Get Brecht: Theatre and the various performing arts (no mimes plz)
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Scout wrote:While you're there Kaz and doling out advice can I badger you for some more... I mentioned earlier that I'd had a Play Pie Pint on a few years back. Since then I've written a second but they knocked it back. I thought I was getting it on in a small pub theatre in London called The White Bear but it's looking like they've messed me around now and it's not happening. So really I'm asking for any advice on where I can go with it next. I'm mostly a screenwriter so I have practically no contacts or experience in the world of theatre (outside of Oran Mor). Should I be speaking to Playwright Studio Scotland, NTS, or trying to get it to theatre companies? Any advice much appreciated!
Happy to help if it's useful!
Playwrights Studio Scotland are a great outfit, and definitely worth contacting if it's something you want to follow up with long-term. Their mentoring and workshop programmes have an excellent reputation, and they'd be very well placed to advise you going forward. They're currently stuck in temporary offices since the Art School burned down, but still very much going strong.
The Traverse, Scotland's new writing theatre, is currently running open submissions (until end of Sep), so it might be worth submitting the script to them? They may not be in a position to offer feedback if it's not selected, so it might feel a little like shouting into the void, but it's worth having a read and going for it.
Might also be worth having a look at the Tron in Glasgow, who are also very dedicated to supporting and developing new writers. They run a series of writing workshops and courses, and also put on two 'scratch nights' each year for short artistic ideas to be worked out in front of an audience.
And also keep an eye on our own Engine Room programme of events. It's a fairly new model of talent development, taking place all around the country, with something for everyone. There's a dedicated writers development programme as well, so it's well worth submitting your script to the Artistic Development team for feedback and anything else that they may have to offer.
Hopefully helpful, always happy to chat more in depth at some point if you'd fancy it. -
Thanks Kaz. That's all very helpful and much appreciated. I'll look into all those options. Thanks again!
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Went and watched this at The Lowry tonight:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/aug/19/freeman-review-pleasance-courtyard-edinburgh-fringe-festival
Absolutely wonderful piece of work and stunning performances from all 6 actors. My first ever theatre experience too.
Even if one of the yank accents was lol -
Watched Death of a Salesman ay the Royal Exchange yesterday, with Don Warrington.
This theatre shit is a bit good innit -
Telt ye lad. Not a play I've ever seen, mind, but it'll be a classic for a reason.
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I had to study that at school, along with An Inspector Calls. As a schoolkid, I did not appreciate theatre. -
I went to see Hadestown at the National Theatre at the weekend. For those that haven't heard of it, it's based on Anais Mitchell's concept album from 2010 of the same name - which itself was an adaptation of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. (And which, technically, was a stage production first, albeit a much smaller affair than it is now). It was adapted into an off-Broadway musical in 2016, and has been re-jigged again for the run at the National.
It's great. If I see anything that is it's equal this year it'll be a good year indeed.
I wasn't entirely sure going in. I like the original album a lot, but when I tried to picture it in my head as a stage play, I felt it didn't really work as the second half of the record loses a fair bit of momentum. (Arguably quite deliberately, and on a record that's fine. In a stage show, not so much.) That problem has been well and truly fixed.
There are a bunch of additional songs, which raise the whole thing up, and make the ending suddenly work magnificently. So much so that when Orpheus does what he always does in this story, there were still audible gasps from the audience.
For fans of the record, wondering what those additional songs are like - there's a version on Spotify of the 2016 Broadway version that has a lot of them, though it's worth saying that they've changed a lot since then again and, pleasingly, all the album tracks that were dropped for the 2016 version are reinstated for this. (God knows why they thought it made sense to do Hadestown without "Wedding Song" - but it's back now.)
The staging is bang on - the band's on stage throughout (and at least partly consists of the cast), contributing to the feeling that despite the knowledge of imminent doom, everyone's having a party anyway. Most of the performances are great too, particularly Hades, Persephone and Hermes (the latter played by Andre de Shields - the original Wiz, and a man who, at the age of 72, must be the god of something to remain so insanely cool.)
Why We Build The Wall gets an inevitable airing, and feels more depressingly relevant than ever.
It's not quite perfect though. Orpheus doesn't really work, he's a little too wet, and compared to those around him he doesn't seem particularly believable as a renowned poet and musician. It's as if the guy from The Script walked into a New Orleans jazz club and expected everyone to stop playing and listen to him.
None the less. It's brilliant, and the whole show's a Damn Good Time. Not sure how much longer it's on for, though I guess not long as it''s apparently moving to Broadway in March... -
I've been hearing a lot of good things about Hadestown recently. Safe to say it's the hot ticket down there at the moment- the rest of the run at the National is sold-out, so no chance of catching it for me. I've worked with the director on a previous project and she's an interesting one, so glad to see this has landed well.
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Kazuo wrote:I've been hearing a lot of good things about Hadestown recently. Safe to say it's the hot ticket down there at the moment- the rest of the run at the National is sold-out, so no chance of catching it for me. I've worked with the director on a previous project and she's an interesting one, so glad to see this has landed well.
Hadn't realised it was quite such a hot ticket (we booked seats ages ago as I'm a fan of the album). I'm not surprised though, on reflection. It was a packed house, and clearly went down well - the cast ended up having to silence the audience at the end because the standing ovation was going on too long and they had another song to do... -
So the world is in lockdown, a dangerous pandemic is tearing through countries at a startling rate, and life as we know it won't be back to normal for a very long time to come. I'm sure you'll agree, it's all pretty... dramatic.
Feels a little weird to say, especially on a day where they've announced the unprecedented decision to cancel all of the Edinburgh festivals, but it's also arguably a very good time to take in some theatre.
A lot of companies have quickly embraced the new digital world we're stuck in, and so all of a sudden there's a great deal of quality theatre, opera, ballet, and the like available to stream in the comfort of your own home. If you're someone who has never been able to afford to take in a big starry production, liked the look of something that was on in a city at the other end of the country, or are just plain bored of Netflix then maybe give something a go. Some choice highlights here for suggestion.
- Starting 2nd April The National Theatre are putting some of their celebrated NT Live shows on Youtube. One a week for 7 days, starting with *shudder* James Corden vehicle One Man, Two Guvnors. Their Twelfth Night with Tamsin Greig however, dropping on the 23rd, is absolutely sublime.
- Similarly, from 6th April The Globe will be streaming a free Shakespeare play every fortnight. They'll also be making 34 foreign language productions of Shakey's plays, with English subs, available for free. Hamlet in Lithuanian? A Korean Midsummer Night's Dream? Yes please.
- Sticking with foreign language muck, Berlin's trail-blazing Schaubühne Theatre is opening up recordings of its productions every day. Not all of them have English subs, but their Richard III, available on Friday, is among the best productions I've ever seen live, so worth a punt.
- Hate Shakespeare? Fear not, places like the Royal Court might have you covered. Last-year's mega hit production Cyprus Avenue, starring esteemed "that guy" Stephen Rhea as an Ulster Unionist who comes to believe his baby granddaughter is Gerry Adams, is on Youtube until 26 April.
That's the tip of the iceberg. Companies currently have you covered for opera, ballet, dance, or more fringe offerings, and more are jumping on the bandwagon every day. I might come back and update this if anything meaty and interesting pops up. So hey, enrich your cultural life a little. And if you don't like it, well, at least we're in lockdown so you can't take it out on me. Nyah. -
Nice post Kaz, thanks. Not quite as classy but worth a mention, Cirque Du Soleil have put up an hour long performance on YT:
https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/cirqueconnect
And for those with smaller badgers, there’s CBeebies versions of some classics:
The Tempest:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09xjby9/cbeebies-presents-cbeebies-the-tempest
A Midsummer Night’s Dream:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b078jltg/cbeebies-presents-a-midsummer-nights-dreamiosGameCentre:T3hDaddy;
XBL: MistaTeaTime -
Thanks for the posts Kaz and Daddy. I'll definitely be checking some of these out.
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Apparently 189,000 people are currently watching the NT's One Man, Two Guvnors. Small fry compared to TV figures, but the kind of numbers to make anyone running a theatre company faint.
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People will be looking at the potential of a subs-based streaming service for performing arts after this is over, right? Netflix for theatre, opera and dance.
Someone’s already offering that, surely? -
There is a service called Digital Theatre that purports to offer something like that: https://www.digitaltheatre.com/consumer
And there's a similar thing called Opera Vision which is well stocked. But yes, this might open a few minds to the prospect once we're out of this.
Part of the problem is that it is prohibitively expensive to get theatre productions filmed to broadcast quality. And that's why these kind of things will always skew towards big Broadway shows or star vehicles, because they can afford to do it.
In the NTS' 15-year history, for instance, there have only been 4 shows recorded like that, and it was only possible when signing up with support from external partners like the BBC. As such it's currently a minefield trying to get the rights for us to put up something like Black Watch, which would likely do numbers to rival an NT Live show, purely because it's tricky negotiating who has the rights. It's a bit of a shame. -
As an aside, the Grun have done a great job pulling together a comprehensive and ever-updating list of great shows available, with far more variety than Inwas able to highlight: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/mar/17/hottest-front-room-seats-the-best-theatre-and-dance-to-watch-online
One to pick out from that list for parents might be Tim Crouch's I, Cinna, which is a spin-off from Julius Caesar focusing on the eponymous poet, and serves as a really interesting option for kids to teach them a little about history, Shakespeare, and poetry in one fell swoop. A snip at 40 mins too. -
I know that the Grosvenor semi-regularly screens live feeds from the National Theatre, as other cinemas do. Absolutely no reason those performances couldn’t be streamed to homes (for a price) since they’re being filmed anyway.
(Sorry, I know you mentioned that already, NT Live. Just saying they could be opened up beyond cinemas, I suppose.) -
poprock wrote:I know that the Grosvenor semi-regularly screens live feeds from the National Theatre, as other cinemas do. Absolutely no reason those performances couldn’t be streamed to homes (for a price) since they’re being filmed anyway. (Sorry, I know you mentioned that already, NT Live. Just saying they could be opened up beyond cinemas, I suppose.)
I would worry about that, democratisation and increased access are all good, but we've seen how Spotfy has completely devalued music, and a theatre production has far greater overheads than an album. Not trying to chip-piss but it does concern me. At least at the pictures people are actually paying a fee so the production the like is the one that gets supported, not just the most popular one that all recommendation algorithms will find themself passing through"I spent years thinking Yorke was legit Downs-ish disabled and could only achieve lucidity through song" - Mr B -
To be fair, I don’t know what the audience is for any of this. I wouldn’t watch theatre at home. I’d go to the fucking theatre.
Maybe an audience is out there though. -
With the amount of sapre hours people have at the minute I reckon you could sell anything that offers a hint of entertainment"I spent years thinking Yorke was legit Downs-ish disabled and could only achieve lucidity through song" - Mr B
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Any fans of Fleabag out there, for the next three weeks you can watch Phoebe Waller-Bridge's stage version via Soho Theatre for the princely sum of £4. That's about 1/5 what you would have paid to watch the NT Live broadcast in a cinema, and roughly 1% of what some
peoplerich idiots will have paid to watch the fucking thing live in a theatre last year, with the added bonus that your pennies go to various NHS related charities rather than the bottomless pockets of some West End producer. Win/win. -
Oooh, nice!Come with g if you want to live... -
Here’s a shared Google spreadsheet of free theatre performance streams. Constantly updated, just scroll down to today onwards and see if anything takes your fancy.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1JC9gQn8-e_hL6vZGPBENdt_a3QEkcZVmbi3rv4_xNzE/htmlview?usp=sharing
Quite a bit of good stuff from The Met Opera, for starters. -
poprock wrote:Here’s a shared Google spreadsheet of free theatre performance streams. Constantly updated, just scroll down to today onwards and see if anything takes your fancy. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1JC9gQn8-e_hL6vZGPBENdt_a3QEkcZVmbi3rv4_xNzE/htmlview?usp=sharing Quite a bit of good stuff from The Met Opera, for starters.
That's a heck of a list, thanks! (Thanks to Kaz too - Twelfth Night is marked on our calendar...) -
Should have mentioned, I got that list from Arts Emergency, who are a bloody marvellous charity and well worth looking into supporting if you’re in the creative industries.
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Just noticed that the RSC's smash hit production of Romeo & Juliet from 2018 is currently up on the iPlayer for the next few months. It comes highly recommended, and the lead actress Karen Fishwick is a lovely person to boot.
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Both versions of Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein stage production will be on YouTube from next week for about a week:
https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/nt-at-home-frankenstein
iosGameCentre:T3hDaddy;
XBL: MistaTeaTime -
The Daddy wrote:Both versions of Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein stage production will be on YouTube from next week for about a week: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/nt-at-home-frankenstein
That's eactly what I was trying to remember that I was supposed to post here. Not seen myself but I know a few who have and they say it's bloody great"I spent years thinking Yorke was legit Downs-ish disabled and could only achieve lucidity through song" - Mr B
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