Huge thank you to everyone who joined the session! I got down some quite basic notes - if anyone has stuff to add/if I've got authors' names wrong then let me know! Also want to say thanks to Dan who came to me after the session and recommended the production of Beauty and the Beast that we discussed in the session, as well as Hench by Jessica Fostekew.

Ideas/Concepts/Reading Suggestions
Pleasure Activism - pleasure as activism in our own bodily experience, the writing of Adrian Marie Brown
The Actor's Body - David Graver
Diverse City
Commercialization of the body as a result of casting processes
Kathryn Haynes - Physical Capital
Deborah Dean - Aesthetic Labour
Weight loss groups - their concept of being 'less than' and having to work towards a being whole, their unpicking of shame
Carrie Sandal, Lynn Manning
'Treatment' of the body - do we have to appear 'affected' enough?
The importance of authentic casting, how do we teach this?
The disparity of how we see our own identity vs. how other people see us
Everyone has different experiences of disability, the importance of recognizing these differences if you have a disability yourself
Idea of the self-punishing body
Illness and the gendered body
Methods of Storytelling: verbatim stories in the wrong bodies. Example of this: Lost Bodies
How empowering is swapping bodies?
Encountering problems in production; these kinds of stories are considered angry, how can we and should we make these stories palatable?
Should we make things to be palatable when whole, complex characters are so interesting
Little Miss Burden (@astrominx) - Matilda Ibini
Come From Away - real life stories and complex characters
Beauty and the Beast - a Trojan horse?
I'm a Phoenix Bitch - Bryony Kimmings


Questions
How is it so difficult for some stories to even get to the stage? - Questions of programming and audience for stories of this kind
The traditional and more elderly audience of the theatre - do they need representation on stage?
Should we make internal stories more abstract to transfer them to the external - in terms of how an issue is crafted and conveyed on stage through visuals, music etc..
Do stories that are less specific in terms of the body play into shame?
When are our bodies no longer our bodies? - Control of the state, society and media - how is meaning assigned onto the body?
How far does someone need to have experience of a story they tell/write? - The importance of allyship and understanding in these contexts, asking the question: why are we all here within a process.
How can we facilitate and tell complex stories within constrained frameworks?
Will being angry and kicking down doors be jarring for new audiences and/or affirm feelings of an audience that already exists?
How can we use anger in a three dimensional way?
How can we market stories such as these?


Actions
Finding/ Creating apprenticeships or training to support and ensure authentic casting
Using theatre as a subliminal educational tool to change attitudes towards the body and shame - but how? Can an audience be convinced to reconsider what they already know?