The Princes’ Dramaturgy: Henry Winlow @ Edfringe 2016

The classic musical fairy-tale, or is it?

A chance encounter makes Earnest reflect on how his fairy-tale life all began. Everyone is caught up between the real and the fantasy. The two princes are looking for love and the princess wants freeing from her metaphorical tower. 

Meanwhile, Tinkerbelle needs her friend to realise that she needs no hero to save her from her curse. All Bill can dream of is someone to plant his sunflower seeds with…

The Princes’ Quest is a new musical written by  Sophie McQuillan & Henry Winlow performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, C Cubed. 

 

What was the inspiration for this performance?

The show was first inspired by a fake news article about an upcoming disney movie about two Princes who go on a quest for a Princess but fall in love with each other. While the movie was never to be we got thinking that this would be a great story to tell to the world and perfectly fitting for a musical. Having recently come out Henry and his ex-partner Sophie felt that working on a project like this with each other would be a fantastic thing to do. We moved away from the fantasy world however and grounded the show in a modern day setting. Our main aim however was to create an LGBT fairytale that is so rarely told.

How did you go about gathering the team for it?

The show was initially entered into a university drama festival, a chance to workshop the piece and initially see if it had any footing and whether people were going to enjoy it. To get the team together for this we (the writers) were keen to work with a team of people we trusted and had worked with before (as so often is the case with putting together performances). The production team were all brought on board from previous shows we had worked on and we then opened up auditions for the roles to anyone. We were lucky to find a fantastic cast that could both perform brilliantly but also work together as a unified team and enjoy it.

How did you become interested in making performance?

As a team we have all approached performance from different backgrounds and areas. I (Henry) have always been involved backstage mostly producing in the past but have had a love of musical theatre so have always enjoyed having a way to work in performance without going on stage. 

As a classically trained musician however writing a musical has been on my bucket list for a very long time so finding the opportunity to take time to do this has been brilliant. The rest of the team, Sophie the co-writer included, have mostly approached performance from on stage roles in the past and while many have stuck to this, others such as Nick our MD, Gen our producer and Olivia our director have used the experiences they gained as a performer to transfer their skills to other areas in order support making performances they love.

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

Some elements of the process have been typical such as our audition processes and the initial learning and teaching stages, particularly in terms of music. However the majority of the rehearsal stage was far more collaborative than any project I have previously been involved in. 

While Olivia, our director, led the way every member of the team, whether production team, performer or band had a voice in how things were staged and how parts of the show were to be interpreted. Also as writers we were both very open to changes throughout the rehearsal process and after our first set of performances as we believed that every view of people involved in the performance was vital, especially for those on the stage to feel committed to what they are doing.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

Our performances main aim is to entertain our audiences and the way we do this mostly is through comedy. However we also look to have some moving moments, and have had positive responses to these in previous reviews. We also hope people leave and hope to see more LGBT fairytales in the near future.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

One of the most useful things we have undertaken to help shape audience experience was our run at the Durham University Drama Festival. We spoke to as many audience members as possible to get a feedback and work out ways to improve the show. From this we undertook extensive rewrites as well as changing parts of staging to build on the things people enjoyed. 

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?

The show has several unique elements to it however in some ways we have purposefully tried to match elements with the musical genre, particularly thinking about conventional fairytale's like the ones portrayed by Disney.

In their pursuit of the princess, two modern-day princes realise that actually, their true affection is for each other.

Winlow, who composed the score said, ‘We wanted to use Disney-esque music to present a show about people who never normally have a movie or musical made about them.’

‘The show develops beautifully as the music guides you through every emotional turn. The story heads in several directions simultaneously so you have no idea what ending you’ll get until the last moment,’ commented Olivia Race, Director.

‘The show turns the fairy-tale genre on its head. It shows how the stuff of legend is actually present in everyday life and yet the whole thing is grounded in telling a story about characters whose stories aren’t normally heard,’ said McQuillan, writer of the book.

The show premiered at the Durham Drama Festival in February 2016. It won Best Musical and Best Actor (Joe McWilliam) as well as receiving nominations for several other awards including Best Direction, Best Supporting Actress (Bianca Watts) and Best Ensemble.

Over 2015 and 2016, the entire company involved with The Princes’ Quest has been invited to the National Student Drama Festival and between them they hold 25 Fringe Credits. This may be Front Room Productions’ debut at Edinburgh Fringe Festival but The Princes’ Quest shaping up to be something quite special.

Hide and Seek (Arika@Tramway)

Our languages, habits, desires; our race, sexuality and gender: none of these originate from within our selves so much as they're prescribed by social norms.

First page of the booklet promoting Arika Episode 5 (Hidden in Plain Sight).

Having done Marxism, experimental music, Black Power and so on and so forth, Arika are aiming for gender politics of the most bracing nature. If the history of experimental art in the twentieth century was an energetic breaking and blending of boundaries (and it might have been), does this make the collision of gender identity and feminism the most experimental of all art forms, to the extent that it is barely recognised as art?

I can remember a time when I would shout "heteronormative" every so often, just to prove my loyalty to queer politics.

Arika's shift away from a series of experimental music festivals to a series of experimental festivals has taken in art forms that are more comfortably aligned with choreography or Live Art. The twin curators of Arika (who both shy away from the job description and publicity) have shown an influence not so much in the aesthetics of contemporary art but the communities that surround it. Episode 5 has a look at various communities that are not so much defined by what they are, but what they are not.

"You know how the LGBTQ movement is preoccupied with visibility?" he replied. "Here's a little irony when it comes to the T and Q. Visibility might not be the issue. Some trans persons are trying to pass, and that makes visibility the last thing on their mind."

In coverage of a recent court case, the headline used the phrase "transwoman" when the subject was a  "transman."

What is the relationship between the idea of visibility in these two statements?

The Friday Night at Episode 5 might well be the highlight. It slaps together two of the USA's most intriguing dance movements of the 1960s: voguing ballrooms and the post-modern choreography centred around The Judson Church. On the one hand, a populist social dance; on the other, a specialised deconstruction of high art dance.

Are the flames from the fires lit in the 1960s still licking at the heels of the contemporary artist?

Episode 5: Hidden in Plain Sight (Tramway 24 – 26 May & Stereo club night 24 May) 

Events: £14 Festival Pass / £6 Day Pass 

Full programme. 

Macrobert and Equality

A few years ago, I went to an event in The Arches which hoped that Scotland would become "a leader in equality." Never mind the irony of such an aim - the world does need someone to lead the charge to inclusion, as there are some pretty nasty nations copping an attitude - there's a slight worry that the Conservatives in England and Wales are proving more progressive in regard to same sex marriage than the devolved government in Scotland. There's probably an intrinsic problem in the philosophy behind equality legislation: grouping different minority interests together doesn't mean that the groups will share any agenda, and the move towards equality can mean protecting certain minorities from others. It's lucky that there are dynamic, thoughtful people involved in the dialogue - hopefully, most of them won't become politicians, but stay in the more fertile area of art and activism. Meanwhile, a couple of new art works are celebrating LGBT History Month. Up at the macrobert, the first Cultural Commissions are being presented. Sandra Alland (from Zorras, I believe) will present videos by participants from her Queer & Trans Deaf and Disabled Video Mentorship Project, an excerpt from her upcoming documentary on LGBTI Deaf and disabled artists in Scotland, and a Q&A with the filmmakers.. Lucy Holmes-Elliott (out of Lock Up Your Daughters) will display a series of illustrations and photos that form an exploration and celebration of queer Scottish Identity 6.30pm on Thursday, 28th February 2013 macrobert arts centre, Stirling This is followed by an event that does show that some minority concerns do overlap: Celebrating Intersectional Equality. Over to the press release for clarification, I think. Many LGB and T people have intersectional identities. For example: we are also disabled and/or from minority ethnic backgrounds. Our needs can be complex and we can experience unique barriers to accessing your services. Over the past five years there has been a steady increase in intersectional specific work in Scotland. Many organisations have been doing their bit to make their services more inclusive of people with intersectional identities. We will be celebrating this by exchanging stories about our work and building a timeline of intersectional work in Scotland. This timeline will be put on-line so that we can all share our intersectional work more easily and encourage each other to continue to include people with intersectional identities. We will also be listening to personal testimonies and exchanging ideas about how to make your service more inclusive of all LGB and T people. Everyone is most welcome to bring intersectional resources to distribute.  9.30am - 2.30pm on 28 February at macrobert arts centre, Stirling