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 called ‘Incubator’ at the University of Leeds which includes a research and development phase for which this call out is particularly relevant.  This is a real opportunity for the right performer to make a significant contribution to this company’s aesthetic and working practice.

In January 2011 we are hosting workshops to ‘meet and greet’ interested performers who would like to collaborate on future projects. These will take place in Leeds during the week commencing 17^th January at ‘The Hub’ (exact dates and timings to be confirmed).

We’re interested in meeting performers who have an interest in or experience of improvisation and devising. Our devising process requires a high level of commitment. We are looking for self motivated, hard working individuals who can bring plenty of ideas and raw material to the table. Sensitivity to music and sound in a theatrical context and the ambient/atmospheric possibilities of live performance would be attractive to us. 

We’re also interested in working with performers who have backgrounds in - live art, visual art, film, physical theatre, dance, music, multi-media - though the priorities outlined above remain paramount.

We would especially like to work with those who, as well as performing, are willing to take on other administrative/management/technical/creative roles within the company and, more generally, folk who take responsibility and value team work. Professional mentoring is a feature of the development scheme that the company are participating in. Support and guidance will be forthcoming for individuals who take on additional roles and some training may be available.

Please send your CV to Joanne Hartley jlh@nctheatre.co.uk by 17.00 on 12^th January if you would like to express your interest in this opportunity and are available to attend the workshops w/c 17^th January. If you are not able to attend the workshops at this time but would still like to get in touch, please feel free to do so.  We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/pci/Incubator.html

I graduated yesterday, gown and ceremony, proud parents and partner and all that. Such a peculiar yet satisfying thing to do. Ceremony is perhaps underrated. 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' scheme. This means that over twelve months the company will be mentored by an industry professional and by the School of Performance and Cultural Industries. We'll also have a couple of public performances and some funding for production costs. It's a very exciting step. When I look at what we achieved in March this year in only a few weeks it makes the possibility of a year's work seem quite awesome. At the moment I feel a bit 'rabbit in the headlights' about it. I have a few niggling doubts but I am not succumbing to them right now. I am trying to have a bit of a break before I embark on twelve months of hard work.

In January NCT has a week booked in at 'The Hub' which is Slung Low's home on the outskirts of Leeds City Centre. We're going to do some preliminary work on Elephant in the Room and a workshop/series of workshops to make connections with other theatre artists in the area.

Then we're spending a week at Theatre in the Mill at the very end of January/early February. They have an 'open space' programme where we can use their rehearsal facilities and hopefully have interaction with the community there. We may also get some advice/feedback/steer from Iain Bloomfield who runs the place. I've had a request recently for copy to go in their brochure so we'll also be mentioned in their publicity material which is great as I know their PR is good.

So, lots happening. And I'm still editing Whatsonstage.com and working three days per week.

I spoke to one of my lecturers at the graduation ceremony yesterday and he mentioned that he'd checked in on the blog. It surprised me that he knew about it and was reading. I'd love to know who those of you who are reading are so please do leave a comment if you've checked in and read this post.

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 found it very difficult to establish a new routine. Eventually I had two weeks of disruptive migraine which forced me to slow down and lie down, followed by yet more illness (i will spare you the details) before I came back to any state of normality. And even this new normality feels wierd.

I'm hoping that a massage and a haircut and a facial (seriously - i look like I've had a very hard life right now) will help me feel like I have turned a page. That and the assessment results I am expecting in the next day or so...

In other news:

I've taken over as editor of the Yorkshire region's Whatsonstage.com - have a look at the work we do : http://www.whatsonstage.com/northeast

I've put Northern Creative Theatre forward for a couple of development opportunities. Fingers crossed and watch this space for news about these.

I met with Dean Murray yesterday about a future plan for Northern Creative Theatre and from our discussion it seems that we're on the same page and that he's interested in committing on an ongoing basis to the company. There's still some bedding in to be done with NCT. For a long time NCT has been something I've done singularly with the support of various associate artists but I have decided that it's time to share the load and to open up to a core team.

Roles are yet to be decided. I want this process to be organic. I truly believe that the right people will emerge when the time is right. Dean is the first and I hope there will be others. Discussions with other interested parties including Jonnie Khan and Ruth Marston are pending. As this is a large committment and because there isn't any funding/pay at the moment it is essential that individuals are doing what they want to do, rather than what needs to be done or what they ought to do. It is also essential that the creative/aesthetic aims and artistic policy chime with objectives and ethos of whoever comes on board.

In the meantime I'm working on progressing the creative work, gathering together the necessary people and finding a space to work in.

I have a little bit of fear. Could it be that I've made myself so busy that there's no time/space to actually continue developing my craft as a writer? Have I deliberately filled my life to avoid writing? Not because I don't love it, but because I'm afraid of it and what happens when I do it?

But I also feel bold and courageous. The work I'm doing with NCT will spur me to find my groove as a writer. NCT activity provide/inspire a brief. NCT will allow me to find new ways and approaches to writing.

Here's the artistic policy:

Northern Creative Theatre are a theatrical think tank who employ new approaches to new writing by blending traditional play writing with experimental technique.

Story and character form the foundation of Northern Creative Theatre’s work ensuring that it remains accessible as they innovate with structure, style, form and process; their objective to explore play writing and the role of the writer in contemporary theatre performance.

north·ern

Adjective

1. situated in or towards the north

2. native to or growing in the north.

cre·a·tive

Adjective

1. having the ability or power to create.

2. productive; creating.

3. characterized by originality and expressiveness

Noun

1.  one who displays productive originality

2.  an assumption breaking process

the·a·tre
Noun
1. A sphere or scheme of operation

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 running on adrenaline and now, as it subsides, tiredness is creeping in.

For me it feels like a big shift. A momentous change!

But everyone else is ‘normal’ and unaware of the strange mix of exhilaration, relief, sense of victory and apprehension for the future that I’m experiencing.

What will I do now?

The MA has been in virtually every waking thought.

Will I still have the discipline to write now that the framework of the MA has been taken away?

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 closer to the deadline I simply do not have time to attend to those intrusive critical thoughts; I become much more selective in what I do, and do not, listen to from inside my own brain.

My inner critic is a blessing as well as a curse. Yes, I am last minute, but, because of the critic my standards are also high. There's no way on earth that I'm going to allow myself to hand in sloppy work. 

However, somehow or other I have written a first draft of my dissertation, one whole month in advance of the deadline. I set myself a false deadline and forced myself to write a certain amount each day and voilà! A first draft! 

So, this first draft of my dissertation combined with the first draft of my play (which I forced myself to write when I realised that my supervisor wouldn't have a clue what I was talking about unless I showed him an actual play, written in actual words, on an actual page) puts me in a position I haven't ever been in before...that of someone working on a second draft.

How on earth do I write a second draft? I feel so naive even just asking the question. I can imagine the professional people around me tut-tutting and asking me how I can even consider myself one iota a playwright, having only ever written draft one of a play before.

Worse still - some of my plays have been performed and people have paid to watch them.

The shame!

I do know of other writers who write only one draft and who put together plays very quickly. Noel Coward's 'Hayfever' was famously written in less than a week and not a word has been changed since. Phyllis Nage writes her plays in one six or seven day sitting - though she writes them in her head first and this can take a year or more. 

Anyhow. Here I am, for the first time ever, working on a second draft. And it isn't easy at all. I have asked around and my Playwright friend Sarah (@wordweave for those of you on twitter) has made these suggestions : 

Ask yourself : 

Exposition - where is it & can you show it better ? does it serve a function? is there a vital piece of info missing? 

Protagonist - is it clear whose story this is? where is it not? does that work for the play 

 &

Write out scene titles for the whole piece then decide a main action title - are there any gaps? does this make it apparent any one character needs more to do? 

(Thanks Sarah)

And Gary Henderson suggests the following when moving from a first draft to subsequent drafts:

1. Summarise the play in a single paragraph. This is not the play blurb or teaser, but what actually happens in the play.

2. Say what is the play about in a single word. Like, "solitude" or "desire" or "family". This is the theme of the play.

3. Using that word, state what you are trying to say, as short and pithy as possible. eg "Desire will kill you". This is the dramatic premise, which you must know why you believe in order to write the play.

I found Gary's wisdom on Renee Liang's blog.

So, armed with these suggestions and with the feedback I've gathered from numerous other people (thanks Supriya, Laurence, Sarah, Anna Clarkson, Harold Kimmel,James, Mum and Belle) I shall venture onto this unknown territory and see what happens next...

I have to hand the drafts to my supervisor on Friday so its going to be a very busy couple of days.

'...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 series in the original span of time. Proof of this lies in the psychological experience of dreams where we relive whole experiences often in a few seconds.'

'the future,therefore, is not 'imperfectly anticipated'; it is known (or at least knowable), and this fact greatly enhances the aesthetic experience.

'Bergson has defined the experience of time as 'the continuous progress of the past, which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advances.' His concept of duration is similar in that it is 'a series of qualitative changes which melt into and permeate one another without precise outlines.'

'Thus Bergson gets away from the usual trimodal conception of time with its past future and present which have as little relation to true time as the points on our clocks which divide time into seconds, minutes and hours. These have only practical significance and have no relation to the qualitative conception of the time experience.'

Fleming, W. The Newer Concepts of Time and Their Relation to the Temporal Arts - The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Dec., 1945), pp. 101-106 Published by: Blackwell Publishing

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 would detract from the visceral and the visual impact of my work!

Through out the MA there has been a tension. Something about the way we've been taught hasn't felt right for me and I've not been able to pin down exactly what the problem has been. I'm not sure I will fully understand until after the course is over (its not meant to be fun after all) but at the moment I am experiencing a sense of clarity and freedom because I feel understood. Could it be that the mainstream aims of the course have jarred more significantly that I've allowed myself to contemplate? I've certainly been angry and frustrated at times when I've craved freedom and experimentation and what I've been faced with are format and convention and rules. 

When I attended D&D North East this year I spoke of some of my frustrations to Phelim McDermott and he advised me to use my frustration and anger in my work. At the time it sounded like good advice but I didn't fully understand. Now I think I know exactly what Phelim was talking about.

Experiencing encouragement and understanding when I've produced something using only my gut instincts has been like rain clouds clearing. Now it feels like I'm open to vast possibilities and I can simply be myself in my writing and approach. 

I feel like throwing all the 'how to' books out of the window!

I have two more drafts of my script to write. I'm not even going to refer to the initial draft when I write the next one. I'm going to take a deep breath, switch off my brain and dive in at the deep end. If there's anything worth retaining from the first draft it will be residual in my subconscious and make it through to draft two.

The next part of the submission is the almighty 8,000 word thesis that will explain the theoretical framework for my writing. 

There is method in my madness.

The content is written from my gut, yes, but the frame for that content, the structure of the piece, the character development work and research have all been undertaken in a logical way and for logical (well to me anyway) reasons.

I have to explain my logic. This is what the 8,000 words are for and this is where the frustration comes in handy and can be used to drive my argument. I have to make myself understood! The play is complex and unintelligible so my explanation and justification have to be clear. And my desire to be understood is even stronger because I haven't been up till now.

I've decided that i'm going to blog (maybe a little, maybe a lot) about the process of writing my 8,000 words (thanks to Grace for the suggestion). What or how or why will become apparent as I write I think. 

Ok, for starters I offer you this...

Our notion of past, present and future is 'a priori' which means learned without experience. Could it be that past, present and future is actually an ordering system that we apply to something more complex? Could past future and present help us make sense of our lives when really we exist in a non-linear chaos?

I'll leave you to ponder this for now...

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 where there is loads of incoherent stuff that doesn't have a form.

Then a penny drops and all the chaos finds its form (a eureka moment) (often still chaotic but something i can see and hear on the imaginary stage in my head, something that works theatrically, sometimes a 'device'.).

I find the story in the chaos and bring it out (pull it out).

I try to get the incoherent stuff on the page somehow, if it’s difficult it’s because something isn't working. 

I try to figure what isn't working. Once I've established what is 'wrong' I can work out what to do to move it on to next stage.

The figuring and establishing and working out is quite subconscious and comes about when I'm relaxed

.

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. I don't work well when I'm scrunched up, tense and stiff. Prioritising moving around and Tai Chi is keeping me on the right track.

Chanting really helps (Na Myo Ho Renge Kyo - for the uninitiated). Seriously. I'm feeling it now in a way I haven't ever before. I need it. When I don't do it I get fog in my head and the drone of 'I can't do it' starts up in my brain and it’s a slippery slope to fear and panic. Since I increased the time spent chanting each day my work has really developed and three flowers on my Peace Lily have come out, which I'm taking as encouragement from the environment.

Trying to work for very long periods of time is counter productive and beating myself up for not working more each day is even more so. I have been doing a time audit and it seems that I have a lengthy morning routine that I have to get through before I settle into work. I seem to work best in the afternoon, particularly when I have to read something. There have been periods where I've been very productive in the evening (usually in the run up to a deadline). I seem to get words on the page better in the evening.

750 words of script per day seem achievable for me on a first draft.

I'm getting in about 3 or 4 hours of work per focused day on average at the moment. I think this will increase as the deadline gets closer. But I'm quite happy with this as a moderately relaxed working speed.

I'm managing 3 focused days per week at this moderately relaxed pace.

I don't work well on the days when I have to go to day job - but I can do bits and pieces of admin/research on these days, go to supermarket and do chores.

I’m thinking about it 75% of the time so am making progress even when I’m not hugely focused. I am managing to remind myself that this is work and it does count. As the days go by the project is developing even if I’m pretty hands off.

Perhaps I’m not quite as bad as I believed I was. Yes, it does come together at the last minute, but there’s a huge amount of preparation in advance of that. I am very committed to that preparation. I think it pays off and helps things to slot together when it’s closer to the deadline.

Long preparation and not committing too early really gives the project time to breath.

I write in a condensed/concentrated way to start off with. I start with something small and compact and then ‘pull it out’ (imagine unravelling a big pile of tightly tangled wool).

I am generally happier and more productive when there’s a healthy mix of social interaction in my week/day. Keeping my self in my flat is counter productive.

I check my emails/twitter/facebook accounts far too often and these are a real thief of my time.

The ‘eureka’ moments and the surges of intense motivation come about a week before the deadline. So I need to learn to break projects in to bits and have a series of very real deadlines leading up to a final deadline to make sure I’m in good shape for the final big push.

I need to find a way to trick myself into believing the weight of my own interim deadlines. Determining in front of Gohonzon helps.