The national conversation about the performing arts
We combined two discussions, one about what it was to navigate the world of theatre with a female body and the other about what it was to navigate that world with a working class voice. There are many parallels. Read more
This Discussion took place on place on 6th March 2020 at Boulevard Theatre in Soho. The workshop was titled "What can mental health workers and Deaf artists do together to improve care for Deaf people? My breakout session took place after lunch, where there was a mixture of Deaf and hearing participants. Read more
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Theatre companies and freelancers popped in during this ten minute session from 12pm. Read more
A #DandD15 session on impact, called and reported by Tassos Stevens Read more
Some specific ideas about how to work on a solo show. Some examples. A few places to perform and develop. Read more
We (as it is theatre - as-it-is.co.uk) are currently working on developing a theatre piece. Working title: ‘My Man and Me’. We are at the beginning of our R&D and I felt myself, as Phelim described in the opening circle, rising-up out of my chair, walking across to the middle of the circle and writing and calling this session to invite people to talk about masculinity. Open Space worked its magic, e.g. made it possible to get out of the way and let real conversation happen. Understandings Read more
A session with the title question: On the "political leanings" board, almost all the dots are on the left. Does this matter? Read more
This discussion group tried to help participants understand why unexpected sections of society may want to help the performing arts, and to help theatre practitioners understand that they are selling a valuable commodity - access to and engagement with socially "cool" and exciting activities. The purpose was also to give theatre practitioners courage to seek help and financial support, and not to be embarrassed about asking. It also looked at who to ask and how to ask. Read more
A session called by Kate Maravan at DandD15 . How do we define 'emerging' artist? Who qualifies and who is excluded? Isn’t 'emerging' a continual process? Different stages of our work and artistry emerge at different points of our career/life. At each stage voices are valid and worth listening to. Read more
I called this session because - as a black woman running a black theatre company with a commitment to black artists and black audiences - I see a lot of black work. Some works are courageously - and rightly - turning their lens on whiteness but in doing so, have created painful experiences for me and other black people - who, by the way, have to hide in DMs or WhatsApp groups to be able to safely critique the work because we feel disloyal speaking about our experiences publicly. Across two weeks Read more
I've been leading a staff team for five years and trying to balance the promotion and facilitation of healthy, balanced and well professional and personal lives with the desire to be efficient, effective and excellent. These things aren't mutually exclusive but sometimes they feel like they are. I - personally - go through phases of wellness and phases of powerful professional productivity but rarely are they are they at the same time. How can we - as managers and leaders - look after our workfo Read more
A wonderful conversation exploring our engagement with musical theatre as a form and what barriers are present, and what changes might be made going forward to create more work. Read more
Is there an appetite for a new type of union organising for Theatre + Performance Workers? An invitation to join the Design + Cultural Workers group of United Voices of the World, a new grass roots campaigning union for precarious workers, and discuss if it would be good to create a Theatre + Performance workers group within UVW. Read more
The aim of Future Forward is to create a theatre event that uses open space to envision 2050 and how we made it liveable. We are pitching this project to Improbable as a DnD Satellite Event. Read on for further details on other ideas we explored in our session. Read more
This was an invitation for people who self-identify as working class or under class to speak. Middle class people were welcomed too, to listen and ask questions. The session was attended by a mixture of people - working class, middle class and people who felt they had lived experiences associated with both classes. The conversation covered a lot - from deeply personal experiences to overarching structural barriers to be addressed. Read more
We started by talking about what was going well and ended up sharing our collective wisdom. I, for one, feel better after a chat like that. Read more
This session explored the idea of Directors Labs for UK performing arts sector. What came out was a need for a place and event where directors, choreographers, theatre makers can exchange their artistic practices and keep questioning the role of director in 21 Century. The structure of this networks and event will be explored further with D&D satellite session. A site is now secured directorslab.co.uk. Read more
Please help me do something with my solo show about coercive control. Radio play? Short Film? Read more
Discussing ways in which theatre as a whole can advocate for itself: what institutions to engage, what arguments to make and how to overcome apolitical charity status which restricts the capacity of theatres to advocate for themselves. A session focused on the political situation as it currently exists, not on how we would like it to be. Read more
How does and can theatre help audiences (and performers and theatre makers) make sense of their lives and the world around them? Read more
If we make work which really wakes people up to the challenges we are facing it could overwhelm them and cause inertia (see climate crisis fatigue, compassion fatigue) OR we tell stories about how someone will come along and fix these problems, so we go, ‘Oh good, someone else will sort this out.’ What is the third space which inspires the audience to take action themselves? Read more
The book A Job To Love, by School of Life, posits that we can form toxic relationships with our desired careers, as well as with partners, if we fail to really examine our desires and acknowledge that we have choices. Since reading this I have been sitting with the question of what would it be like to quit theatre; a thought which a few months ago made me feel physically sick to contemplate, but which now is giving me new perspectives. Here’s what this brought up for people: Read more
The desire for some sort of Shop Window bubbled up in several sessions on Day 1, calling for a space where you can: - OFFER YOUR SERVICE - VOICE WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR - ADVERTISE YOUR WORK - SEEK CONNECTION WITH SIMILAR OR CROSS-COMMUNITY THEATRE MAKERS This spurred me on to create a Website Session - an online resource to be used as people see fit. So here it is! Read more
How do we keep open to each other’s creative abilities whatever our age? Read more
In short, yes. It's broken in that it has changed completely. There are other models emerging that might be more useful to think about. Read more
A conversation between venues, artists and companies on the ways in which venues can offer support. Read more
A provocation to address the rising costs of taking work to Edinburgh. Is it important? Read more
I called a session to open a conversation about the shame surrounding the body in all its forms. We specifically discussed bodies that have been marginalized within a theatre context, for example ill bodies and less able bodies.The discussion kept veering back to the idea of shame and the body, much of the conversation was unpicking aspects of this shame in many forms. Although chat was quite theoretical and not hugely action orientated, it was so refreshing to open up the conversation and hear Read more
How can [independent] Producers be better supported, as the people who are usually relied upon to provide the support? Read more
From an idea birthed in D&D 2016, I return to open space after 3 clothing optional open spaces, and the plan for a first one to happen in Scotland in April 2020. Read more
In the process of nurturing a group of alumni actors and writers and directors at the University of East Anglia, I am returning to questions of what it takes to sustain an Ensemble: where did this notion of a permanent company, which is embedded in my brain as an ideal, come from? Is there a template for an Ensemble? And are there still good reasons and the right conditions for it to exist? Read more
I called this session because I started playing the ukulele about a year ago, and I would really love to incorporate it into a show - hopefully with other actor-musicians and their instruments. Several people came along to share references and discuss different ways they’ve seen actor-muso shows created. Read more
How might the current world change how we do Shakespeare, and how might we do Shakespeare to change the world? Read more
I'm looking to devise a piece looking at how the media, and the Daily Mail in particular, influence our minds and the society. I've done a bit of RnD and I'm looking for collaborating artists interested in the subject to make this show. www.adamhypkidirector.com Read more
After Phelim encouraged me to begin using the Whelan Technique in rehearsal I discovered the power of this approach - so I wanted to share this in a conversation about acting on impulse not from 'learning' and reciting texts. Read more
Discussions about risk and vulnerability and humour. Read more
Single person and companies made up of only a few people, looking to develop and grow and get funding. Understanding CIC, CIO other scary jargon when taking the next step with a company. Read more
We are an organisation run by three women who share responsibility equally. This grew out of a more informal organisation structure and roles which were initially freelance but now we have found that structure, though takes more work, is worth it and allows for flexibility and challenging ideas. I have also been ready Mary Portas’s book Work Like A Woman: A Manifesto for Change and Creative People and Places report on multiplying leadership and am interested in different leadership models so I a Read more
When I called this session I’d hoped to end up with a list of actions that people in the room have taken / are taking / plan to take to make the world just a little bit better. I imagined anything from tiny interventions to life-long projects, from socially engaged practice https://www.terrestrial.org.uk/, to activism https://gobbledegooktheatre.blogspot.com/2018/06/knickerstochope.html, and acts of common humanity https://www.jacksonslane.org.uk/join-in/christmas-day/ I hoped it would provide Read more
A session sharing what achievement feels like and discussing what achievement is (and is not). This session postulates that achievement is an emotional state experienced by an individual. As such it can be separate from external factors (circumstances, other people and their decisions or validation, or seemingly "objective" measures of success such as money, funding, opportunities, accolades, etc...). How can we live a life more richly populated with feelings of achievement? Read more
Looking at the participation of young people in theatre and how progress is needed for theatre to keep up with the huge growth of Netflix. It is clear that nowadays a person would rather sit in the comforts of their own home and binge watch a series or watch a film, than go out and pay an obscene price to sit still and completely silent for two hours watching a play they might not end up liking. Read more
People in this country keep telling me they're "middle class". Is anyone here actually just rich and too embarrassed to talk about it? Read more
20 years ago I felt like I could do anything. Now, not so much... But there is so much to be done! How do we look after confidence and belief? Read more
A discussion about how theatres ( the buildings and larger companies) are interacting, holding, supporting and programming marginalised ( BAME, LGBTQ+, disabled) voices. This conversation fell into two strands. 1) How performance work can be supported 2) How buildings can be better Read more
A session merged by Ben and Chris to look at training, networks and teaching of Creative Producing. A big gathering of theatre with some film, dance producers across all generations of experience exploring how to connect, share skills, mentor, mentee, learn, validate and grow as producers. Read more
A Celebration of Comedic Theatre, Clowning and Devised Silliness. Do we need a festival, and can Peterborough UK be its spiritual home? Read more
I called a session to discuss a fledgling Off West End theatre review podcast. Read more
There are more gay men's bars in Soho than lesbian bars in the world. AFAB / Womxn's work is amazing and necessary and needs space. Let's make it. Read more
I work for Strike A Light in Gloucester. There isn’t a professional theatre venue in the city and we are the only organisation regularly programming theatre and dance. Out of necessity we started using community spaces to programme shows and now it is a core part of what we do and is a huge strength in terms of engaging with diverse communities in Gloucester. I was interested in hearing about other people’s experience of programming in this way, alternative models, what has worked and what hasn’ Read more
Can an email signature be a manifesto? A way for freelancers to claim political agency through everyday work interactions. Read more
What should good artist development include? We talk about structures, assumptions, and how the future might look. Read more
How do you develop a show from a studio space to Main Room or indeed why would you Read more
We began the session with a small with answering why we each decided to attend the session, followed by a discussion on how people in the UK respond to Oppression, then a lively discussion on the differences between American and British comedy. We concluded that, yes the answer to this question is needed and could ideally take the form of one-off or a series of workshops in partnerships with theatres that have existing relationships to BAME communities and audiences. Next steps include outreach Read more
Outcomes from a session at D&D15 about creating a national library of things model for production resources in the UK. This is a brief report to be followed up by a longer post. Read more
In 2012 there was a D&D Roadshow playing across the UK including Edinburgh. This D&D15 in London does not feature on the radar of many Scottish Creatives and we sensed in our discussion that there may be only 3-4 people travelling from Scotland to be here for the 3 days. So why not create an Open Space for the Scottisj broadest possible theatre community over 2 days. The answer to the idea was a simple Yes from everyone. Read more
As an aspiring actor in the process of auditioning for drama school, I asked, what does the future look like for actors? Read more
Jon Produces, writes and directs large scale community plays and teaches improvisation. He recently devised a community play in his local village and following the play 14 people who participated in it wanted to have improvisation workshops. There is also an established smaller impro. group that Jon facilitates that has been running for several years. Jon wanted to discuss how he could develop the skills,techniques and benefits of impro. within the village. Read more
A discussion about the support the theatre industry should be offering the education sector, and how we should challenge government policy. Read more
Discussion about grass roots response to the election and theatre's role. Convened by Sonali and Danny. Scribing by Bethany. After the session we gathered emails for further action. Read more
Managing our sense of a shrinking identity obsessed world post Brexit (Notes by Sue, but not me who called the group so not sure if and how we responded to the provocation) Read more
There are European theatre artists living in London who struggle to find work. Actors can't get employment because of their accent, writers are not English native speakers, directors and designers are not 'in the market', don't have the 'right' connections Read more
This session was called by Pav to discuss thoughts around training. We mostly focused on actor training and the core topics were: Accessibility The Industry and how we train for it (or within it) The Gatekeepers/Faculty Read more
Session 1 on Saturday, 1-2:30, Kangaroo, called by Nina Klose Attendees included (and many others): Barra, Ethan, Helen, Maddy, Rhiannon, Jasmine, Andrea, Steven, Annie, Dan, Christina, Joanna Read more
This is report about our session discussing the Force. "you need to focus on the force and let it come to you" Jedi Riddley Read more
For arts organisations who are not core funded it is increasingly difficult to develop as an organisation and create the artistic work you want. Majority of non-NPO's gain their funding through a wide variety of sources; ranging from multiple freelance jobs, working for others, non-arts jobs, teaching... anything but the creative work needed to impact on your companies income, visibility and sustainability. Is then, becoming and NPO, the ideal scenario or for arts org or is there an alternati Read more
A group of anxious freelancers and artists get together to talk about why and how we struggle and what to do with it. Read more
Informational meeting: what to know if you want to take your show to Camden Fringe Festival in London Read more
I called the session because I have Hypermobility Ehelers-Danlos Syndrome and am interested both in sharing experiences of how this impacts our work and also how we might use this to inspire new work. Read more
I called this session because we had a lot of people comment on the lack of a female signatory on the event invitation. I felt this probably said something bigger about the opera industry. I’m a relative newcomer to working in opera, but am very aware of gender imbalance in theatre, so I was curious to find out about similarities and differences. Read more
A session which wanted to look at the importance of having an ensemble ethos in Opera and Theatre Companies and how that worked as an established model in German Theatre and Opera. Read more
Large and small opera companies can share information, especially when programming is related. Large companies can benefit from mentoring small companies by getting foreknowledge of talent coming up and from start-up practices, which are responsive and fast moving. Small companies are more reactive and therefore it pays for large companies to keep tabs on them, which they can do most effectively by supporting them! Read more
Discussion on the definition of the term opera and what we use it for. Read more
Conversations around diversity are happening but the steps are not being taken to put into practice ; is it a question of programming, to include operas that are representative of other cultures to different audiences? Read more
There is a small repertoire of work - trying to make things work and be current / accessible / contemporary / relevant to people here and now - done right it enhances the story Read more
What is a magical performance? The space sets the tone or mood of the Opera To be a magical performance the atmosphere often starts at the threshold of the building - the arrival and build up to the performance are important. Read more
We thought that people might not want to talk about this subject because most of them are powerless to change the amount of rehearsal time available, and it's quite depressing. However we reached two useful (and connected) conclusions about what we could do as youngish directors Read more
Bigger opera companies looking to small companies for inspiration Difference of scales for production of newly composed work Small opera companies are niche and not in competition, so they should share more - skills, funding, Producing high quality work will get a company noticed by bigger companies Read more
I was a butterfly most of the time, on the lookout for practical suggestions that stood a chance of being implemented in the near future. Read more
I am both devoted and disgruntled in relation to opera. I have been a consumer/opera goer/lover/collector for thirty years. I have written about, commentated upon and reviewed opera in both print and on radio during that time and for the last seven years opera has been the subject of my academic study and detailed research – which has been singer focused – leading to a rigorous three year period of research for my PhD. Read more
In short, it is. In general, we discussed the ‘supremacy’ of music in opera, but the importance of collaboration between the librettist and the composer. Read more
-Which collaborative models exist between opera companies and Higher Education? -What are the opportunities for transition between the two sectors? -Which issues do we need to consider to make collaborative ventures successful? Read more
The term ‘Arts Ecology’ was mentioned a lot in this discussion, reflecting the recognition that we need an arts landscape with different-sized organisations. Leading question - What would the ideal relationship be between an opera company & those companies and artists in its local environment? Access – what do we mean by access? Make a company’s work accessible to others? Allow access to interact with programming and making? Read more
This conversation centred around the idea of creating original, new opera for the medium of film. Something quite different from streamed or filmed staged operas or even opera films such as Kenneth Branagh’s Magic Flute: an entirely new original work of art MADE expressly for film (although it was noted that this didn’t stop piece’s that had been written for the stage being adapted as films) Read more
modernizing for the sake of modernization? vs classical staging - is one allowed to change the words & music when modernising or is it just the set and costume and that makes it “ok”? Read more
Report by John Fulljames, 7 June 2015 1. Collaborating with opera, theatre and music sectors. 2. Diversity not Homegeneity of companies and approaches. Read more
Jean called the session to explore three key points: 1. the art doesn’t really exist until it meets the audience 2. we need to nurture and grow them because unless they are prepared to pay – tickets, tax or donations - opera won’t exist in its current form 3. some of the existing audience is the problem – too clubby and competitive with knowledge Read more
I posted the session on the first day, on the second day I realized the session of introducing a new concept is not important to talk about. Instead I realized keeping music, words and vocal all in conversation to each other going is far more important. I think this is the key of what opera is about. Read more