Awards. Dinners. Announcements.

Hello again.

I know. Back again. So soon!

We've got another flurry of updates. Again, I (Alice) will be returning to my newsreader role for the evening and handing you over to the regional correspondents with their various features...

Very excitingly, this week, we will be attending our very first awards ceremony! You can also read about our brief musical affair with the brilliant Tom Figgins and resurrecting the gorgeous Bloody Great Border Ballad. And there may be a cheeky wee announcement if you scroll down to the bottom.

But first...over to Stan.

So we may have pestered you quite a bit at the beginning of the year to nominate The Letter Room for the Journal Culture Awards. And by pestered, I suppose we may have hounded/insisted/mildly threatened. Well, it appears to have paid off, as it was announced in March that we've been Nominated for Newcomer of the Year. See the full list of nominees here. We are so thrilled, and we owe you all a big thank you for putting up with us, and taking the time to give us a little mention.

We now get to go to the ceremony at the stunning Sage Gateshead on April 16th.

Maria is very happy about it...

We are up against some pretty fierce competition, including the brilliant Alli Davies writer of OddManOut’s Weather To Fly , and Pop Recs Ltd. Frankie and the Heartstrings mint record shop in Sunderland, but we’re delighted to find ourselves up against those names.

It’s been great to be recognised by the North East cultural scene. It’s a really exciting time to be working in the region.

Best of Luck to everyone, we shall be cheering you all.

Over to...Michael!

Being as it is April, we in The Letter Room are having to face the terrifying, but also very lovely, fact that it is a year since we left Northern Stage and the North Programme. In that year we have travelled the length and breadth of England selling our wares to all that would stay to watch. We have undertaken many scary and wonderful challenges. Now begins the time where we start to tick off the events of the past one by one, musing “Can you believe it’s been a year since that?”

One recently ticked-off event was the 2013 Annual Dinner at which, you may remember, we performed some music and put together a little taster of our writing for the assorted diners and supporters.

The Annual Dinner is held every year by Northern Stage to raise awareness of, and money for, their Northern Stage at the Edinburgh Festival project, which has been held at St Stephen’s church for the last two years. Any donations given on the night help feed and house the volunteers who keep the whole ship afloat in Edinburgh. It was great to be asked to do it and help loosen the purse strings in whatever way we could. So, yes, that was over one year ago.

We aren't sad, however, as we got to tick it off in the best possible way, by being asked back to perform at the 2014 Annual Dinner. This time we weren't on our own as we were asked to perform alongside the brilliant Tom Figgens of theatre company With Wings (you may have seen their show ‘If Room Enough’ at St Stephen’s last year.

After a couple of hours of jamming in dressing room six, and a handful of sandwiches in a green room packed with a thirty-strong group of volunteers from around Newcastle (who we’d met the night before to teach a song to; which we totally knew. Obviously), we joined forces to storm the dining room in between main course and dessert to perform a section of The Great Big Bloody Border Ballad, which won “Jack Tinker Spirit of the Fringe” award in 2013. We sang and played on the stage whilst the volunteers surrounded the tables of diners to recite the final verse before a rousing chorus.

It was spine-tingling stuff for everyone involved. We don’t get as much chance to play around Northern Stage as much as we used to, and it was lovely to be back and part of something so important! So here’s to ticking off the things we did last year in the best possible way.

And we found these beauties lurking in the bar. NORTH 14, as you all will know, are our successors and it was lovely to spend the night in "NORTH" force. Even if they are better looking than us.

NORTH 14

And back to me. So dinners and frocks and frocks again for the awards ceremony on Wednesday. It's quite an overwhelming feeling being nominated and reading our name alongside the likes of actor Joe Caffrey, musicians (who play genius tunes with crisp packets) Bridie Jackson and Arbour, the delectable Dan Bye and the team behind Wet House up for best performance. We are pinching ourselves to be listed among incredible talents and are hoping we don't make any faux pas. Which is highly likely. We'll be overexcited, clumsy and probably a little nervous.

Ok.

We're nearly at the end, thank you for staying with us but we wanted to tell you exciting things. You may have already seen on our social media that we are returning to Latitude Festival with Bonenkai. We cannot wait after having such an amazing time last year and there is some mean theatre being programmed. The RSC, Forest Fringe, Forced Entertainment and loads more.

We can also confirm that we are going to Edinburgh for a full run this summer. We'll tell you the juicy details in our next post.

But before we take on the big summer festivals, we are very proud to announce we will be part of the fantastic programme at this year's GIFT festival which is returning to Gateshead for the fourth year proving it's success is growing and growing. We are presenting some development of Bonenkai. We are naming it "Bonenkai Beats" and we'll be hosting a night of music and debauchery testing out some of the music from the show and the characters you might meet in Club Bonenkai. Rehearsals start next week!

We hope you get to catch us somewhere along the road, come see the show and please do chat to us after. We love meeting new people and hearing your thoughts.

So back to the office to get our fundraising campaign on the go. We are learning all about philanthropy and private donation...it's a minefield but we are ploughing on through and of course asking all the questions. I leave you with a picture of Michael doing our admin with Alex's dog Heidi. 

How many snacks can ye spot?

Love from,

The Letter Room

A reet FEAST of a blog entry

Well goodness me. 2014 started rather quiet and thoughtful and a little daunting. But here we are, riding the waves, and in true Pinky and the Brain style, we are going to take over the world! 

Almost. 

It sort of felt like we did anyway when we travelled around the country to Stockton, West Yorkshire Playhouse and that big old capital city they call London. Yes London baby! 

So here is a feast of updates for you, as in true organisational artistic flair we seem to have a flurry of work that doesn't stop or leave you a moment to breathe and write a blog post so we've packed it all in one for you. Lucky you. Have a tea break half way through if you like. Or just scroll down and look at the pictures. I won't tell. I (Alice) shall, like a newsreader going to it's regional correspondents hand you over to some of TLR and what they had to say about recent happenings. 

So firstly I guess we should start with our new show, let you in on what's been a brewin'...

Over to MEGHAN!:

So you may or may not know that we are currently making our new show ‘Bonenkai’, it’s our first show as an independent theatre company and we cannot tell you how excited we are for this!

A little bit about ‘Bonenkai’. The title of our new show comes from a traditional Japanese party called, you guessed it... Bonenkai (see what we did there?) and it translates as ‘Forget the year gathering’. I should probably rewind 6 months and explain how we got to this. Through a lot of talking, exploring, debating, pots of tea (of the flavoured variety - thank you to the Quilliam Brothers Tea House where we’ve become regulars) we narrowed down some ideas that we were all drawn to as a group.

We found we were all interested in the raucous underground clubs and speak-easies of the 1920’s. From this we found inspiration in Isherwoods’ Berlin Stories and Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies, we were drawn to the flawed characters, the excess and the desire to leave the outside world behind. We started exploring the idea of partying to forget and that’s how we came across Bonenkai.

Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories

Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies

We then had a two week of Research and Development period, where the lovely Customs House and Live Theatre each took us in.  

We can’t thank them enough for sharing their space with us. They made us feel truly at home and we felt extremely lucky and proud to be making work in these buildings so thank you again. Through exploring many things (including tap dancing, live music and a loop pedal!) we started to find the context, characters and story for our show.

A ridiculous game of grandma's footsteps including a lap dancing obstacle.

Alex and Maria teaching us how to tap dance.

Here’s a little sneak peak:

Today is a day to forget everything. An unforgettable celebration of forgetting. And it has to be a party.

Our piece is set in Club Bonenkai and it’s a place where people go to forget, it provides a service for those with a need. Club Bonenkai is magnificent, idyllic, feral and riotous. It's inhabited by a band of Grotesques, they're part of the furniture. They're the ones who came, never left and have been forgetting ever since.

We want the show to be an event with original live music and tap dancing.

Tap dancin' feets

Over to Alex!:

So I’m guessing when you heard tap dancing and loop pedal mentioned you got very excited, and right you were to do so!

The Letter Room are always looking for new ways to tell stories as well as wanting to share our individual skills as performers with the rest of the company. So when Maria and Alex mentioned they could tap dance we just had to get it in the show. As our show is inspired by the raucous nature of the 1920’s we could not help notice the vibrancy of the dance styles of the period and we want to let this influence our movements in the piece. We also want to use tap to enhance our music with its percussion (who needs drums eh?!) and in this way give a nod to the 20’s whilst also adding our own modern TLR spin.

This brings me to the loop pedal, Meghan’s precious new toy. 

*Rousing choral music*

Now OBVIOUSLY this is one of the best things since sliced bread and is so much fun to play with; but I shan’t go on about that too much because as we know, rehearsal rooms are not for fun... The loop pedal has allowed TLR to create a new sound for Bonenkai and by layering unconventional lines of music we have already begun to assemble an album of material for the show. As you may already know, live music is a massive part of what The Letter Room do and having this nifty little device will allow us to explore this even further, we’ve still got loads of ideas and things to try with the loop pedal so we can’t wait to see how it all turns out!

Anyhoo you’ll be hearing a lot more about the show in upcoming weeks, also, expect an invitation to the first ever preview of our show later in the year, but we’ll stay hushed on that. We may already have said too much!

We then whacked some of these ideas together, put on our dancing shoes (tap shoes to be precise) and hit the road with our scratch performance.

Over to GEORGE!:

All this scratching is making me itch.

We’ve decided we love scratching. It’s really mint actually. Last month we took work from our brand spanking new show ‘Bonenkai’ to some fantastic scratch nights across the north east, to experiment with some of our new writing and to play with our shiny loop pedal. In our exciting mini-tour of scratches we performed at; 'First in three' at Northern Stage, Stockton ARC's 'Arcade Scratch' and 'The playground' at The West Yorkshire Playhouse to some fantastic audiences with lots of useful and constructive feedback.

Those creepy shadows outside WYP...that be us.

Scratching is great. If you're an emerging company with new work that your unsure about, or indeed work that your completely and utterly confident in, we highly recommend having a good old scratch. An outside eye during rehearsals can sometimes be invaluable, at scratch nights you get like twenty outside eyes for nothing, and they usually have a load of constructive feedback to offer you and everyone knows that feedback opens loads a lovely creative doors for you to peruse at your leisure. Annnnd you get to see a cacophony of other delightful works in progress, remember to share the love and give them any useful thoughts or feedback you have to offer.

So don't be shy or snobby, get yourself down to a scratch night near you and put the 'progress' into 'work in progress'. Cheeky little pun for you there.

Aaaand back to me in the Studio. So our scratchin' ended up with a very exciting end. We ventured from our beloved North...

 We headed South at the start of March to take part in the very exciting Les Enfants Terribles Award Showcase. Over 100 theatre companies applied to the award which supports new and emerging companies planning to go to the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time. Les Enfants mentor the artists and help with a little cash flow so the winning lucky lot head to The Pleasance (one of THE hubs of the festival!) and take the world by storm.* 

(*this is not a demand of the award, but inevitable, surely?)

So we were bloody chuffed to be shortlisted along with 8 other companies and were invited to share our work in progress of our new show "Bonenkai". There was some live music, some tap dancing, some swearing, an incredibly creepy bearded fella and some serious beats and dance moves. 

We departed our home, and irritated coach D of a southbound east coast HST (High Speed Train thank you) like over excited 6 year olds high on haribo and planned how we were going to pitch the show to the programmer of The Pleasance and Oli and James from Les Enfants. We spent a sunny sunday afternoon in a garden full of parakeets. Yes parakeets. Apparently years ago they escaped from Greenwich Zoo and have bred in the local area ever since.

Simon and Garfunkel

Looks so posed. Really isn't. 

Writing pitches

Writing tunes

We rehearsed, wrote some music and ate monster munch and come Monday morning we landed at The Pleasance Theatre in Islington. Greeted by some incredibly lovely staff and a labrador with short legs we were in and out to tech our 10mins of Bonenkai.

Indi the adorable pleasance lab

Holed up in a dressing room for the rest of the day we paced, ate fish finger sandwiches, rehearsed, re-rehearsed, re-directed and honed our 10 minutes of work. And then we had to wait. And then we had to watch the other companies, which was thrilling and daunting and incredibly thought provoking. Everyone was so very different, and so very talented and we got to all meet after the showcase, which for us, was what the night was all about. Being in another building, out of our comfort zone, being these unknown Northerners in a theatre foyer in North London having something to say and something to champion to a room full of artists and programmers, producers and writers, family and friends. 

We should mention, that the heart stopping moment of the night was the announcement of the winner. Which was the very well deserved Human Zoo, who presented a visceral, poetic and visually stunning 10 minute work in progress. They did some incredibly slick movement with some really cool LED frames. I think I definitely gasped and then mouthed "that is so cool". So keep an eye out for them in Edinburgh.

And that was our first London adventure together. To be on stage at The Pleasance Islington, savouring our 10 minutes of performance in front of a warm and supportive audience, and some chin scratchers, was to say the least...probably one of the most exhilarating 10 minutes yet! We had so much fun introducing people to Bonenkai. And what is absolutely joyous for us is the people we are meeting along the way who are already so supportive of us, championing the show and it's ideas and nagging us to get it to Edinburgh. And that we shall.

"selfie" documenting hysteria on arrival

So thank you to The Pleasance and LET award, for the time and the space and the words and the laughs and for believing in a band of rogues raving on a stage. 

Stay tuned for another blog feast very soon. We've lots of exciting things to announce. 

with love from

The Letter Room