Some Strange Scribblings

A quick glance into our heads. The work of pure, beautiful poets? Or the work of disturbed, babbling idiots? Well, I think a little a bit of column A and a little bit of Column B.

But enjoy...

Love from the NOFFICE

North_NS

Rehearsal: Week 1

Hey there,

Stan here, taking over blogging duties for this week. Notice anything different? Alice spent the weekend making our blog look stylish and sexy: two words that we feel really sum up North. (Note: we really don’t think that!)

So, where are we at right now I hear you cry! Well, good reader, our show “The Man Who Thought the Moon Would Fall Out of the Sky” went into full-time rehearsal this week. We’ve been working at the People’s Theatre, where our little North adventure all began, only back then we were part of a group of 30 wonderfully talented Auditionees. It really highlighted what a wealth of talent there is in the region, and what exciting times there are ahead for the North East.

On Tuesday, we all went to the fascinating Tyne and Wear Archives & Museums to explore and research. We found the most incredible scrapbook, which is a source of inspiration for our show, about life in the North of England in the 19^th century. We worked our way through songs, recipes, poems, scandals, murder enquiries, pirate invasions, bank collapses, coalition policies. It just shows how, in some ways, life now isn't all that different from life then (though I appreciate there hasn’t been many recorded pirate invasions in recent times).

However, on the way back we nearly lost a member of North, and if it wasn’t for the Spiderman-like reflexes of Michael Blair, Meghan Doyle would definitely have been smooshed by a car. Stop, look and listen kids!

Does whatever a spider can.

Wednesday saw us return to the Maria-Crocker-Stomping-Ground that is Arc in Stockton to see the 154 Collective’s “Dancing with the Orange Dog". It’s incredible to see so many artists from so many disciplines coming together to make a show. This was proper collaboration. If it’s coming your way, check it out. The car ride home in Alex’s little jeep also provided many giggles.

Dancing with the Orange Dog

Then, on Thursday we were joined by the wonderful Anna, who was on work-experience and got to see the insanity of North first hand (lucky her). At 16 she was putting us to shame with her writing skills and her story-telling, and she’s just set up her own theatre company, Northern Kaos, collaborating with a group of young people to make exciting and original theatre. Remember the name!

Friday saw us begin to grow our story and take it to all sorts of different places. We all sat around telling stories of a man’s life according to a suitcase of his belongings. I won’t give too much away, but the show almost hit a stumbling block when George and Alice couldn’t even open the suitcase, despite three attempts. Fail well, my friends. Fail well.

Alice: Take 17

Love from the NOFFICE

North_NS

5 minutes with: Phil Clark

Alice here, just dipping in for a guest post but it's a massively exciting one. North are being spoiled by meeting lots of theatre makers, decision makers and all round creative geniuses across the region. In the past few weeks we kept being told about the thriving community of artists in 70s/80s Newcastle. People fondly talk of how alive, political and community driven companies were prospering in the city. One in particular, Bruvvers; a successful company taking popular theatre to the community for more than 35 years.  If that's not an inspiration for NORTH building a future together then I don't know what is! 

So I decided to grab 5 minutes with Artistic Director and co-founder of Bruvvers Phil Clark and chat to him about how his work with Bruvvers has shaped his career, what it meant to him at the time, his views on the cultural identity of the North East (particularly in the current political climate) and his top tips to a new company starting out. He gave me some honest and brilliant answers, a man with a lot of care, thought and heart. He has just opened the national tour of "Horrible Histories", The Vile Victorians and The Terrible Tudors. A regular at the Southwold Summer Theatre, previous Artistic Director at the Sherman Theatre and Crucible Theatre and a proud promoter of working with people like us, Phil has always supported and worked  on several youth programmes. If you want to know more, have a look at the kind of work he's doing here or have a read of his blog. Anyway enough background, here beginneth the interview...

How did Bruvvers begin their journey?                         

Bruvvers was the brainchild of Mike Mould...and still is...40 years on. His vision was clear. After working in various theatres in the 60s Mike wanted to create a theatre company that was dedicated to new writing and the work would be performed in non-theatre venues and created collectively by Artists.


When Bruvvers began would you say you were part of a very politically driven artistic community?

We established the company in Byker in the early 70s, our immediate community was Byker and the east end of Newcastle. We all lived there and created the work there. We toured it throughout the North East. Newcastle was thriving with Community Theatre and Theatre In Education companies. It was a very exciting time. There was always a healthy rivalry between us all. In those days there was Live Theatre, Mad Bongo, Uncle Ernies, Wearabout, Tynewear TIE , Stagecoach, Them Wifies, Cleveland Theatre Company, Skin and Bones...to name a few. There was also a very pro-active community arts movement. Alongside non funded Theatre Groups run by professional artists like Sugar and Spikes and Public Gaze. Yes the NE was an exciting time for community theatre until the Northen Arts radically cut so many of the companies. Very few survived. It was a fantastic place and time to create theatre for the community. It was my first job out of Drama School and I stayed for ten years. All the work was political in diverse ways. I remember one of our statements as Bruvvers was..."We exist to raise questions but not to provide answers...".

How did Bruvvers change and develop as a company?

I think Bruvvers remained loyal to its original ambitions. This was because Mike was constantly in charge of the company and drove its Artistic vision throughout its funded years.  

NORTH are extremely concerned about the looming cuts from the city council, we believe that in difficult times comes something good, do you agree?

It's interesting to note that when the local authorities and the Arts Council withdrew funding from the Tynewear Theatre Company it was the Artists who occupied the Newcastle Playhouse and fought for its future.   

Would you like to see a kind of fringe theatre movement build in Newcastle again? 

Fringe theatre will always exist regardless of funding. The authorities never know how to relate to it or whether to fund it because it is constantly re-inventing itself. The funders are threatened by this. You cant label it, contain it and put it in a recognised box. But Artists will always find their public voice and have done so for hundreds of years. What we have to realise is that for the people in that community centre or hospital or home, or for the young person in that school or youth club, this is not a "fringe" event. This is an event within itself. Often this is central to that community. The great and exciting thing about Newcastle is that it is made up of numerous strong and active communities each with its own identity. This is probably as a result of trades. Each has a pride, an honour and often a cultural identity that comes from story, song, dance and a need to express itself and themselves through artistic invention. I think that is what excited me the most in my ten years of working in the NE. I know it is still there. I know it cant be suppressed. The difference is it is no longer funded. What's interesting to reflect upon is the fact that all this work existed alongside the traditional Rep at the then University Theatre...then Newcastle Playhouse...now Northern Stage, The Theatre Royal Newcastle and Empire Theatre Sunderland etc. There was also a pioneering amateur company...The Peoples Theatre and numerous high quality amateur companies throughout the area. Add to this a thriving and passionate Youth Theatre movement. When I left Newcastle in 1984 I had, for three years been Artistic Director of the Tynewear Youth Theatre Festival which was part of the Tynewear Theatre Company. We produced the then largest Youth Theatre Festival in Britain. A real celebration of young peoples talent, committment and imagination.


What does Newcastle's culture mean to you, and how have you seen it grow and change? 

A big difference for me now as I observe Artistic expression in the NE is the way it has achieved an international reputation. In the 70s we always took our work in Bruvvers to Holland on an annual basis to Newcastles' sister city of Groningen in Northern Holland. We would create a Geordie Week which would pack venues and communitiy centres throughout the city. We would take with us folk singers and companies like the Killingworth Sword Dancers. It was clear to us that the culture of the North East had an international currency and the dutch were happy to celebrate that culture. Interestingly two years ago I took a production of David Almond's beautiful play "Skellig" to New York to play in a theatre on 42nd Street on Broadway. A geordie play for young audiences playing to packed houses. Also playing on Broadway at the same time was "Billy Elliot" and Live Theatres' production of "Pitmen Painters". Three  plays by Newcastle writers in the heart of the worlds highest profile theatrical centre. How exciting. AND THE COUNCIL WANT TO STOP FUNDING THE ARTS! On what grounds? Surely it should be the other way round. The Arts have played a significant part in raising the profile of the North East. Doesn't that deserve investment? Doesn't it demand investment? Most other buisnesses would invest in their international market. 

How would you say that has changed and developed you as a director?

I do know that what I experieced, learnt and became passionate about forty years ago in Newcastle has stayed with me and influenced me as an Artist and a person. It continues to do so. 

And finally, if you could give us a top tip for making our own way as a company what would that be?

If I was to give any advice to an Artist or a Theatre Company it would be to remain loyal and inspirational to your audience. Invest in your audience and you invest in the future.


Thank you Phil. You've got us thinking. What has stuck with me is that we, as North East artists, have a commitment to each other and our audiences and we just have to keep making, striving and fighting. Whatever happens with our funding we know we have a history to reflect on and to be inspired by. Whilst a lot of these companies lost their funding and struggled, their vision, values and drive remained. We may have to find our funding elsewhere. We have to be savvy, business minded and proactive. Thank goodness for organisations like Northern Stage investing in emerging artists and supporting a scheme like NORTH. We hope that NORTH goes on to be funded again next year, and if not, we hope that the region takes note and stands up to support it's future. We're standing on good ground so let's make it better!

Thanks for reading,

Love from the NOFFICE,

North_NS

Our Pitch In Pictures

Our pitch for 'THE MAN WHO THOUGHT THE MOON WOULD FALL OUT OF THE SKY' in pictures...  

(without giving too much away) 

The 'I imagine' wall.. 

George drew an amazing moon 

Hide a secret in a book

floor art

Have your say. 

The inspirational umbrella, where all inspiration is caught as it falls from the sky. 

follow the path... 

Where the story came from?

upside down moon

Daniel Bye Workshop

Yo, Maria again.
So, after we had all recovered from the annual dinner, NORTH had a brilliant session with the brilliant Daniel Bye.

It started off by playing 'fluffy bunny' in which Mark Calvert proved just how big his mouth is... (Meghan failed miserably as you can see below)

After lots of silliness we then moved onto more serious stuff.

The following statements are not strictly those of Daniel Bye's, but an amalgamation of what we discussed as a group and my own personal thoughts.

Values
We spoke about Dan's values as a theatre maker and how that is an essential part of the shows that you make. He also talked to us a lot about truth and lying - burying the truth in a massive amount of lies can be very effective.

• Not acknowledging your audience is actually quite rude, why do we still do that? (I must admit, that personally, I really enjoy doing that sometimes because it makes me feel as though I'm spying on someone else's story rather than being in it, but this certainly requires a much longer discussion, and something NORTH can chat about more) 
• Knowing what your audience will probably do in a situation can enable you to make better art. 
• The audience finishes the event, without them it's pointless.  
• Aesthetic choices are also political/ethical choices - we ran out of time on this one.  
• It's important to think about what the work wants to say and how it is constructed. 
• As a theatre maker you must look at what is really happening. 
• the assumed values that lie underneath something are always very interesting. 

All of these brilliant bits of advice are things that NORTH will be thinking about when we start making our show next week. As a group, we felt very excited and inspired after our session with Dan, and are eager to explore different avenues when we begin devising. 

Memories, true or false? 
Interesting fact: apparently more people remember being at the world cup final in 1966 than can actually fit inside the stadium.
“There is the drive to represent events accurately, which means being true to the often vivid impressions we have about what actually happened. And there is the drive for coherence, the need to produce a narrative whose elements fit together. In this case, coherence is a matter of agreement between people. Our stories need to make sense to us individually, but they also need to make sense to those who matter to us.” read more from this article here..

Less talking, more doing. 
We explored a brilliant exercise which highlights the relationship between performer and audience.
Step 1) Someone leaves the room
Step 2) The rest of the group decide on an task for that person to carry out in the space (eg. pick up the chair and stand on it)
Step 3) When the person arrives back in the room, the audience give them a rapturous round of applause and keep on clapping until they do something that isn't moving them towards completing the task (eg. sitting on the chair) When this happens, everyone must stop clapping until the performer finds a way to understand the task through the guidance of the clapping audience.
Step 4) Give the performer a standing ovation as soon as the task is complete

(The task gets more difficult each time, and then, props were added to make it even harder)

Here we are having a go...

Task: To pick up the water bottle and use it as a microphone

Task: To pick up umbrella and jump off the chair

Task: To pick up umbrella and use it as a sword 

Task: To ride each other like a horse (which they did in record time) 

Task: To pick up water bottle, pour it into glass and have a drink
(it took Alex a while to spot the glass which made it tricky for her but very funny for us)

We found the most interesting moments were those of utter bewilderment, one of the most difficult things to create on the spot. It was also interesting to watch the performer play in the space and not wanting that play to end which is something I think we'd like to explore further as an ensemble.
I could write down lots more observations that we talked about but I've probably gone on for long enough now and most people will be bored.

Massive thank-you to Daniel Bye for his wise words.
and as a thank-you for reading, here's a funny dog picture.

Love from the NOFFICE.

North_NS

Annual Dinner

Hello lovely readers, Maria here, thanks so much for checking in on what we've been getting up to.
This week North have been super busy but also had a LOT of fun.

We were lucky enough to be invited to perform at Northern Stage's annual dinner. So we took off our scruffy black rehearsal clothes and put on some posh frocks (Stan even had a CUMMERBUND - £4 from Primark)
McKennas cooked an absolutely delicious three course meal which included an amazing Earl Grey Panna Cotta with POPPING CANDY - quite the explosion in your mouth.

Not only did we sing in beautiful harmonies as guests found their tables, after dessert, we performed some of the material we made last week with Rachael Walton and explained a bit about our process which went down an absolute treat. (we are already missing Rachael a lot) There were lots of interesting, professional people eager to hear about what NORTH have been up to and it was really inspiring to see so much support from people in the room.

Wonderful speeches were given by Susan Cofferr, Erica Whyman and Lorne Campbell. Lorne, in his dashing kilt, spoke about how important those moments in your career are when someone gives you a little helping hand that make a massive difference further down the line; I think all of us in NORTH could relate to that (especially as Lorne started his own career with great support from Northern Stage).
As sad as it was to see Erica leave just as we arrived, we are REALLY excited to see what Lorne has got up his sleeve and hope that more schemes like NORTH will find their way into the building. (Hope you are reading this Mr Campbell...)

Anyway, enough chat, here's us in rehearsals...

Michael, give us a speech.. 

having a sing 

Stan rehearsing is monologue 

so pretty 

play that beautiful guitar Michael Blair 

Here's some photo's of us trying to look sexy...

We played some music - available for weddings and birthday bookings. 

. 

beautifully designed by Andrew Stephenson 

I'm obviously enthralled by Mark Calverts convo

Cheers everyone, thank-you for reading! 

Love from the NOFFICE.

North_NS

Third Angel week

Greetings from North! 

Meghan here, filling you in about our week with Rachael Walton from Third Angel.

Working with Rachael was a real privilege. She gave us insight into devising and the processes you can go through to make autobiographical work. It was a challenging but very rewarding week. We discovered a lot about working as an ensemble, particularly in a certain 4 hour map-building task where we found Geography may not be our strongest point (and that it’s easy to mistake Salisbury with Sainsbury’s!) Rachael equipped us with a devising ‘toolkit’ which I know we will continue to use throughout and beyond North.  The week resulted in a scratch performance where we shared our process (and sordid secrets) with an invited audience - thanks to all who come along.

One of the tasks I particularly enjoyed was the sharing of photos and the stories behind them. There were some great baby pics and facts about our company, which I had to put up...

Here is Michael. He was born with a clubfoot so he can’t turn left. He has a secret obsession with Wet Wet Wet and he used to be in a boy band called Variation  (requests for autographs can take up to 28 days as we currently have a large backlog)

Aw baby George. He is terrified of The Moomins. George was once mugged by a cow, which stole his cigarettes and is yet to be caught. Below is an artist impression of the suspect, if you do see him please do not approach as he is said to be dangerous.

 

This little dude is Stan. Stan used to have really long hair and the doctor who delivered him as a baby was later arrested for not actually being a doctor.

This little cherub is Alice. Alice loves dogs, like really loves dogs. Alice used to think that dinosaurs weren't real, she thought they were like dragons and existed only in stories, cartoons and Disney.

The adorable Maria is from the village that's next to the coast but not quite on it. When she first moved to London she had 11 phones stolen from her bag on the 29 bus. Maria loves pugs, owls and jumpers with hearts on.

And this is me recording my audition tape for S Club Juniors (their loss if you ask me). I have a phobia of wet bread. My Geography teacher once told me that if I took the subject for GCSE he would quit his job, I definitely do not bark at my neighbours dogs for laughs and I, ahem, “used to have” a scary obsession with Leonardo Dicaprio. 

Pic coming soon! Alex loves animals more than humans end of.

NORTH have also been working with the brilliant Stage Door group. Stage Door is Northern Stage’s annual performance opportunity, open to all adults aged 16 and over. It’s an 8 week performance project taking place during the Spring season culminating in a Saturday evening performance in Stage 2. This year they are developing work loosely based on the themes of Blue Remembered Hills. They are a really talented bunch and you can get tickets for their performance here.

Once again we want to say a massive thank you to Rachael Walton, the lovely Rachael Oliver who was also helping us out this week and to everyone who came on Friday.

Love from the NOFFICE.

North_NS

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