Dramaturgy Chillin' : Peter Darney @ Edfringe 2017

2 – 27 August 2017, Assembly Roxy, 21.50

Following highly acclaimed, sell-out performances in Dublin, New York, Sydney and Edinburgh, 5 Guys Chillin’ returns to Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Woven together using the real words of real guys found on Grindr, 5 Guys Chillin’ is a state-of-the-nation play addressing one of the most important public health crises of the twenty-first century, frankly discussing chemsex in taut, intimate and unflinching verbatim drama.

5 Guys Chillin’ is addressing this urgent crisis, and has thus been performed all over the world to great acclaim. Writer/director Peter Darney says: “I hope this play shows some of the good times, some of the bad times, and encourages you think about what is right for you. It’s your choice, no one else’s. But let’s all talk, look out for each other, and make our decisions with free will, from an informed place.”

With more and more gay men falling into addiction, and more incidents of chemsex-related crime, discussing this issue has never been more urgent – and it isn’t going away. David Stuart of 56 Dean Street, a health clinic in Soho, still sees approximately 3000+ drug cases per month, and that number is not decreasing. He says “Gay communities around the world are in the throes of a profound cultural shift; some of this is manifesting as poor sexual wellbeing, and chemsex. We need kind hearts and cool heads to address it and I believe theatre, at its very best, can help us to do this. I’m so pleased that Peter Darney has had the courage and compassion to address these issues through the prism of true stories; this is verbatim theatre. This is community.”

What was the inspiration for this performance?

I was inspired to write my play when a friend of mine got heavily involved in the chemsex scene. What started as Saturday nights became Friday to Sunday, then Thursday to Monday, until eventually his house became a 24/7 sex party. 

He stopped sleeping, just G’d out and came too and carried on. He lost his job, got into massive debt, and had a lot of dark times. He would also tell me hilarious stories of his exploits. I realised that this was happening everywhere, that you could find a chill pretty much anywhere in central London with Grindr within 500 meters. And I was fascinated that this secret world existed, behind closed doors, and that no-one was talking about it. 

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 

Yes, very much so! To me the theatre is a place where we should be confronted with different ideas, shown different perspectives. Its so easy for us all to walk around in a bubble- we see people with similar views to the way we ourselves think and feel and not be challenged to look outside of our “norm”. With 5 Guys Chillin’, we have also held numerous post show discussions, and the play has been very effective as being a starting point for discussion on issues that face the community. It makes people think, argue, debate- which is so important. I am all for everyones right to free choice in what they do- but it has to be from an informed place. Live performance can really help with that.

How did you become interested in making performance?

I think it is something that has always been in me. I used to make shows at may Primary School and perform them in assembly, and just didn’t ever really stop. In the past few years, with my work in Verbatim theatre, adaption and writing, I have felt the most creatively fulfilled I ever have, as I have moved from being a director to a theatre maker. I love collaboration, and how all the different elements of live performance can add another layer to an initial idea or stimulus.

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

This was a really different approach to theatre making for me. I would go onto Grindr and other MSM apps and find people who seemed to be at Chemsex parties, and then contact them a few days later to see if they would talk to me about their experiences. I would wait a few days as I didn’t want people to tell me things when they were high that they might not wish to disclose sober. After collating over 50 hours of interviews, I took the 4 interviews that interested me the most (one was with a couple) and then started to edit them together to try to make dialogue, adding in bits from other interviews to expand on certain points. It was a really painstaking process, but ultimately, when you see this show, you are hearing the real words from real people giving a snapshot of a highly secretive scene.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

Yes and No! I like to make work that makes you think outside the box, that challenges preconceived ideas and judgements, that hopefully might make you think about people with more compassion. I think it fits into that very well. But Verbatim theatre, and creating work in this way was a very different approach in creating a script for me.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

I hope the audience will experience the highs and lows of a modern chemsex party. They will get an insight into the lives of the people that do it, what takes them there, what they get from it and what it costs them.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

We have tried to create an immersive edge to the experience. So- without giving too much away there is a pre-show and a post-show. Our cast are often on the social media apps used to create the show too, so the performance can reach out from the theatre and online. We also use synthetic drugs, continual underscoring and anything else we can to make the experience of the party seem as real as possible. 

WINNER “Doric Wilson Award for Intercultural Dialogue” (2016)

WINNER “Micheál MacLiammóir Award for Best Male Performance” (2016)

WINNER “LGBTQ Brighton Fringe Award” (2016)

Ends

Title           5 Guys Chillin’

Writer/Director       Peter Darney

Lighting Designer     Sherry Coenen

Producer        King’s Head Theatre and Em-Lou Productions

Performance Dates     2 – 27 August

2-4 August £10

5, 6, 10, 14, 15, 17, 21, 22, 24 August £13 (£11)

7, 8, 11, 12, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27 August £15 (£13)

               

Running Time          60 mins

Venue           Assembly Roxy, Roxburgh Place

Ticket Price         

Box Office      assemblyfestival.com I 0131 623 3030

The King's Head Theatre is London's first and foremost pub theatre, led by Artistic Director, Adam Spreadbury-Maher. New writing, revivals, musicals, opera, cabaret and queer work sit side by side in an unashamedly eclectic programme of work. Thanks to an in-house agreement with Equity, we're leading the way when it comes to ethical employment on the fringe whilst our resident trainee director's scheme continues to provide comprehensive, vocational training to the rising stars of tomorrow. With high profile co-productions, national touring and transfers to and from the biggest arts festivals in the world, we're certainly not slowing down!

Happy Dramaturgy: Jack Rooke @ Edfringe 2017

SOHO THEATRE IN ASSOCIATION WITH UNDERBELLY PRESENT

JACK ROOKE: HAPPY HOUR

UNDERBELLY COWGATE, BELLY BUTTON

WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY JACK ROOKE DIRECTED BY CHARLOTTE BENNETT

UK PREMIERE

A brotherly love letter to a friend that went too soon.

Cowgate, Belly Button

Thu 3 – Sun 27 August (not 14) 17:20 (18:20). 60 mins.

Happy Hour explores the lives of young men Jack’s known who have struggled with mental illness whilst figuring out their identity. In particular Jack’s close university friend Olly, who two years ago took his own life after battling depression. Bored of talking about talking - Jack believes there’s currently stagnation in the national mental health conversation - Happy Hour will take audiences on a comedic journey using music, films and research to explore realistic solutions to mental health in this country.

What was the inspiration for Happy Hour?

Honestly and don't judge me, I just got so fed up of hearing people talk about mental health in a way that I felt was a bit empty and driven by talking about talking and not actually solving the issue at hand. This show is a very honest, comedic, theatrical and political exploration of the mental health crisis affecting vulnerable people, but at the same time its a really simple show. 

It's just me reading a brotherly love letter I've written to some male friends of mine, one in particular who forms the crux of the show. He's someone I discussed a lot recently in my BBC Three series Happy Man, and this show is definitely sort of connected to that series. This is almost everything that series wouldn't allow me to say due to the processes of TV. Happy Hour is allowing me to take that conversation on, one step further.  


Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas?

I'm unsure about that one. I guess it is but only in few cases. Only some shows get it right. I think Backstage In Biscuitland did, I think Monkey See Monkey Do did, I think Tar Baby did - but on the whole performance isn't really the radical, idea-shifting platform that I believe a lot of theatre-makers believe it is. 

We live in the world of the campaigner right now. Every brand, every idol, every organisation seemingly feels like they're launching a campaign. And they feel the same - they involve the purchase of one thing, whether that be a product or a ticket, and in exchange customers feel like they're doing something good. I've just seen one this morning for bees wax lip balm, where if you buy a really expensive lip balm then the company will plant like a zillion flowers. 

I can't help but feel that working class, cynical me is just rolling my eyes a lot at the moment at this culture and it's very apparent in theatre. Maybe I'm being a dickhead - who knows, I just feel like actually the best space for a public discussion of ideas that lead to  change, is where a wide section of society are able to engage, voice their views and their experiences. 

Sadly I think performance, especially in Edinburgh, is still too classist, too elitist and the microphone is still in the hands of the most privileged kids in Britain being pumped out the most privileged institutions in the land. 

If you come to Happy Hour, I might get on my preachy high-horse at one point, but this show isn't a campaign. There's no hashtag for this production. It's just a really honest funny story that I think says everything that isn't being said about the mental health issue in Britain. 

If that prompts public discussion then brilliant, but also I'm representing characters in this show who are the ones suffering a severe limitation on ambition, wealth and happiness. I hope a fringe audience can see that and think about what could genuinely help that group, outside of my self-indulgent, autobiographical show. 


How did you become interested in making performance?

Accidentally! I ran out of money to make a documentary called Good Grief and then the Arts Council got involved and said "turn it into a live show and use the films you already have and we can help fund you" and voila! Good Grief the show came about and I somehow ended up a performer. 

But I studied Journalism and documentary-making is my main passion because I think I like giving as much as possible, actual real-life characters their own voice. That's why my Nan played such a prominent part in Good Grief, because I felt like I didn't want to be her voice. She is the best person to do that herself. 

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

I'm not a sit down at my laptop writer. I'm more of a "speak into a microphone and transcribe what I said" kind of writer. I very rarely edit the first thing I say because the first thing you say is often the most honest. With Happy Hour though, it's a proper theatre commission from Soho Theatre, with a proper director and a proper team behind it whereas Good Grief was just me and some mates. 

So the approach this time round has been slightly more formal, but not too much so. They have just let me go away and get on with it.  I'm a scatty useless prick most of the time so it's a bit cut and paste, but I'm fine with that. I'm not really about slickness, it doesn't excite me that much. 

I'm more about making an honest, subversive, powerful narrative that is rooted in empathy and helping people and making people happy and laugh. 

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

Yeah, this is definitely a follow-up to Good Grief. It sort of picks up where Good Grief ended. It's more grown-up, more reflective. Lets say I learnt a lot from my 2015 Gareth Vile review in The List haha and I've genuinely tried to take on board what you in particular said. 

And even though I really disagreed with one line in your review, there were 3 or 4 other lines I learnt a lot from and that's where I really believe in the critic-performer relationship. 

So I hope you like it Gareth or else I'll ban you from ever coming back to Watford 😉  

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

I hope they experience the absolute bloody sheer love I have for the friend in particular I have written this show to. It's a love unlike romance or obsession, it's just really one big thank you letter to the most impactful, wonderful man I've ever met. And if audiences can see and feel that love, despite the anger that's also in the show, then I think I've done my job properly. 

Rob Carter is Christopher Bliss' Dramaturge: Rob Carter @ Edfringe 2016

Rob Carter is Christopher Bliss Just the Tonic at The Tron(Venue 51)Aug 4-14, 16-27 11.40pm

Award­-winning comedian Rob Carter debuts his new character at the Edinburgh Fringe 2016.

The worst novelist in Shropshire takes on the largest arts festival in the World

Christopher Bliss, a charming misfit from Shropshire, thinks he is the writer of his generation. He writes four to five ‘novels’ a day including such classics as his two man whodunit: A Murder And A Robbery At The Same Time On The Train From London To Shropshire. In reality, Christopher’s short stories have been neither published nor enjoyed by anyone outside his immediate family.Spurred on by a throwaway compliment from his auntie, he’s decided to leave his village for the first time in his life and take on the largest arts festival in the World. On 4th August Christopher will head up to the Edinburgh Festival armed with his notebook, his trusty windbreaker and some background music he’s written himself. Hidden away in this earnest yet ridiculous punt at success is Christopher's real story of who he is and how he came to be so blissfully unaware of his own flaws. He has even made a website to keep his fans up to date: www.christopherblisswebsite.com

What was the inspiration for this performance

The inspiration for the character has come from various real-life people I’ve come across. I find the concept of confident incompetence really funny, and I’ve played around with it in a few different forms. The character used to just write diary entries for example, but misunderstand the point of a diary, or the things you’re supposed to write in one. The format that allowed me the most creative freedom was writing stories as Christopher. I started writing short stories (or novels in his mind) and I felt they had the potential to be longer. So I started writing a long story with multiple characters, and that’s basically what the Edinburgh show has become.

How did you go about gathering the team for it?

I’ve worked with Lucy Danser at Chatback Comedy for ages. She gave me my first gig as this character and has seen the progression of the character all the way through to now. We did a show called Stand Up and Slam last year (which we’re doing again this year) and discussed making a full-length show for Christopher then. And since then she’s been more and more involved, and is now producing and directing the show, in association with Camden Comedy Club, which she runs in London.

How did you become interested in making performance?

I’ve always enjoyed acting, stepping into someone else’s shoes. It probably started with imitating teachers at school. I was exposed to live comedy at Cambridge and have been addicted to it ever since. I particularly enjoy character comedy as a combination of writing, acting and stand up.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?

This type of show is new to me to be honest, and I’ve gone about it in a slightly different way. I essentially have to write in character, then edit as myself. I might have to tweak something I wrote ‘as Christopher’ because it’s too long, or too obvious, or comes too early in the story etc. I’m really enjoying writing the show though and find that editing it with a different mindset has benefitted it hugely. 

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

Above all, I would love people to interact with Christopher Bliss. I love imagining him to be real, and not just billed as a live comedy show that ends after an hour of him on stage. I encourage people to talk to him during the show, but would particularly enjoy it if people connected with him outside the show too.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

Christopher has his own facebook account - people can add him as a friend. He’s on twitter @chrisblisstwit. He even has his own website (christopherblisswebsite.com) where he’ll be uploading photos and videos throughout Edinburgh. He’ll be writing pieces on what he finds most exciting about Edinburgh. I’ve also got him a phone (which he’s particularly excited about) and I’ve put his number on the back of his flyers. I would encourage anyone to get in touch with him on 07759 354233.

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?

I’d love people to see it as immersive character comedy. Comedy that people can access when they want, in real time. And next year the show will be more interactive than ever…

Written and performed by Rob Carter (Channel 4’s Peep Show and Fresh Meat). Rob is a London based actor/comedian who trained with the Cambridge Footlights and at LAMDA. He won the Musical Comedy Awards in 2012 and was a finalist in the 2013 BBC New Comedy Awards on Radio 2. He’s also hosting Stand Up & Slam! at the Mash House during the Fringe.

Directed by Lucy Danser. Lucy is an actor, writer and director. She wrote and directed her debut play Rachael’s Cafe at the Edinburgh Fringe and London’s Old Red Lion Theatre

Daffodils and Dramaturgy: Kitan Petkovski and Rochelle Bright @ Edfinge 2016

Bullet Heart Club presents

DAFFODILS

[A Play with Songs]

by Rochelle Bright 

Remixes by LIPS and Abraham Kunin

Directed by Dena Kennedy & Kitan Petkovski

Traverse Theatre, 10 Cambridge Street, EH1 2ED (Traverse 1)

4-28 August 2016

DAFFODILS (A Play with Songs) is a charming, riotous and quintessentially New Zealand love story inspired by true events and small-town family secrets. This is real life romance Kiwi style.

Daffodils captures the bittersweet nuances of farm girl Rose and teddy boy Eric as they fall in love in Hamilton in the 60s: their first meeting at the lake by the daffodils, their marriage and the New Zealand pop-rock soundtrack that shapes their lives – from Crowded House to Bic Runga, played onstage by a three-piece band. 

What was the inspiration for this performance?

Rochelle: My Nan used to tell me when I was a kid the story of the daffodils (two generations meeting at the exact same place by the daffodils by the lake). There was something magical and romantic about the idea - that maybe one day I’d go to the daffodils and meet my future love. 

But as I grew up and watched these two generations, the idea of romance soured in my mind. We all have stories told through our families. The daffodils was one of mine. I’d been thinking about their story for years, trying to find a way to tell it, when finally while at a residency at the Robert Lord writers cottage, I found the right song and the right idea came along. 

Daffodils was inspired by my parents' lives together, their complicated love and the songs that I grew up listening to on the radio - the best of NZ music. There’s a reason why I won’t go down to the daffodils. 

How did you go about gathering the team for it?

Kitan: Daffodils would not be possible without our incredible team. We have been very lucky that at each step, we met the right collaborator at the right time. Rochelle and I met back in 2011, where we both worked for another company. We enjoyed each other’s company and decided to work together on something of our own. Rochelle wrote Daffodils with actors Todd and Colleen in mind, so the parts of Eric and Rose were cast from the beginning - no auditions! Rochelle and Steph (one half of the band LIPS) met while both living and working in NYC. 

They talked about wanting to collaborate on a show together one day, Steph on music and Rochelle on script. Daffodils was the perfect opportunity. Steph suggested we contact Abraham Kunin, a super talented musician and producer, to join the team, as well as her partner (and the other half of the band LIPS) Fen Ikner. 

We wanted to work with a director who could shape and detail the performances, Dena Kennedy, a very well respected actor and director, was the perfect fit. We had known and worked with lighting designer, Jane Hakaraia, on previous shows for other companies, and Jane actually came to us after seeing our public reading of Daffodils, offering to design the lighting. 

We met Emily Hakaraia and Nils Melchert (our sound engineers) through Jane - you see, Emily is Jane’s younger sister, and Nils is Emily’s partner. Imagemaker Garth Badger and editor Erin Geurts joined the Daffodils family before rehearsals even began, they shot all the contemporary footage in the show, and are also the team behind all imagery for Bullet Heart Club. 

How did you become interested in making performance?

Kitan: I grew up in Macedonia up to the age of 7, and my grandma worked at a theatre at the time - so I got to see a lot of shows from a very young age. I remember feeling so excited about going to see anything that was showing, and as I progressed through school (in New Zealand) I ended up wanted to make and take part in shows myself - whether that was theatre or dance (I wasn’t a very good singer). 

After graduating from university, completing a bachelor of arts degree in media and business, I discovered that I enjoyed producing and directing more than being on stage. Meeting Rochelle in 2011 was perfectly timed, as we were both looking to create something new - Daffodils and the launch of our company Bullet Heart Club are the result. 

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?

Rochelle: Daffodils is Bullet Heart Club’s debut work. The best thing about a debut work, is that there are no expectations, nothing set in stone, no real right or wrongs, you go with your gut. We created the process as we went along, and to the requirements of the work itself. We started with the script. During rehearsals the musical arrangements and the performance style slowly shaped together. 

We learnt that our process involves a very finely detailed breakdown for the actors that is beat by beat matched by the band. Then in live performance, there is this balancing act between everyone, making small shifts, to keep each moment feeling authentic and real. I think this style of performance for music theatre is unique, and now that we’re working on new projects, our aim is to continue this balancing act. 

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

Kitan: Daffodils is a kiwi story from our own backyard, with some very iconic kiwi songs. We want the audience to experience a piece of our New Zealand culture, with the hope that they see something they can relate to - whether it’s something to do with their own family, a secret or a tragedy. If you’re a music lover - this show has plenty for you! Daffodils is a deeply personal love story, that we want audiences to be swept up by and believe everything is true. 

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

Kitan & Rochelle: We use multiple devices to shape the audience experience including: family archival imagery to show you the real family behind the story, verbatim love letters from the real Eric and Rose, we choose songs that have a real emotional truth to them and everything is performed via direct address so that the characters can completely open up to the audience. Every moment was carefully considered, leading up to the key dramatic turning point at the end of the show. We hope by doing this, the payoff is worth it. 

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?

Daffodils pulls on a number of theatrical traditions, while at the same time, we hope it stands on it’s own with a signature style of music theatre created by our team. We bring all our own styles together - be it the mix of musical arrangements by the band, the lighting and film work, the sound and the special style of performance. Everyone brings their own thing to the work, which is then remixed in with the others. Our aim is to have the music and storytelling stand equal to each other. Daffodils is one part play, one part gig, heavily influenced by cabaret’s use of sourced songs and the storytelling language/imagery of music videos.  

Daffodils was “inspired by” the story of playwright Rochelle Bright’s own parents. Using private letters, interviews and family myths, trotted out at parties, the production unfolds against a backdrop of Kodak stills, Super8 home movies and fashion photography created by one of New Zealand's leading image makers, Garth Badger (Lorde, Nike).


Eric is played by Todd Emerson (Stage credits include The Brave, Lungs, The Pitchfork Disney and The History Boys. Films include ‘The World’s Fastest India’n and ‘My Wedding and other Secrets’) and Rose by Colleen Davis (Cabaret, Chicago and Little Shop of Horrors for Auckland Theatre Company & Dusty Springfield in Dust to Daisy for the Auckland International Festival).

Daffodils (a play with songs) Official Trailer from Bullet Heart Club on Vimeo.

Onstage music is performed by Stephanie Brown (2012 winner of New Zealand’s most prestigious songwriting award, the Silver Scroll) (LIPS) and multi-instrumentalist Fen Ikner , who together are the band LIPS, and instrumentalist, songwriter and music director Abraham Kunin.


Writer Rochelle Bright (Auckland) and creative director Kitan Petkovski (Melbourne) formed Bullet Heart Club in 2014 for their breakthrough hit Daffodils. The company's debut work has toured across 12 cities in New Zealand, including six international arts festivals. The show has returned and sold-out three times in Auckland and is touring Australia in May 2016.

Lighting design is by Jane Hakaraia, sound design by Nils Melchert, original direction by Dena Kennedy, film and photography by Garth Badger and film edit by Erin Geurts.


Traverse Theatre, 10 Cambridge Street, EH1 2ED (Traverse 1)

4-28 August 2016

Magnetic Dramaturgy: Nicholas Bone @ Hidden Door

Magnetic North Theatre Productions

Walden

by Henry David Thoreau

adapted by Nicholas Bone

Edinburgh’s Magnetic North theatre company is reviving its acclaimed production of Walden for this year’s Hidden Door festival.

Mon 30 May – Wed 1 June 2016, 18.30hrs & 20.30hrs

“My purpose in going to Walden was not to live cheaply or dearly, but to live deliberately.”

On 4th July 1845, Henry David Thoreau walked into the woods near his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts and decided to stay. He found a spot next to a lake called Walden Pond and built a hut. For the next two years he tried to live entirely by his own resources.

Walden, Thoreau’s account of his ‘experiment in simple living’, is one of the most extraordinary and unclassifiable books ever written, with huge contemporary resonance.  It is a meditation on self-sufficiency, the individual’s relationship with the environment and the desire to ‘live deliberately’.  

Hidden Door Festival, Old Lighting Depot, King’s Stables Road, Edinburgh

Monday 30 May – Wed 1 June

18.30hrs & 20.30hrs

What was the inspiration for this performance?

​A mixture of things. I read Walden in 2006 - at the time I was fascinated by Tim Crouch​'s work and there was something in the book that made me think there was a way of presenting it on stage without all the usual rigmarole of historical-biographical one man shows. 

When I was developing the idea with the visual artists Tristan Surtees and Charles Blanc (Sans facon), we also looked at Spalding Gray and performance art of the 1970s. It seemed to me that there was an element of performance art in Thoreau's documentation of his experiment. He didn't have to live in the woods for two years - he came from a wealthy family and had been to Yale - but made a choice to do so and to document his experience. He then turned that documentation into a work of art - a book.  

How did you go about gathering the team for it?

​I had met Tristan and Charles at Cove Park in 2001 and we had been looking for something to do together. I started developing the very early ideas for Walden at Magnetic North's very first Rough Mix artist development residency in late 2006, which they also took part in. 

Afterwards, I asked them if they would like to collaborate on it. I had already worked with the actor Ewan Donald (who was in the original production) and suggested that he read the book - he did, and loved it. By coincidence, he was then the same age as Thoreau had been when he went to the woods (27).

How did you become interested in making performance in the first place - does it hold any particular qualities that other media don't have?

I planned to go to art school, but somehow - I'm not really sure how - I ended up doing a theatre studies degree instead. I had very little experience of theatre, but it grabbed my attention. I like its possibilities - you can do anything with it, you just have to work out how. 

I like that it is only completed by the presence of an audience - a film is the same whether any one watches it or not, but performance can't help but be affected by the audience. Whether they're bored or engaged, whether they're lively or subdued. Visual art has some of the same qualities, but not all.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?

Yes and no. I don't really have a fixed process, though there are elements that are often the same or similar. Once I start work on a project, I have to work out what the process is going to be for the particular nature of the idea. The object is to find the kernel of the idea and find an approach that will reflect that and bring it out - with Walden, the idea of finding the 21st century equivalent of writing a book about his experience was key. 

Thoreau wrote a book because that was his medium - though interestingly his first idea was to make it an illustrated talk (he was a renowned public speaker) - but it was still conceived as a work of art, not as a manual for self-sufficiency. The starting point was to treat the text as a found object - one goal was not to change any of Thoreau's words, just edit them. 

In the end I had to relent - partly because of the differing demands of written and spoken text, partly because of shaping a narrative - but it was an important principle. At one point - when I was in full-on 'nothing must be altered' mode - Tim Crouch read the text and gave some useful advice, which began 'I'm not the slightest bit impressed by the text not having been altered'. It was important for me to be quite purist about it to start with, but I also needed someone to tell me to lighten up about it later on. 

The most substantial changes - apart from breaking up long sentences - was to do with tenses. Thoreau wrote some of the book in the continuous-present tense, some in the past; to give shape to the performance, we used the past tense at the beginning and end, and the continuous present throughout the central section when he talks about being at Walden.   

The process was also one of reflecting the simplicity of Thoreau's existence by stripping away anything extraneous - it seemed wrong to make a show about living with the minimum of things by using lots of theatrical paraphernalia. 

Once we had decided to do it in the round, it became simpler still - anything that is used in the round becomes significant because someone is close to it, there's no such thing as set-dressing, the necessity of everything is questioned. That's how we ended up with just a pile of sand, a stick and no sound or lighting. 

Ironically, this simplicity doesn't come cheap - when there's so little, everything has to be just right: the set was one of the most expensive we've ever had built.  

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

​It's quite an intense experience - there is no way you can sit there and not feel part of the performance. There are only 40 people, and they're all looking at each other, enclosed by the high back of the bench that creates the performance space. You can't slip out unnoticed. 

The performer demands your attention, but you can choose not to give it - you have to choose though, you can't be inactive in the way you can in the back row of the upper circle. It has something of the air of a religious gathering - maybe a Quaker meeting? - and it is certainly a communal event. I hope that the audience will feel that they have been somewhere together - surprising for a show about a man living on his own, perhaps.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

Early on, we considered making them an audience at a public lecture, then as spectators at a performance art event like Cornelia Parker's The Maybe. The absence of any visual or aural flourish means that it makes the audience work - they complete the picture themselves and this was very conscious on our part. ​

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?

This particular work is in the tradition of Richard Schechner or Spalding Gray, though it's not anything like their work. It draws on their experience, though. Tim Crouch's awareness of the audience's complicity in completing a performance is important to me.   ​

Are there any other questions I ought to ask that might help me to understand the meaning of dramaturgy for you in your work?

​For me, dramaturgy is working out the right questions to ask. The work in rehearsals is to explore the possible answers whilst uncovering more questions along the way​. The art is in making choices from the possibilities in order to create something coherent.

First produced in 2009, Magnetic North’s adaptation was hugely popular with audiences and received a string of 4 and 5 star reviews. 

Nicholas Bone, Magnetic North’s Artistic Director, and Walden’s director and adaptor said: “Magnetic North is delighted to have the opportunity to revive Walden for Hidden Door’s invited programme. As an Edinburgh-based company, we’re hugely supportive of the opportunities Hidden Door gives for artists and audiences to share work in otherwise disused spaces in the city. We’re looking forward to being part of the event for the first time this year.”

The production is performed in an intimate, in-the-round setting: 12 beautifully crafted benches made from American cedar join together to create an arena for the audience and actor, with just 40 audience members able to attend each performance.

Madness of Dramaturgy:

Greenside @ Nicholson Square: 7 - 22 August (not 9,16,17) 1:45pm (60mins)

When a young Hollywood actress struggles to connect with Shakespeare’s Ophelia she desperately turns to method acting, but soon the boundaries between the theatre and her own reality become blurred. Amongst the bombs and sirens of blitz-struck London her stunning portrayal quickly becomes the performance of her life.

Method in Madness explores the pressure upon all actresses who tackle one of Shakespeare’s most enigmatic female characters and also presents the dangers of taking method acting too far. The play also highlights the rarely-hailed defiance of British theatre against the efforts by Nazi bombers to demoralise and divide a nation. Method in Madness fuses both Shakespearean text and new writing with physical theatre and elements of dance, all soundtracked by the haunting music of singer-songwriter Laura Marling.



The Fringe

What inspired this production: did you begin with an idea or a script or an object?
Method in Madness came from a fascination with Shakespeare's Ophelia. A more detailed look into the love interest of Hamlet, whose story doesn't receive the limelight it deserves in Shakespeare's play. Although Ophelia's story of losing her love, losing her father and finally losing her mind echoes that of Hamlet's, her story is bitty and full of holes. This started our obsession with the character of Ophelia and how she is portrayed, especially of her descent into madness. In 'Hamlet' in one scene she is fine and then in the next she is singing songs and collecting flowers seemingly to have lost her mind in the wings.


The theatrical nature and legacy of Shakespeare's plays and how they are performed brought us to setting the performance in a theatre. Following this with research into portrayals of Shakespeare's iconic roles, we stumbled across an anecdote of Daniel Day-Lewis. Whilst playing Hamlet, Daniel Day-Lewis, saw the ghost of his father parading in the wings and the show had to be cancelled due to the actor's troubled state. This brought us to the dangers of method acting and how a young actress could lose herself in the beautiful but tragic role of Ophelia and hence the start of Method in Madness. Therefore through Shakespeare's Hamlet and real life experiences the show was sparked into life.

Why bring your work to Edinburgh?
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is a fantastic festival for new work to be seen, and as an emerging theatre company it provides the exposure we need for our new pieces of work. In addition to this the audiences of the festival are willing to give new work a go and experience a show that may be a little different. Therefore with our new takes on Shakespeare classics portrayed through a new and exciting blend of dance language, new writing as well as that of the bard's, we couldn't imagine a more perfect festival and audience for our work.

What can the audience expect to see and feel - or even think - of your production?
The unique quality of Method in Madness that resulted in the show being awarded Best of Fest (IYAF 2014), is how Method in Madness fuses Shakespearean text and new writing with physical theatre and elements of dance. Whilst being sound-tracked by the haunting music of singer/songwriter Laura Marling.

Entita Theatre is an emerging theatre company who are striving to create their own brand of physical re-imaginings of Shakespeare's classic texts. 

Method in Madness takes Ophelia's life and story and shows her deterioration into madness in a way unlike any other show, through a play-in-a-play, we see an actress falling down her path surrounded by the men whose stories put her there. This approach to a classic and unique choreography makes audiences think on Shakespeare's iconic character and the actresses who play her in a whole new light. The experience of our shows are all encompassing, from the haunting soundtrack to the choreography that comes more from the soul than from a cold rehearsal room. The audience can expect to be swept up in the whirlwind of Blitz stricken London and each struggle of the onstage actors.



The Dramaturgy Questions

Do you have a particular process of making that you could describe - where it begins, how you develop it, and whether there is any collaboration in the process?
Entita Theatre work collaboratively devising as an ensemble lead by Director Jamie Woods and Movement Director Katharine Hardman. The start point and inspiration to all our pieces and movement sequences originate from the original Shakespearean text. Allowing the poetry of the words to become that of movement in the body. Our rehearsals look at Shakespeare how it is meant to be explored - on its feet and how his characters resonate in our lives today.

The script for Method in Madness was written by Alex Doble and Katie Dunstan and then devised by Entita Theatre. The initial idea came from Entita's Artistic Directors and then was handed over to the creative minds of the writers, who took the idea and developed it into the piece of work it is today.

Doble and Dunstan worked alongside Entita's Artistic Directors to edit the script, as well as attending rehearsals to see the script up on its feet and where improvements could be made. They also worked closely with Hardman on translating words into movement, with some pages of dialogue being replaced entirely with choreography. Entita's writers work side by side with the creative team and cast, adding two more members to the Entita ensemble.


What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work?
The narrative of our script is quite clear and concise, it is however in the movement sequences that we allow the audience to draw meaning. Whilst a picture is worth a thousand words a sequence of stage pictures can speak volumes. I daren't say too much more as it is in these moments of movement and expression that we truly enjoy hearing what an audience has picked up and taken away from the show. 


Entita Theatre are the current Graduate Theatre Company in Residence at the University of Kent, run by Co-Artistic Directors Jamie Woods and Katharine Hardman. 

The company specialise in producing ambitious, physical re-workings of Shakespeare plays. They were awarded Best of Fest at the International Youth Arts Festival 2014 for Method in Madness, which was also shortlisted for the National Student Drama Festival 2015. 

Entita are presenting both Method in Madness and their new production Fall at both IYAF and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2015.

 Greenside @ Nicolson Square (Fringe Venue 209) Sub-venue: Emerald Theatre. 7 - 22 August (not 9,16,17) 1.45 pm (60 mins). Tickets: £6 previews 7 – 8 August. Otherwise £7.50 (conc. £2 off).

Dramatury, the craft of intention: John Moran @ Stereo

And that all of these are interesting questions, yet I fear my most truthful answers are likely to be too lengthy. Therefore, I would take this chance to shamelessly promote a book which I wrote last year in Bangkok, just before attempting suicide and while trapped there penniless and under martial-law without a means of exit. 

 I was finally happy, in other words. I wrote the book because at that moment my computer had broken, and without a means to fix it the only aspect of it which still functioned was its text-edit program. And so a book. It goes on at length on these subjects, actually; and I'll rationalize my promotion of it here by pointing out that the book is offered free, and will probably never be read otherwise in my lifetime. 

The link is here (on dropbox): https://www.dropbox.com/s/t5pw6mwv6igov86/John%20Moran.pdf

How would you explain the relevance - or otherwise - of dramaturgy within your work?

John Moran: This questions pulls me back to the moment I experienced an abrupt shift in both subject matter and my approach to theater in general; namely, the moment in 2004 when I decided to create works which were autobiographical in nature. There came a point - after a 20 year career as a composer / theater-artist in New York - when fact became more interesting than fiction, and I felt the story as it was unfolding the most relevant observation I could offer regarding our world.

People have asked me sometimes, if I 'make up' stories, but I never would. Why would one conclude a delicious meal such as life, with the bitter taste of castor oil; such is the effect of fantasy on the tongue, I've found.

The first work of pure autobiography, I think then would be John Moran..and his neighbor, Saori - which featured Japanese performer Saori Tsukada and myself (and which was the vehicle for my first meeting The Arches in Glasgow some years ago, thankfully) - and which is both factual and theatrical; this blending I aspire to now.

Before that time, I'd created many large-scale theatrical works in New York, as a young art-star and living with Philip Glass - works fantastical in nature and often relying on stage-craft illusions - which had received a great deal of attention, but have since (materially) disappeared. This was a devastating experience for me at the time; 20 years of work being actively erased from public consciousness (despite having featured well known celebrities such as Iggy Pop, Uma Thurman or Allen Ginsberg, and my having first been mantled with absurd titles such as the 'wunderkind', and 'a modern-day Mozart') at the hands of politicized money interests in America - like Harvard University and Brooklyn Academy of Music - in order to cover up the financial misdeeds of said institutions which I became public bulldog to uncovering; they didn't find it 'appropriate', and in essence, a blacklisting of my work was to follow. 

And has held. And eventuated in my being homeless for a period - living on the street in the city I had once thought of as my love; powers that be then purposely cold and unreasonable. These are the qualities of money, after all, and so I shouldn't have been surprised except naive. And so I turned my back on that currency, despite the praise beginning to return eventually. I didn't want it any more. I'll leave the rest to the elaborations of the link I began with, I think.

This politicized 'disappearance' of my work in America, though, and the period of homelessness which followed had a profound effect on me as an artist; I came to not only detest the notion of money (and it's BFF hypocrisy), but of large-scale productions. I've come to feel that where production values enter, honesty is asked to vacate in order to give the hands of polity more room to puppeteer.

first cd I ever bought

But politics are famously ham-handed, aren't they? So no thank you. My question became, what value are tears if wrenched over force fed illusions? This month I'm living across the street from Kantor's childhood home, in what was the Jewish ghetto of Krakow. The holocaust was real. The military takeover of the government in Thailand last year, and its citizens losing their right to free-speech was real. My financial destitution and homelessness are real. The permanence of status in small ponds, is not.

So in response, I devoted myself to creating works which - apart from autobiographical - strive for an absolute simplicity of presentation; no costume, no beauty. Complex compositional ideas and deep ruminations on life, some say. But presented bare to encourage examination. No more deceptions. 

The work I'll come to Stereo with this month - Etude: Amsterdam - requires myself, an iPod and small box. And for an artist to need more I consider a weakness. My post-apocalyptic decade of statelessness now - a state of never-ending international tour, to be specific; changing continents on a monthly basis, no safety of home to return to anywhere - have forged an artist who is 'road tough'. Survival. What I have done, in that sense, is trade grand illusion for slight-of-hand in close up; you encounter me helpless at roadside, and stopping to gawk are beguiled into the numbness of superiority; a penniless loser got stoned and crashed his life here, you'll say.

And there I can see to stripping you. The message? That the currency of 'success' and 'status' are cheap. That your preconceptions are cheap. That safety reduces ones integrity to the level of greasy coin, covered in dirt and bacteria in a parade of grabbing hands. All of the corruption of things which one once valued dearly in themselves, can be averted by simply embracing failure. Embracing anonymity. Corruption relies on your fear of being outsider.

This, to me, is what I think you're defining as 'dramaturgy'. The craft of intention. Maybe you'll disagree.

What particular traditions and influences would you acknowledge on your work - have any particular artists, or genres inspired you and do you see yourself within their tradition?
When I was a child, growing up in Nebraska (the farm-land center of America) - having never gone to school and later living with members of a Jungian doomsday cult - I desperately wanted to be a Disney animator, as well as a creator of rides (see Disneyland). Instead of school then, I devoted myself to these studies. I was in a type of communication of sorts - by post - with staff at that theme-park, and it's department of 'imagineers', as they were called. They were very encouraging, and in this way I felt myself to be anointed somehow; one of the advantages of a childhood before the internet - all the world as private as parent.

My education having been the lengthy descriptions of early animation, it was painfully obvious that I wasn't capable of producing the googolplex of drawings required to replicate what I had learned to do there. And so, in that absence, I asked humans to fill that role, with their bodies. I long knew that recorded voices came first, whereupon the sound-wave would be transferred to the edge of a film-strip, in visual form; and from there be marked up as to where vowels landed in terms of frame number. 

And how immediate it seemed to ask real people to assume the role of drawings, while observing the same principles. Having no image to correspond then to soundtracks I'd created from recorded voices and sound effects - and desiring to see one - I simply wrote it all down in detailed stage directions, and asked that actors fill the role of those drawings on stage, and in detailed synch.

Having little or nothing to do with the notion of Disney going forward, this became a principle I've adhered to, as it inadvertently opened a door to more compositional ideas than I care to mention at this moment.

It always begged a different definition, my work, because it combined a number of elements in ways which one hadn't seen before. Its words on the page didn't read like a play, as their stage-notes were so voluminous. One was told it was a musical composition, but there were no singers, or musicians. 

It called for performers to lip synch, but that was misleading, as it also encompassed ankle synch, and neck synch. Stand up exactly here synch, and that's a wooden chair (which is audible but invisible) so I want to see its resistance show in your arm as you attempt to slide it on carpet, which is its timbre. And then - wait wait wait - your line! And waaaaaaait...NOW you start section B!' These would be phrases typical of rehearsal, if you threw in a few 'why don't you love me?'s, for flavor.

Later on and thereafter I was known as 'the protege of Philip Glass', having been somewhat adopted and (very much) supported by Glass at a young age, but in honesty I was far more influenced by the early works of Steve Reich, who today I can say I feel was superior composer. 

 Whereas I've come to think of Glass in his later years as the Rupert Murdoch of composers; which I don't admire. Allen Ginsberg had a deep effect on my life, personally, although I never felt a kinship with his actual work. I didn't need to.

What I do hear most often from audiences, is that they've never seen work like mine, and I'll admit I haven't either - this echoes my theme in life as outsider, I don't even know who my parents were; and this is no tame construct. For me it has meant of life of always being reminded that there is no place for me. Apart from the adventure of mythos, I am told my rewards are reserved for a time when I am no longer here to receive them. 

 This realization is brought about in me upon questions of 'influence'. I am alone. And I'm grateful for that as in adventure I receive the best of the bargain, I believe. As truly, who among us can forgive themselves, inside, for having become complacent or off-track. I am not allowed that avenue.

Do you have a particular process of making that you could describe - where it begins, how you develop it, and whether there is any collaboration in the process?
I'll quote the book I've referenced, if that's alright: "...the moment my work became subject, authority could go fuck itself. Whether that be parent or guardian, counsellor or judge, cult-leader, professor, lender or landlord: At first, I'm goofy and sheepish, sorry that I'm late. Then maybe I forgot something, or didn't know you'd meant 'today'. Then I'm heard to say 'I'll be right back.' and disappear. Finally fortressed, get out my way at the threat of emotional weaponry: the work. And every time I've been afforded space, since, it has become fortress where social event is forbidden as if a sombre gateway. Impractical when having been granted only temporarily. But thinking of you from that furthest distance, a changeling son now exiled; this is my theme presenting." 

Again, I could go on at length about what I'm actually 'doing' in that fortress of solitude, but I don't feel like it. Art...blah blah.

What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work?

Book of The Dead

Reaching an audience is the purpose of theater; period. Without audience I would be forever content as ghost. Audiences matter more than safety. More than success. It makes no difference be it five or 5,000 individuals; to feel otherwise would be hypocrisy for artist. And if you approach an audience with that attitude, you'll find you will win them over. If reader is not inclined to agree with me, though, they may find Paris or Berlin appealing, where there are no shortage of performers who feel that privately investigating themselves, for themselves without skill-set in front of others, to have great value, from what I've observed. 

Just use the word 'improvisation' a lot and you'll do fine.