Cold Writing


WBN News: We’ve got shows coming up!

Write By Numbers are going to be busy bees in the next couple of months, so I thought I would just let you people who read blogs know about a couple of projects and shows that are happening soon:

Joseph Mills Presents…Reasons For Listing: 16 Facts and One Story About Things That Make Me Happy

Reasons for Listing is going to be popping up in a few places in the next couple of months. It is first going to be at Jill in Sydenham on the 16th and 17th March at 12.30pm, 2.00pm and 4.00pm.

The venue is part of the SEE3 Portas Pilot in Sydenham, Kirkdale and Forest Hill. The space is well worth a look, especially as such Portas Pilots might end being the future of our  High Streets… (I’ll let Corinne blog about that properly in the future as I’m sure she will have plenty to say about such things – especially as she has managed to get herself involved in this one.)

We are also excited that Reasons will be part of Scarborough Literary Festival, with Joseph doing his presentation in a Library for the first time (details here if you are in the North come the 11th April). It is great that Reasons is getting a run out in a Library. Way back, when Corinne and myself (with invaluable help from our friend Olly Hawes) started developing and working on Reasons, we always felt it would have a home in libraries so it is exciting that is starting to happen.

Cold Writing

We have also got another Cold Writing festival coming up. If you fancy applying to be a writer, you have just one day to get to it! If you fancy seeing what plays some lucky writers come up with (which I will maniacally direct in one day), then please come along to the performances. These will be happening at the Jill in Sydenham, just the week after Reasons is there, on 21st March at 7.30pm and on Saturday 23rd at 12.30pm and 3pm.

We gave got other coals in the fire as well which we will let everyone know about as and when. In the mean time, hopefully we will see you at one of the above!

Charlie @ Write By Numbers


The one where Corinne has a lot of ground to cover

I’m not sure if the above tweet is exactly the correct way to introduce Theatre41. But I guess it’s a way. Because it acknowledges that I’m incredibly excited about the project (hang on, I’ll get to what the project exactly is in a second or two) whilst also acknowledging the OH MY GOD, WHAT HAVE I AGREED TO DO? nature of the endeavour. Maybe it’s just me (though, talking to friends that haven’t abandoned me because of the crazy that is just below the surface at any given moment currently, I think it’s the same for everyone who runs around wearing different work hats) but all my projects smack a bit of this. At some point I’d probably like to make some stuff in a sedate, ordered, non-seat-of-pants manner. See: PROFESSIONAL.

Just before Christmas I was told about a regeneration project which was happening in Wood Street Market, Walthamstow and it was suggested that I should pitch something. I initially scoffed a little for three practical reasons i)The occupancy of the shops was for a minimum of three months. Starting in February. That’s a LOT of shop space to fill with performance. ii) Walthamstow may well be in London but it is a London a long, long way from where I live. It’s the end of the Victoria Line for starters. And I don’t even live on a tube line. And finally iii) I’d made some sweeping statements about getting down to some serious writing in 2012, 2011 having mainly been made up of three house moves and the behemoth of taking a show to Edinburgh Fringe. I then either made a big mistake or did the right thing (depending on how you loook at it) and mentioned this to Charlie WBN and he looked at me like I was a bit daft for having any other thought about the idea. Of course we should pitch. And so I did – and then had at least one of my reservations soothed when it was suggested that there might be a system where a rolling programme of artists was created for one particular shop and, would I be interested? Yes I promptly replied (but I’d quite like to start in April). Given that we turned The Brixton Project round in six weeks (which included Christmas and New Year during which, apparently, it’s rude to make people work when you’re paying them in love and cake) anything later than mid-February would take on the sheen of all of the time. Thus when we were offered the shop for near to five weeks from the second week of April  I did a little dance around my living room. That screamed SO MUCH TIME.

And in some ways it has been. We’ve had time to curate something on a scale I’ve never quite attempted before, time to approach people we wanted to work with and cajole/ bully/ bribe them into working with us. There has been time for funding applications and for us to start working with groups in Wood Street even before we’ve got anywhere near the shop itself (just this week we held our first workshop with a class of Year Three pupils at the local primary school). There’s also been time to think about what we want Theatre41 (as we have named our shop) to be and do – both for the writers and theatre makers we’re working with and for the regeneration project and community we’re going to be part of. It sounds a bit ridiculous to say that working as part of the project to regenerate Brixton Village Market changed the way I think – I know, point and laugh, point and laugh – but it did. It made me think about my spending habits and localism and small traders versus big corporations and community – and what my role as a theatre maker might be within that (for, I have firmly concluded, we can have a role to play). I’m sure, in between the minute-by-minute blog posts peppered with capitalised words about some aspect of the project that is freaking me out, I’ll return to this subject in a less flippant manner. So time has been nice.

But also – OUR LAUNCH IS TWO WEEKS TODAY.

*blows into a paper bag*

See what I said earlier: professional.

Regardless, I have little time for sanitised blogging (read also: I’m absolutely incapable of doing it) so we’ll be documenting the process from this point onwards in all its terror, pain and (hopefully) glory.

The other thing to note is that in the expanding WBN family myself and Charlie have been officially joined by Drama Facillitator/ Theatre Maker Estelle Buckridge and Scenographer/ Theatre Maker Emily Harwood (and I’ll be making them blog here in some manner, though they don’t know it yet). That Estelle had to deal with the fallout of the whole launch-party-venue-has-flooded trauma of The Brixton Project and Emily made me a boat at 5.30am on the floor of a flat in Edinburgh last summer and they still want to work with us I shall take as a good sign.

Finally, our official programme of events is here. We’re waiting on a couple of funding/ inclusion decisions which is also why I’ve not indicated what’s happening on every day, do not worry: there will be something. Even if that something is tea and cake and over-excited chatter about theatre. There’s a couple of things we’re actively seeking writers to participate in so if you’d like to make some work for the shop see Cold Writing: The Forest or if you’ve got a short play you’d like to be read then Cold Reading might be the one for you. Any other questions, suggestions or offers of things to keep us warm – give us a shout.


Tales From Ovid: Day Eight

Let’s get something clear: I love a deadline. I think all writers secretly love a deadline (however much we moan about them and the late nights and fifty-three cups of coffee they involve). If I don’t have a deadline (self imposed or otherwise) I tend to fall into a hole of procrastination that revolves around twitter and reading blogs and watching another episode of Project Runaway when I should be writing. Deadlines are my friend.

The entire process of staging Ovid Reworked – The Brixton Project has been probably one of the biggest DEADLINES of my life (that and the fact that it has caused me to start writing certain words and phrases – like SHUTTER and SEATING CHANGE and DEADLINE in capital letters – just to emphasise the power – and fear – they hold over me at the moment). We have pretty much turned the whole project round in 8 weeks. And when you take into account that pretty much 1 and 1/2 weeks of the 8 were taken up with Christmas/New Year the fact that this is a deadline which we have not so much strolled towards as had smack us directly in the head is probably obvious.

So what do you do when you’ve had a deadline to the forehead? Well, you inflict it on other people is what you do. Which might have not exactly been the reasoning behind Cold Writing but it probably played its part. Cold Writing in a nutshell is us putting five writers into our shop in Brixton Village, having them take part in a three hour workshop, sending them away to write a short play in 48 hours, spending a day rehearsing said plays and then performing them for the public of Brixton on Friday afternoon. And that is what I call a DEADLINE.

I have to say that the cohort of writers who took part in the workshop were brilliantly enthusiastic and up-for the process, dealing admirably with both the fact that after two hours in the shop they probably couldn’t feel their feet and the fact that I had to swoop into the workshop twenty minutes after it had started to rescue Charlie who was very ill today.

Charlie’s penchant for extreme planning proved to be for the best (winging my way through a workshop after being awake for just over an hour with no plan would have been interesting to say the least). As it was I was able to work my way through Charlie’s workshop plan (albeit taking it upon myself to Corinne-ify it in parts – ie. the bit where I took everyone off to Etta’s Kitchen to have coffee because I couldn’t feel my toes any more) and I was incredibly pleased with the variety (and indeed quality) of ideas which the workshop generated. Indeed I almost wanted to have a stab at writing an adaptation in 48 hours myself (I say almost, sleep deficit is still too prevalent to allow me anything more).

Needless to say I’m really excited about reading what the five writers come up with on Wednesday night.