience. Including them being the first to, en masse, say “hello” back to Joseph.

Everyone who took the time to stay around afterwards to tell us something that made them happy, ask questions and talk about Joseph.

Corinne’s friend Val taking charge and finding us a coffee shop for, well, coffee and cake and suchlike when Corinne, Andy and Estelle were partaking in what can only be described as faffing.

Scones and Jam and Cream.

Estelle and Corinne being humoured by the woman behind a handmade chocolate counter when they spent five minutes choosing 7 chocolates to take back to London for Charlie.

The area of Scarborough which we labelled “the charity shop quarter” and where Estelle found a new jacket and Andy came down with full-on-consumer-fever caused by a pair of brogues and a copy of Pride and Prejudice.

TEN ENTIRE STICKS OF ROCK FOR £1.

Estelle’s face at discovering the name of the ice cream parlour on Scarborough seafront (one for the 10th Doctor fans…)

And then finding the TARDIS…

Tea and quiet time in the hotel.

MECCA BINGO.

DABBERS AND MECCA BINGO.

CHIPS AND MECCA BINGO.

JUGS OF BLACK RUSSIAN COCKTAIL AND MECCA BINGO.

Andy working out the “Bingo Maths”.

Going t’pub having not won anything at bingo and, for Andy and Corinne at least, partaking in MANY double shots of spirits.

Corinne getting the barman to agree to them staying in the pub a whole 40 minutes after he called last orders.

Going on a 1.00am adventure.

Standing on Scarborough beach at 1.15am and everything being just a little bit beautiful.

2.00am tea and trashy BBC3 tv.

Tea and teacakes for breakfast.

Spending too much time in a second hand book emporium.

Finally, finally, getting some proper Yorkshire fish and chips.

And, did we mention the sea?

Cold Writing: The Live Blog (The Second)

This entry was posted in Cold Writing and tagged live blog reinvent on March 22, 2013 by Corinne

So WBN are doing another Cold Writing, how exciting! But, I hear you exclaim, where is the Live Blog? Because we love UNNECESSARY CAPITALISATION and riffs of toilet keys and what would Cold Writing be without those things? (Plays. It would be PLAYS.) But – I would hate to disappoint all one of you. So…HERE WE GO…

(As there’s no wifi in Jill where we’re doing this round of Cold Writing this isn’t quite a live-blog in the truest sense but – trust me – it was blogged as the day unfolded. The grammar alone can probably tell you that.)

10.17am: Our first actor arrives at Jill (Lucy who, fact fans, was in the first ever Cold Writing we did back in February 2010 in Brixton) and we have the first conversation of the day about the temperature of the shop.

10.25am: Our second actor, Sam, arrives. We have our second conversation of the day about the temperature of the shop. (See, we play at ‘Cold Writing’ being because the writers come in cold but, let us be honest, we only ever do it in places where the temperature is somewhere around freezing. One day I’d like us to do it on a beach in the Mediterranean.)

10.35am: SHOP TOUR. Which really means – come and see where the toilet that has the door that doesn’t close is.

10.40am: Charlie and I talk about seating. Which means that in five minutes we have covered the two topics that I have spent most of my time talking about as a person making theatre for non-traditional spaces. Basically any show boils down to: where people sit and what state the toilet is in. Should someone ever be foolish enough to ask me to dispense vague wisdom about theatre in shops my entire wisdom could be reduced to: FIND CHAIRS and CLEAN THE TOILET.

10.48am: We’re still talking about chairs.

10.50am: Yep, still going. Though now we have a plan. We’re going to talk some more about chairs this afternoon.

10.56am: I take delivery of a projector that has nothing to do with Cold Writing. It’s big and I almost drop it, much to the person delivering its dismay.

11.10am: Charlie, Sam and Lucy retreat to Kente, the coffee shop across the road from us, to Drink Coffee and Read Scripts. Regardless of anything else which performance might bring to the high street my extensive research has shown that local coffee shops benefit from the caffeine addictions of those who make theatre.

11.15am: Our final actor, Stevie, arrives. I direct him to The Coffee.

11.16am – 1.10pm: Read-throughs take place. I can’t live blog this because I’m in Jill asking people to tell me things that make them happy. So you’ll just have to imagine this yourself

1.31pm: Rehearsals begin. “Caulifower Soup”by Kimberly Ashman is up first. It’s set in a soup kitchen if you were wondering.

1.34pm: We do absolutely not, totally not, almost set my coat on fire.

1.35pm: I exclaim RISK ASSESSMENT several times and then take a tranquilizer.

1.40pm: “Put. The. Ladel. Down.” This might be my new favourite exclamation of ‘breaking news’.

1.44pm: AUDIENCE INTERACTION TIME.

1.46pm: My shoes are coming under some scrutiny as part of the audience interaction.

1.50pm: Our “No Prop Rule” has resulted in a need for a ladel. Which would be a prop. I’m asked if we have spoons. I refrain from saying that this time last week I made Andy, our Joseph Mills, take a teabag out of a cup with a biro lid. We do have cups though…

2.00pm: First complete run-through. They make me laugh. I’m an easy target but we shall take this as a Good Thing.

2.10pm: More running through. We lose a table and gain some standing in the midst of the audience. Amongst the chairs.

2.20pm: The actors are split for Lucy and Stevie to rehearse Richard Walls’s “Window Dressing” and Sam to rehearse Ella Ashman’s “Waste”. First though Stevie and Charlie have to discuss what sort of “dead” they want Steve to be when he is the on “stage” non-speaking presence. Not dead-dead, if you’re wondering.

2.30pm: Monologue time. This one, as its title of “Window Dressing” might be a subtle hint towards, is set in a shop. This is handy.

2.34pm: My stapler gets a prominent place as a gift given to a King’s betrothed. Really.

2.37pm: There’s a line about the Pizza Express on Bankside that overlooks St Paul’s. This is my most visited Pizza Express in the history of Pizza Express (if you were wondering).

2.40pm – 3.00pm: Rehearsing continues but my blogging doesn’t as I talk to people who have popped into the shop. What other theatre lets you watch rehearsals? (if that’s a question in a pub quiz, the answer is Shakespeare’s Globe, but we don’t make you take a 30 minute tour).

3.16pm: Sam has to leave through the shop door. This is clearly why Charlie wanted to keep the “tinckler” (this isn’t its proper name. I don’t know what its proper name is)

3.19pm: RUN-THROUGH TIME.

3.31pm: RUN-THROUGH ENDS.

3.33pm: Stevie, as the non-speaking presence, gets cut. Such is an actors’ lot in life.

3.35pm: I play tealady. I don’t remove teabags with a biro lid because I do have a secret stash of spoons. Mwwwahhhh.

3.40pm: It’s time for “Waste”. Helpfully, the characters are drinking tea.

3.44pm: To be momentarily serious (it won’t last) one of the brilliant things about Cold Writing is the variety of responses the writers come up with. I’m someone who loves a bit of Structure (seriously, structure makes me happy) and, having had audience interaction and a monologue we’ve now got a duologue around a table. Stuff like this EXCITES me.

3.55pm. RUN-THROUGH.

4.06pm: We realise there are two Sarahs mentioned in the play (well, a Sarah and a Sara but since we’re not spelling them out that’s probably academic) and decide to rename a character. Girls names are flung about until Charlie settles on Amy. I don’t say that I think this is because of Amy Pond (it is totally because of Amy Pond).

4.17pm: Big dramaturgical question about why one character says something to the other character (I can’t say what, it’s a spoiler). But it’s a biggie.

4.28pm: More big dramaturgical talk about The End.

4.35pm: Time for our final play, Judy Upton’s “True Grit”. The desk that is normally mine in Jill becomes a prison cell. Standard.

4.40pm: In Structure Watch “True Grit” is the only play today which isn’t in real-time. Boom.

4.51pm: “Deliver it as if you’re Tony Blair. This hand. Then this hand. He was all about the hands”. Yes. Yes he was.

4.55pm: A brief – but significant – interlude about where the phrase “seat of your pants” comes from.

4.56pm: With some help from google I fill the gap in everyone’s knowledge.

4.57pm: RUN-THROUGH TIME.

4.59pm: This play makes me want to eat chocolate. I eat some of the mini eggs that are for the under fives Easter Bonnet making workshops.

5.02pm: Also: lots of The Funny.

5:08pm: RUN-THROUGH ENDS

5.10pm: Everyone is given a 20 minute break. Which means: COFFEE TIME.

5.16pm: Y’know what comes here? Another conversation about chairs.

5.31pm: We start the full RUN THROUGH.

5.33pm: Ah, “Put. Down. Your. Ladels”.

5.35pm: More feature time for my shoes.

5.40pm: Soup kitchen into father –daughter heart to heart.

5.49pm: Into shop monologue.

6.00pm: I miss the change into chocolate cornflakes (yes, I know I haven’t mentioned chocolate cornflakes before, but, hey, let’s pretend that’s deliberate and I’m keeping you on your toes, so – chocolate cornflakes, right?) because I’m talking about making plays in 48 hours to a visitor to the shop. I only just avoid using “fly by the seat of your pants”.

6.10pm: RUN THROUGH FINISHES. For the first time ever Cold Writing has produced actually ten minute plays (I, as a writer with a tendency to over-run, can say that).

And, fittingly, this is where the live blog also finishes because I HAVE TO MOVE SOME CHAIRS.

(If you’re wondering where the serious reflection on Cold Writing is I’m leaving that to Charlie and Estelle. I promise they’ll use fewer capital letters)