The Dramaturgy in Annie's Head: No Door @ Edfringe 2017

Get covered in anxiety-fuelled glittery mess at this year’s Fringe!

No Door Theatre

An Evening with the Voices in Annie’s Head

No Door Theatre are a young theatre company in Manchester. They are fiscally poor, emotionally naive, and very uncomfortable writing about themselves in the third person. For the last three years they have been putting on sell-out shows to critical acclaim in Manchester, but this show was different, because this is the show where they are (if anything) far too open about their fears about being poor, naive and uncomfortable. They also may not have skimped for even a second on the amount of glitter they wanted to use. 

THEREFORE, they have decided to take this play An Evening with the Voices in Annie's Head to Edinburgh, in the hopes of finding more people who share any of their deepest darkest insecurities, or indeed their love of glitter. 

What was the inspiration for this performance?

It all started when Sarah developed a manic obsession with Graham Norton and started narrating her life through his voice, a habit which irritated her friends who encouraged her to channel this into a play. 

Not quite. 

In reality, Sarah tapped into something that affects all of us; we all have some element of these ‘voices’.  An Evening with the Voices in Annie’s Head is not about psychosis or schizophrenia, it’s about our own voice telling us we’re not good company, that we’re too fat or too skinny, or not funny enough. Some lucky people can turn this voice off quite easily, for others these thoughts can be constant and get in the way of everyday life sometimes leading to mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression. What Sarah Teale has done with her wonderful script is taken this painful reality and transformed it into a glitzy, hilarious TV show in Annie’s mind run by Ken and Kendra Kenderson (so unoriginal Annie) who comment on her every decision. The play is punctuated with Annie’s genuine social interactions  where we meet Bethany (basically a much more beautiful, funny and clever Annie) and Peter (sex god, way too good for you Annie) and we watch as she tries to act ‘normal’. It’s brutally honest and leaves you unsure whether to laugh or cry.

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

Definitely. There is a huge freedom in the theatre space to try out ideas. Just look at the fringe! There are basically no rules so you’re free to experiment and every year you can pretty much track what has happened politically through what shows are about that year at Fringe (there’s definitely a solid dissertation in that somewhere-right?)  

In fact, that was the main reason we chose to take An Evening with the Voices in Annie’s Head up to Edinburgh. When it was debuted at the Manchester Inner Fringe Theatre Awards (MIFTA) in 2015 we were delighted that the show sparked a lot of discussion among students. Many people came up to us to tell us about their own ‘voices’ experiences. Annie is not necessarily a happy story, but just knowing that there are other people who feel the same way I believe had a powerful effect on our audience.  

How did you become interested in making performance?

Sarah and I were both keen performers from a young age. Sarah [insert hilarious and cute childhood theatre experience] and Georgia first appeared in the memorably emotional role of Plankton 2. Both of us soon discovered that our obsessive need to control everything was not satisfied by acting and delved into writing, directing and production. Clearly set for greatness, we both found their way from opposite ends of the country to the University of Manchester to study Music and Drama and discovered that we were both born on the 16th July (fate!) and were mutually passionate about writing plays that are comic, have diverse and realistic roles for women and allow us to drink a lot of gin and tonic in the process. 

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

A lot of snacks- no joke. With Sarah at the helm of this glittery-anxious fuelled ship, this has been a team effort with the cast fully involved with promoting and fundraising for the show. Having performed this production before we knew what we wanted to keep and what to change. This year’s cast is a mix of old and new which organically helps us to inject some exciting glittery novelty into the production. Mainly its just important to us that everyone has a lot of

fun putting it together so that they like us and want to act with us again (please like us and never leave us guys!) 

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

Completely. AEWTVIAH has in fact set the bar for our other productions. It contains the three main things we care about: women, mental health, and it makes us laugh. As a general rule, we aim to only produce plays that have more roles for women than men, in an aim to level the playing field after personally experiencing a multitude of male dominated plays at university despite the opposite ratio of about 100 females: 1 male on the drama course. Although not all our plays focus on mental health, we are keen to explore further the grey areas where you may not have a diagnosed condition but issues surrounding mental health affects you directly or indirectly through friends or family members. 

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

We hope that An Evening with the Voices in Annie’s Head will leave audience’s enlightened, with a new sense of self worth and determination to use their skills to tackle world peace, global warming and encouraging Kate Nash to come and be friends with us. But at the very least, we hope it will get people to talk to each other, and really just be nice to each other! I was amazed by the people who told me they related to Annie, people who I massively envied for their brains, beauty and talent. It is sad to know how hard everyone is on themselves. 

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

To slightly misquote Mary Poppins ‘Just a shit-ton of glitter makes the

medicine go down’. We don’t want to be a massive downer, we don’t want our audience to leave emotionally scarred, we want them to be glittery. Free glitter will be available at every performance to cover our audience’s faces with so that they spend the rest of the day feeling more fun. The show is also Pay What You Feel because as poor graduates, we don’t want to make anyone feel they can’t come to the show. At the end of the show there will also be leaflets available from mental health charities, 42nd Street and Anxiety UK for anyone who is affected by issues within the play and would like to seek advice. 

The play is centred around this 'Annie’, her desperate attempts to make any kind of vaguely functioning slight connection with a single person she meets in the whole world, and the two television presenters in her mind who want to stop her. The play looks at the social anxiety that (we hope) plagues all of us a tad (right?!) and it tries to do it in a fun and funny and sparkly way. 

 In its debut at the 2016 MIFTAs, the play won Best Newcomer (Stella Ryley) and Best Costume/Make-up, but we were most moved by the stories students’ personally shared with us when they saw themselves in Annie. We knew that this was a show that needed to be seen by more people. 

Venue: Paradise in Augustines (studio)

Dates: 14^th-27^th August (no show on the 20th)

Time: 13.35

Tickets: PWYF (£5 reserve)

Box office: 0131 226 0000

 

God Dramaturgy: The University of Manchester Musical Theatre Society @ Edfringe 2017

The University of Manchester Musical Theatre Society presents

Godspell

By John-Michael Tebelak

Godspell ascends to the Fringe as a festival-themed musical extravaganza that follows the Gospel of Matthew.

The Sanctuary, Paradise in Augustines (Venue 152)

George IV Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1EL

21^st-27^th August, 15:05 – 16:50 (105 minutes)

Tickets: £8, £5 concessions

Link: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/godspell-1 / 0131 226 0000

Godspell is composed of various musical parables from the Gospel of Matthew and contains the hits Bless the Lord, Day by Day and Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord. This reimagining of Godspell is set in a festival tent, where bread and wine are exchanged for LSD and Jesus is a rock star. 

The eleven cast members, hand picked from Manchester’s considerable pool of musical theatre talent, take the audience on a journey of hilarity to tragedy and back again, accompanied by infectiously catchy and heartbreakingly beautiful music. Audience members leave uplifted, and with considerably more glitter than when they entered. 

What was the inspiration for this performance?

I can’t remember exactly what gave me the idea to do a version of Godspell at a festival.  I pitched the idea to the society committee during summer and I think I’d just bought a ticket to a festival and it just seemed like the perfect way of updating the original hippy/clown theme to make it relevant to audiences my age, but having Jesus as a rock star and having the band on stage dressed as a typical Indie band just seemed like such a fun way of performing a rock musical!  

It was also partly because the venue for the society is this tiny room in the top of the SU which could be transformed so easily into a festival tent with just some fairylights and glitter.

The musical is loosely based on Matthew’s gospel.  I have taken inspiration from Peter Sellars’ unique setting of Bach’s St Matthew Passion as well as Pasolini’s film.  For example, one of Seller’s most effective Chorale settings was having the singers simply hug each other, and a lot of my direction was just telling the cast to do things like ‘dance around and hug each other’ which they did very well.

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

Yes definitely. My setting Godspell in a festival tent, having Jesus dressed as a rock star etc. is a metaphor for modern day idols: we still worship gods as fanatically as ever, just different gods; electronic dance music is the new religious sound track.  

A lot of people dislike Godspell, and those that don’t know it are sort of taken aback when I just say ‘it’s a musical about Jesus’.  It’s not satire but quite earnest in its message, it’s very fashionable to be a complete atheist and be quite anti-religion at the moment, especially amongst students.  

There are these huge religious communities at Manchester University, for example the Christian Union, but there isn’t much conversation between people of different religions and beliefs.   In fact I don’t think our version is particularly religious with the setting, what I think it beautiful about Godspell is that it’s not preachy, but simply tells stories from the bible, and in the second half the story of the crucifixion, in a funny, light-hearted way, and I think whatever your beliefs it is worth watching because these are moral stories, and although nowadays the general consensus among a lot of students is that religion is more negative and is often linked to war and violence, this is taking a step back and looking at some of the actual teachings or goodness and morality.

On the other hand, Godspell is also about love and joy and forming a community.  You cannot help but be swept up by energy of this cast and uplifted by the infectious music.  I think that there is something special about performance which involves music in contrast to a straight play, because so much of what you take away is the emotions you feel because of the music, and this is perhaps much more raw than the themes and ideas you get in a play.  

For example instead of Judas having a long monologue about his mixed emotions about betraying Jesus you simply have the heart-breaking song ‘On the Willows’ which says it all.

How did you become interested in making performance?

I’ve performed on stage pretty much all my life, from operas and ballets to musicals, and plays, and I had never taken an interest in the behind-the-scenes side of things until I pitched Godspell as an idea to the society committee.  I am a music student but I’m a violinist rather than a singer, so the only way to really combine my love of acting and music professionally would be through directing, although this is something I’ve only really come to within the last year.  

Although I firmly went down the music rather than theatre route during A Levels and applying to University, my mum used to be a drama teacher and I spent a lot of my childhood just doing improv in her after-school classes, so I think some of that quick way of creating performance has resurfaced in me now!  The hardest thing I’ve found about directing rather than performing myself is that you get just as nervous before the shows but there’s no way of relieving the tension with the actual physical performance, so I was a bit of a wreck for the original show week.

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

It was mostly just messing about in rehearsals.  For most of the numbers such as the opening, and things like the last supper I would come with ideas of what exactly I wanted, but I had absolutely no idea how most of the scenes were going to be set before I turned up to rehearsals, it was a mixture of me throwing out random silly suggestions and seeing what happened and the cast suggesting things themselves. 

The book of Godspell must be one of the weirdest of all musicals. There is no actual story, the first half is just a string of parables, linked by musical numbers (one of the biggest challenges for the cast is remembering what order things go in as its pretty mad, just jumping from one random thing to the next). Its extremely bare and quite strange, and so many of the jokes in it are completely dated (just watch the 70s film version to see how weird it is) so beginning the process armed with this weird libretto was extremely daunting, and there are some very bad versions out there on YouTube.  

However the pro to this is its malleability as a show.  You can completely make it your own and I really relished this and found it quite rewarding.  Without a doubt all the funniest moments in the show are things the cast came up with themselves, and I think they all really enjoyed working on something that they had a say in and helped create.  Talking of the cast – as well as being some of the most gifted singers I have ever met some of them have extreme amounts of comic talent, and so it was an absolute pleasure to give them free reign with something as blank-canvas as Godspell. As a director, what I love about it is the lack of boring practical details you have to think about with other shows in terms of props and entrances/exits because there are almost no props and the entire cast are on stage the whole time, which makes it a joy to direct - because its just about them. We basically just had a lot of fun!  I know the cast has a huge amount of fun performing it and I think the audience can’t help but be caught up in it too!

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

Well the only other thing I’ve directed is a medley of the first and last numbers from the musical Hair, which is basically Godspell for adults, so I guess at the moment I seem to be attracted to rock musicals with a hippy vibe, a little niche maybe.  I am not really your average musical theatre fan - I am more drawn to the idea of directing opera, and I hope that I get the opportunity to do some of that next year.  Opera gives you quite a clean slate in terms of how to creatively set say something by Montiverdi from hundreds of years ago, bringing the music to life in a modern and refreshing way.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

I hope that they will find the show funny. Previously, most of the jokes were aimed towards our peers at university, so it will be a challenge to adapt it for the different fringe audience.  I hope that the audience will be moved by the more emotive parts of the show, but most of all I hope they will be uplifted.  Godspell is one of the most joyous musicals I know and the most important thing is that the music created by the cast and (an incredibly talented and funky) band, are enjoyed by the audience. I hope they are caught in the moment and also provoked to think about the subject matter that is explored within the show.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

For the show in November we used glow sticks instead of tickets and glittered people’s faces as they walked in, and surprisingly, people found this simple effect very exciting!

The costumes are entirely created by the cast themselves – I told them to just wear an extreme version of what they would wear to a festival (bum bags and all), and the set was literally 4 beer crates which we borrowed from behind the Student Union bar, and a stepladder.  I think the only thing we actually spent money on was the glitter and glow sticks. Don’t forget it is easier for a camel to get through a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven… 

The University of Manchester Musical Theatre Society (UMMTS) is thrilled to be taking their first show up to the Edinburgh Fringe this year. UMMTS is an exciting, experimental and collaborative student society that aims to create spectacle and professionalism with every show it produces. The Godspell team is made up of over twenty young, experienced theatre and music makers who have been working on this project for over ten months. After experiencing a sell-out run in November, Godspell was also nominated for four National Operatic and Dramatic Association Awards (Best Ensemble Number, Best Supporting Actress, Best Poster (w), Best Programme). 

Mark Dee (North West End):  ‘This was easily the most competent, confident, complete and mature    production I have thus seen from this society…one of the most enjoyable, fresh and alive productions I have seen’ 

Rhiannon Symonds (NODA North West): ‘There was not a dry eye in the house…’

Director - Madeleine Brooks is an experienced musical theatre performer, taking lead roles in the NODA award-winning production of Grand Hotel and most recently in A Chorus Line. She made her directing debut with Godspell in UMMTS’ sell-out run of Godspell in November 2017. 

Musical Director - Matthew Quinn directed the National Stage School of Ireland’s 2017 production of Les Misérables and played also played Valjean in the Belfast Opera House’s production. He is a UoM Music Society conductor under Mark Heron and has taken lead roles in UMMTS productions, such as Baron Von Gagern in Grand Hotel. 

Producers - Méabh Kennedy was President of UMMTS 2016/17 and has extensive experience in producing musicals, such as the NODA award-winning Songs of a New World, Godspell and The 25^th Putnam County Spelling Bee. Marina Jenkins is President of the UoM Drama Society 2017/18 and whilst Godspell is her first producing role, she has experience in writing, directing, stage and technically managing plays part of the UoM Drama Society. 

Our Christian Dramaturgy: Joe Janes @ edfringe 2017

Our Christian Nation Finds Paradise at Edinburgh Fringe
35 Characters Played by 11 Actors in Joe Janes' Cultural Satire About America Erasing the Line Separating Church and State

CHICAGO (July 20, 2017)— What would the USA look like if the extreme Christian right got everything they wanted? 

In this slightly alternate present just before the rapture, Reverend President Robert (Jamie Buell) has eliminated the “fake news” and homosexuality is outlawed. 

A young family is torn apart when Mitch (Adam Ston), the breadwinner, loses his job and is arrested for not being able to pay his bills, while his pregnant wife, Louise (Lauren Fisher) is thrown into a hospital/jail as the state takes ownership of her “fetus.”

Meanwhile, the couple’s daughter, Nipper (Bethany Schmieder) is indoctrinated in various “Biblical” texts by a couple that run a gay conversion therapy camp.

What was the inspiration for this performance?

Anger. I was angry about how Republicans and the Tea Party were treating the Obama administration and I was angry at the constant attempts to erase the separation of church and state, especially when it comes to women rights and gay rights. I’m a comedy writer. Comedy is my weapon.

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

Absolutely! Especially, now. We have a president who is an egomaniac with a thin skin. Satire gets to him. When we did a run of our show earlier this year, I invited some local conservative on-line magazines to review us. They declined and in our e-mail exchanges admitted “We don’t do humor well.”

How did you become interested in making performance?

When I was a kid, my uncle would play comedy

albums for me. Notably, Stan Freberg’s The United States of America, Vol 1: The Early Years, which had a definite influence on this show. Our play is full of revised history lessons. I was hooked and started putting on shows for my classmates starting in the fourth grade. 

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

I wrote the the first draft very quickly. I pitched the idea of the play to 3 Brothers Theatre north of Chicago. They loved it and wanted to feature it in a staged reading during their summer festival in 2015. They told me this at the end of March when I had yet to write a single word of the play! 

They loved it so much, they produced it the following summer and my director and I put it up in Chicago earlier this year. The play has a lot to do with current events, which can be scary for a writer. There’s a concern that things can become dated. Fortunately for the production and unfortunately for the world, it has not. 

We check the news everyday and, quite often, we’re able to reference the latest dumb thing Trump or someone in his administration has said. 

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

Many of my plays are epic with large casts and people playing multiple roles, so, yes. My plays tend to be like sketch comedy revues spinning out of control. 

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

Laughter! Where there’s laughter, there's hope. I hope it gives them a thing or two to think about regarding politics and religion. 

One thing I also appreciate about satire is that it

often makes me feel like I’m not alone. There’s relief in discovering there are other people who are reasonably sane who also think this thing or that thing is bonkers. 

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

I tried to be very clear that it wasn’t an attack on Christianity or anyone’s particular religion. It’s an attack on people who take it to the extreme and impose their beliefs on others and also the hypocrisy that inevitably gets intwined. 

Welcome to Our Christian Nation, an epic satirical one-act play written by Emmy award-winning writer and Second City instructor Joe Janes and directed by Andrea J. Dymond. 

Our Christian Nation is partially funded by a Part-Time Faculty Development Grant from Columbia College Chicago. Janes originally wrote the full-length version of the play for the Three Brothers Waukegan Theatre Festival in Illinois, where it received a staged reading in 2015. Three Brothers Theatre produced the show for their festival in 2016.

Earlier this year, the play received a full six-week run at Chicago’s veteran comedy institution The Cornservatory.

There are 35 characters performed by 11 actors in Our Christian Nation covering a wide range of Christian revised story lessons that include: God creating the world (but he rushed and is sorry about that cancer thing), the founding fathers signing the Declaration of Independence along with founding father Moses and help from a dinosaur, the Civil War occurring because God was mad at Lincoln, Goldilocks being an abortion-loving intruder, and a worldview that has the US as #1 and Australia being as if England and Mississippi had a baby and left it in a dumpster.

Entertaining as well as educational, Our Christian Nation takes place in a world Janes envisions as a kind of nightmare quickly becoming a daymare, i.e. in which the ultra-Christian right wing get everything their hearts desire.

“I wrote the play because I was angry about the Republican and Tea Party response to the Obama administration. I’m sad to report it is still pertinent today. Even more so given our current Whitehouse interloper,” said Janes.

“Our Christian Nation is a world where children only get church-approved homeschool lessons, privatization is rampant, being poor is a crime, insurance is only for those who can afford it, women have very few rights, and conversion therapy camps are as normal as the boy scouts. The Bible has become a textbook in history and science classes.”

“Satire is the best weapon I know of to shed light on absurdities. There’s a lot of work to be done in the states, right now. We’re bringing the show to Edinburgh to show the rest of the world that we’re not all crazy here and we’re doing our best to reverse the tide,” said Janes.

Joe Janes
Joe Janes is an Emmy award-winning writer who teaches comedy writing and improvisation at The Second City and in Columbia College's new Comedy Writing and Performance major. 

He has written for Jellyvision's video game series You Don't Know Jack and Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update. He has published three books, including 365 Sketches, 50 Plays and Seven Deadly Plays. 

Other full-length plays include Metaluna and the Science of the Mind Revue, A Hard Day's Journey into Night, OtherSchool and Always Never. 

His fake Twitter account is @futurepreztrump that he started over a year ago. He tried to warn you.

Andrea J. Dymond
A Chicago-based freelance director specializing in new work, Andrea J. Dymond has been a resident director at Victory Gardens Theater, where she directed 11 productions, including 7 world premieres. 

Selected Chicago credits include: Tree, Year Zero, Blue Door, Free Man of Color, Shoes, and I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document, Helen, and Keep a Song in Your Soul, which she directed and developed with the Grammy award-winning band Carolina Chocolate Drops. 

Most recently, Andrea directed A Lesson Before Dying by Clarence Brown, Shepsu Aahku’s Softly Blue and Lynn Nottage’s Mud River Stone. Andrea’s experience includes research and production dramaturgy, directing at new works festivals nationally; serving as thesis play advisor for MFA playwrights at Carnegie Mellon; and directing at NNPN’s MFA Playwrights Workshops at the Kennedy Center. 

Andrea teaches directing, collaboration, text analysis, acting and new play development at Columbia College Chicago, where she recently directed Blues for an Alabama Sky by Pearl Cleage and Euripides’s Hecuba.

Cast
Lauren Fisher (Louise, Abigail)
Adam Ston (Mitch, various)
Bethany Schmieder (Nipper)
Jamie Buell (Rev. President Robert)
Robin Mina (Shrug, Evelyn, various)
Adrian Garcia (Pastor Mooney, Carlos, various) Garrett Hanson (Mr. Looney, Michael, various) Nicholas Polk (Tim Harfington, Brian, various) Aidan O'Connor (Mrs. Kennedy, Dr. Harley, various) Joe Janes (Cal, Sam, various)
Andrea J. Dymond (God)