Whale Dramaturgy: Hatch It @ Edfringe 2017

Hatch It Theatre presents

Whalebone

Pleasance Courtyard (Cellar) 2nd - 27th August, 1pm

Previews 2nd - 4th August

Hatch It Theatre presents a new piece of experimental theatre that uses puppetry to expose the absurdity of the space we allow for the female body. 

Whalebone will perform at the Pleasance Courtyard at the Edinburgh Fringe 2017, ahead of transferring to the Pleasance London for HeadFirst Productions' Festival of Sex, Love and Death.

Whalebone is about bodies – who takes up space, how much, and why.
Three puppeteers stand awkwardly in corsets.
A woman decides to take control of her body – by deleting it, piece by piece.

"The only way to escape the History of Styles is not to have a body" 

Reimagining Lolita's lesser-known sister, Nabokov's Laura, Whalebone collides puppetry and physical theatre in a world where bodies are painted, tucked, tightened and taught, where shadows are embarrassing and silhouettes become stencils. Whalebone is irreverent feminist theatre, narrated by a talking vagina.

What was the inspiration for this performance?

Emma Brand: The inspiration for this performance was Nabokov's unfinished novel, "Laura", in which the protagonist mentally erases their body. We saw in this an amazing opportunity to talk about gender/body politics. Our Laura, fed up with the manipulation and objectification of her body, decides to reclaim control over it by deleting it.

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

Absolutely! Theatre should be a place where the things we think we know are challenged - it should invite us to think, and we should leave the theatre talking about what we have seen. Theatre creates an amazing dialogue between the performers and the audience - their response should guide the show, meaning that no two live experiences are the same.

How did you become interested in making performance?

The three of us met at university, where we were all involved in student drama. Since leaving university, we have explored our individual interests, such as puppetry, clowning, and new writing, and we have realised how rewarding it is to bring these skills together to make really entertaining, stimulating theatre, and we all feel strongly about the role performance can play in shaping ideas about the world. 

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

It's a very democratic process, which is a blessing and a curse. We are constantly testing new ideas against each other, and arriving at a "bit"  through a process that includes a lot of experimentation, and a lot of discussion. It can be frustrating at times, but ultimately we have made a piece of work that has really been pushed to its best conclusion.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

As a company, we believe in making formally

experimental theatre with a social conscience, so this certainly fits with that agenda. 

We are a very new company , with only one other show under our belt, and that was much more heavily scripted than this one. I'd say we haven't yet settled on a house style, but conceptually we are sticking closely to a particular ethos.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

We hope they will have fun during our show, but also come out thinking about this age-old issue in a new way. It's a constant worry of ours that we may be stating the obvious  - no one wants us to quote the "Are you beach body ready?" advert again! 

We therefore hope that we have provided something inventive, and that will feel spontaneous and personal to a new crowd each time.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

I think a lot of it is just to do with trying to anticipate how different bits might be interpreted, but realistically, audiences are unpredictable, and that's a good thing. 

There are things that some people will find funny and others disturbing, but we're not trying to force them down either route. We've thought about whether or not to use audience participation, as that can really engage people, but we are in a teeny tiny venue, and feel that the show will be intimate and engaging in its own right.

Company member Emma Brand comments In a society that either ignores women or commodifies them, Whalebone's protagonist is a woman who imagines herself into invisibility simply because she can.  Faced with this paradox, I take pride in being part of Hatch It's thoughtful, funny, versatile approach to a problem that has plagued me for over two decades.

Whalebone

2nd - 27th August 2017 (13:00)

50 minutes

Pleasance Courtyard (Cellar), 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ

Tickets available from www.pleasance.co.uk

Previews £6

Early Week £6/£7

Mid Week £7.50/£8.50

Weekend £8.50/£9
                                                

Additional Performances
The Bunker, London - Edinburgh Preview - 17th July 2017 (7pm)
Pleasance Theatre, London - Festival of Sex, Love and Death - 31st October 2017 (Time TBC)

Hatch It Theatre was formed by three graduates of the University of Oxford to create socially conscious, formally experimental theatre - theatre which explores social issues through its relationship to its audience. Recent work includes In The Pink (Courtyard Theatre) - a semi-verbatim show pairing the words of nonagenarians with millennial actresses - and Captain Amazing (Albany Theatre).

How Is Uncle Dramaturgy?: Sally Lewis @ Edfringe 2016

How Is Uncle John? 

A daughter trafficked. A mother left behind.

Baillie Room, Assembly Hall

4th - 29th August 2016

This solo performance delivers a powerful

story of modern day slavery from a novel perspective. The emotional and psychological journey that steered a young woman to be trafficked into the sex market runs parallel to a mother's struggle to reconcile with the past and bring her daughter home.

This remarkable tale of the unexpected is inspired by the real stories of women who have had their bodies and their lives stolen for exploitation. The Fringe debut of playwright and best-selling author SALLY LEWIS (contributor to Danny Boyle's Winter Shuffle), How Is Uncle John? explores the unthinkable from a new viewpoint, of the mother left behind.


What was the inspiration for this performance?
Having researched human trafficking for a previous project, I made contact with several agencies to talk to those who work with survivors and the woman trafficked. These women were adults, all over the age of 18. According to the authorities they are not missing and therefore no one will help you look for them. 

Their stories are harrowing and time and time again I found myself drawn to the mother of the victim. What must it be like to know your daughter was trafficked? What could you have done?  What didn’t you see? I found it compelling. 

As a mother myself with grown up children I wondered just what the impact might be when your adult child goes missing and no one will help you. It was the mother’s voice I found myself compelled to write.

How did you go about gathering the team for it?
I had worked with the Director, Ben Mills before on a few occasions. I knew with Ben in the directing chair the team gathering would be creative, nurturing and professional. He told me not to stress as he went about drawing up a list… What we have is the most marvellous Jodyanne Richardson, a woman of many talents and Miriam Rune, our Scotland-based asset.

How did you become interested in making performance?
Since I was three and bursting out from behind the curtains to entertain the long suffering family I’ve been making up stories and plays. It took many years before I found writing as the creative process and now I’m very happy having come full circle back to performance, only this time I do the writing and others do the performing.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
Mainly yes. I like to sit down and write and create then hand the work over.  Ben was wonderful, skilfully picking up on threads and probing into the characters. The rehearsal room of course is where you really start to see if your words make sense and have rhythm. It makes everything come alive and breathe its own life into the words that you think you have created. 

What do you hope that the audience will experience?
I want them to come out talking about the story. I want them to maybe think about human trafficking in another way. That it can happen to anyone, and they’re always someone’s daughter or son.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?
I have long been interested in the woman’s voice, particularly the older woman, how woman are judged, and what confinements society puts on them. 

Only the other day, the press were debating the hem lengths of the two women in the Tory leadership battle. Somehow the future of the Prime Minister in 2016 hung on the length of a skirt. And then there’s sex and power and the exploitation of women, robbing them of any voice. Trafficked women are in the main invisible. 

How does a woman fall prey to the traffickers? What happens to those whose lives are stolen and sold? Why do they not call out? How does it feel to be a mother whose adult child has been trafficked? How does society judge these women? These are the themes behind the stories I tell, so they can become real, so they are ‘seen’, so we can help story this trade.

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
I suppose I write from a feminist point of view, the theatre has long been a tool for political and social commentary although women are desperately underrepresented in mainstream theatre; the Edinburgh Festival Fringe gives us the opportunity to balance this gender disparity.


Sally has worked closely with charities including Stop the Traffik and Unseen to develop the play, interviewing women who have been trafficked, their families and the organisations who support them.

When Hope was young, her mother did everything she could to ensure her daughter was safe. As she grew more independent, Hope began to slip from her mother's fingers. Years later, Hope has fallen in love. When she goes on holiday with her new partner, a few days turn into months. At home, sick with worry, Hope's mother receives a telephone call.

Director BEN MILLS runs Creative Garage, a collective of theatre makers in the South of England. He's a former JMK Assistant Director of the Salisbury Playhouse and will later this year be a Jerwood Assistant Director at the Young Vic.

This production has been developed with the support of Arts Council England, Nuffield Theatre Southampton and Virtus Contracts.



LISTING INFORMATION
Venue:  Assembly Hall, Baillie Room, Mound Place, EH1 2LU
Time:  15:00  Running Time: 60mins
Dates: 04 – 29 August. Previews 4-5 August. No show Tues 16 August. 
Preview Southampton Nuffield, University Road, Southampton SO17 1TR, 29 July, 19.30
Tickets: Previews £6; 6-7, 10-11, 15, 17-18, 22-25 & 29 August £10 (£9); 8-9, 12-14, 19-21, 26-28 August  £11 (£10)

F'ing Dramaturgy: Pinched! @ Edfringe 2016

Pinched! Theatre Company:

The F Words

Devised by Kirsten McPake, Holly Wedgwood and the cast.

Greenside @ Nicolson Square [Venue 209]

15th-20th August. 11:10pm (50 Mins)

  22nd – 27th August. 4:10pm (50 Mins)

£8.00 (£6.50)

              

FEMALE.FEMININE.FLAWLESS.FINE.FEARLESS.FOOLISH.FAT.FUTURE.

The F Words is a performance that celebrates everything that it means to be a woman in Scotland in 2016. The show centres around six actors and their own stories and opinions on being female today. The media has been full of stories documenting the rise of feminism and the negative clashes which often come with this controversial topic - we wanted to bring back the positive aspects of being a woman today. 

From the rise of the selfie to the distress of the period and what is really means when a woman says ‘fine’, we bring the attention to what we are as female in 2016. Through wit, music, poetry and movement these six women try to understand what they are and celebrate everything female. This show was created with an entirely female cast and crew, all of whom are establishing actors, directors and theatre makers wanting to make their mark in the industry.

What was the inspiration for this performance?
In its simplest form the inspiration for this show was ourselves (not as egotistical as it sounds, we promise). We wanted to devise about something we knew, understood and wanted to share. So, we focused on the basics of our bodies - our gender. 

However, as we began to workshop, write and devise we realised that nothing is simple and we really are all very confused about what it actually means to be female in 2016.  So, we wrote to share our confusions, that we are sure are shared by everyone else. 

There's also been a media storm around the idea of Feminism, usually with the negative connotations which in turn has made it uncomfortable to be proud of being a women. We decided that we wanted to bring back the positive of being proud to be female.

How did you go about gathering the team for it?
Myself and Holly Wedgwood (co-creator) are really, really old friends who studied drama together in high school and then again at college. We came up with the idea casually one night and that started the ball rolling. 

We got together a group of actors who were at the same stage of their careers as us. We are all students or recent graduates who are trying to establish ourselves and gain experience in the industry. By mere coincidence,  a lot of us studied at PASS at Edinburgh College over a few different years.  We also decided to create an entirely female, not only cast but creative team - with a female stage manager and technician. 

How did you become interested in making performance?
I've loved theatre for a very long time but after studying acting for a year I realised that that bit wasn't really for me, although I did learn some amazing things on that course it set me on the path to directing and writing instead. 

I am currently studying Theatre Studies at Glasgow University and am very interested in making performance from scratch in many different ways using different techniques. There is something incredibly exciting about seeing all the ideas come together to make a solid performance.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
We devised our show as a cast, which isn't completely typical but is becoming incredibly popular and many companies now use it. Devising the show made it extremely personal for all of us, but particularly for the cast. 

They have had the main control over shaping the stories they want to tell and how they tell them. We created a lot of script which has been thrown out or replaced with something better and our show is constantly changing in rehearsal. We have also been able to write the show to go with the skills of the cast, such as music, movement, dance etc. We first met in March with a basic idea that me and Holly had come up with; the words, fat, fake, feminine, female, flawless, fearless, future, fine. And now we have an extremely personal and completed show.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?
We have been slightly worried that our title and show description makes it sound like it is a show only for women - it really isn't. Maybe, there are a few wee inside jokes that only women will understand but the majority of the show really is for everyone. It is a show about these particular women sharing what their life is and how they think their gender affects it. It's not a massive, angry, feminist rant. We really are hoping that people will be open to come and see what our show's all about, because we are sure they'll enjoy it once they see it. We know that male or female, young or old, you will be able to relate to some of the observations, obsessions and fears of these twenty-something year old women. But, when it boils down to it we hope they come in for 50 minutes and are entertained and enjoy themselves listening to our stories. 

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?
Our show is built to create a really fast moving, upbeat performance which holds the audiences' attention. It is created using kind of sketches or skits (we use these words incredibly loosely). 

Each section on one of the F Words could stand alone as a very short piece of theatre. Together the link but there is not an overarching traditional narrative. The show is constantly changing to keep all the themes and stories fresh and interesting for the audience. 

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
Hmm, this is a difficult thing to judge about your own work. Well obviously because of they way The F Words was made we easily would fall into the contemporary theatre tradition of devising theatre but within that we have elements from so many other traditions. We are mostly students or recent graduates so as we learn about different traditions we let that influence our work in some way. 

We have elements of physical theatre, writing techniques particularly related to Scottish theatre and the customs which come along with it, along with some elements of farce. We are a bit of a mix of everything.

Pinched! Theatre Company is a small emerging company based between West Lothian and Edinburgh, and is made up of students and recent graduates. They were formed in late 2014 and are extremely excited to return to the Fringe after a successful debut performance last year.

Spill Your Dramaturgy Here: Sophie Lakely @ Edfringe 2016

Spill Your Guts Here

… A love letter to the lost art of falling totally and utterly apart…

Premiering at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2016

Spill Your Guts Here is a comic, one woman play examining the changing nature of how social media impacts on our mental health and how we break up in the digital age. Becks is pushing 30 and unable or unwilling to move on from her past relationship. 

She whiles away her time obsessing on social media, drinking and plotting ways to win him back. But will she succeed? Spill Your Guts Here is an examination of one woman’s race to the bottom both on and offline.

Spill Your Guts Here will be showing at The SpaceUK Jury’s Inn (V260) between the 5th- 27th of August (excluding Sundays) at 11.25am.

What was the inspiration for this performance?
To be honest, the idea began from personal circumstance. I had a god awful break up and completely struggled to move on from it. I’ve frequently used writing as a way to try and get my own feelings a little more organised and doing so in this case seemed like a natural idea. There was definitely a notion that if I turned it all into a one woman play and took it to Edinburgh this might offer some sort of overarching solution! 

Whilst I was writing it I began to think more and more about the nature of how we break up when we’re often so surrounded by the ability to access or monitor our old lives online. I felt really ashamed of the fact I wasn’t magically better or moved on and it got me to thinking about how much we admire that. It’s seen as very undignified to not “be OK” or to still pine after something

that’s gone and it just made me think “Why is that?”.

Then I got more and more to thinking about how so much these days- if you look at things like social media- we always put out these better versions of ourselves. People aren’t just OK; they’re great and they’re going to show you they are in a triple-filtered photo they’ve casually spent 25 minutes taking. I wanted to write about someone who wasn’t and to show that there’s something to admire or enjoy in that!

How did you go about gathering the team for it?
The team came about quite easily. There’s three of us: myself acting and writing and then being co-directed by Olivia Meguer and Jackie Fisher. We all work together in a bar as a day job, were already friends and had done other acting projects together. I think if you’re doing something this personal it can really work to work with people you know. I showed the first draft to both of them and then it sort of went from there.

How did you become interested in making performance?
I’ve dabbled in writing creatively on and off for many years. This is the first play I’ve written but I definitely plan on writing more and creating more work from scratch!

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
It was definitely more collaborative and hands on than anything I’d ever done before. Acting something you’ve written was more challenging than I was expecting but I think together we’ve all taken an idea and developed it into something that audiences will enjoy.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?
I hope they find it funny! And I hope that they can enjoy an honest and open account of what it’s like to really screw up and want something back.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

Quite a bit of the play is performed as direct address to the audience so obviously ensuring that was done in a way that was engaging but also kept the action moving. We’ve used audio and sound to create a contrast to this. It was also important- as always with comedy- to maintain a balance between things that are more overtly funny with more down beat or sadder parts of the story. To keep a good contrast.

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
Whilst it is based and inspired by personal and true events it is very much theatre. It’s a story and largely fiction! A one person show rather than story telling. 

Social media sold us a promise that we were only ever a few clicks away from our friends and our loved ones. That we can now access others 24/7. But what about when our real life relationships and our online ones don’t match up? According to research our interaction with Facebook when we break up from a romantic relationship increases by an average of 225%. That’s a whole lot of time spent looking at our exes and making out that “we’re just fine thank you”. But are we? In an age where we can spend hours altering filters on our photographs to ensure we look together and moved one, what’s happened to finding the space to be sad and (God forbid it) maybe a bit of a mess?

We all know that social media has become a part of most people’s daily lives, how frequently we use it and how often it has become our main form of communication. But when we’re constantly surrounded by manicured images and posts of others’ perfect lives what effect does that have on our less socially acceptable emotions? Loneliness, shame and rejection are all perfectly common human emotions but we’re unlikely to be sharing those online. And if we’re not sharing them, then where are they going?

“True love doesn’t end with polished finger nails and a pristine profile picture on Facebook; it ends face down on a toilet seat at 4 in the morning with a pristine sense of self loathing.” - (Spill Your Guts Here, 2016)

—



“Spill Your Guts Here” is written and performed by Sophie Lakely (The Rose Bankside, Theatre 503) and co- directed by Jackie Fisher (Theatre503 and Sheffield Theatres) and Olivia Meguer (Lodestar Theatre Company, “Wake” short film).

The Fabric of Dramaturgy: Abi Zakarian @ Edfringe 2016

FABRIC

A powerful new play by Abi Zakarian exposing the shifting roles and expectations of women in today’s society asking how, if ever, they can be fulfilled.

Performed by Nancy Sullivan

On tour 22 June – 22 July 2016 I Edinburgh Festival Underbelly 4 – 28 August

Leah has lost her friends, family and dignity. Forced to move for a third time following a harrowing court case, she is sorting through all the stuff that has accumulated in her spare room: clothes she doesn't wear, books she doesn't read, things she doesn't need anymore. 

Leah relives painful events in her past as she desperately tries to unpick just where it all went wrong and who is really to blame. FABRIC is a hard-hitting play that deals with the aftermath of a rape.


What was the inspiration for this performance?
Tom, Nancy and I were interested in producing a piece that reflected on the inherent inequality of women in our society and what those inequalities result in; how they shape society and attitudes. 

We spent a lot of time coming up with exercises to test Nancy in

everyday life so she could gather information about how she was treated in certain situations, or to behave in a certain way and see how people reacted.

How did you go about gathering the team for it?
Tom and Nancy had worked together before (Tom directed Nancy in Fastest Clock... by Philip Ridley) and they wanted to work together on a one woman show. They approached me through my agent, and after an initial meeting with Tom where it was clear we had many similar ideas and inspirations I joined the team as writer.

How did you become interested in making performance?
I worked for many years as a picture editor for several newspapers; one project I worked on was a book about the Iraq war in 2003; which was compiled as the conflict was ongoing. I had to edit the raw images as they came in – it was so disturbing that at the end of each day I thought I would go blind. 

I was struck by this idea of psychosomatic blindness (which I later learnt afflicted many soldiers returning from the trenches after WWI) and decided to write something about it. This became my first produced play A Thousand Yards.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
It was a different route from a normal commission in that the project came with a director and actor attached but the opportunity to collaborate was great – being able to observe Nancy and her mannerisms allowed me to create the character of Leah in a different way.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?
Personally I hope the audience will respond to the challenging subject matter in a way that allows them to question previously held notions. The subject matter is not easy to tackle and it may provoke extreme reactions. But this is good if it forces us to confront and discuss it.

Nancy Sullivan (The Rise and Fall of Little Voice and Les Miserables) stars as Leah in this premiere production directed by Tom O’Brien.



Full tour dates are: 22 – 25 June, EM Forster Theatre, Tonbridge; 2 July, Theatre Royal, Margate; 5 July Old Fire Station, Oxford; 6 – 7 July, Mercury Theatre, Colchester; 8 – 9 July, The Cryer, Carshalton; 11 – 14 July, New Wimbledon Studio, London; 20 July, The Hawth, Crawley; and 21 – 22 July, Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury and Iron Belly, Edinburgh 11.55am 6 – 28 August.



This brand new play was developed by TREMers and is supported by Arts Council England.


Creative team

Directed by Tom O'Brien

Set & Costume Design by Alyson Cummins

Sound Design by Max Pappenheim

Lighting Design by Zia Holly



Recommended for age 15+

Pond Dramaturgy: Teddy Lamb and Holly Norrington @ Edfringe 2016

Holly&Ted

presents

POND WIFE

Underbelly, Cowgate, 66 Cowgate, EH1 1JX (Venue 61)

4-14, 16-28 August 2016, 13.20

Pond Wife is a radical mash-up of magic and 90s music, where mermaids and pop stars collide. In an ocean where girl power is queen, join Holly&Ted as they take you on an adventure that is funny, feminist and fabulous!

Inspired by the Hans Christian Anderson story The Little Mermaid and the pop divas of the 90s and 00s, Pond Wife is a “joyfully ingenious” (The Stage) satirical swipe at traditional fairytales, jam packed with cultural references, strong female role models and a healthy dose of glitter.

What was the inspiration for this performance?
Our inspiration comes from a variety of different sources, initially we wanted to create a strong female character in a fairytale and so we set ourselves the challenge of making a mermaid who sacrifices her voice for a man she's never met into a feminist icon.

We started workshopping the show in a room above Holly's garage, where her dad stored all her old CDs, so the music we had in the rehearsal room was Steps, Britney, TLC etc, and eventually they made their way into the fabric of the show too.  

We also see a hell of a lot of performance work, from Contemporary Theatre, to Pop Concerts and Cabaret/Drag (Ted recently Dramaturged for Alfie Ordinary on his award winning debut show). Pond Wife uses elements and techniques from all these genres.

How did you go about gathering the team for it?
We have been making work together for nearly 6 years now, following training at Playbox Theatre and then Dartington College of the Arts. For the first 2 years following graduation we attempted to create and produce and tour totally on our own, but alongside

day jobs to stay afloat it was... exhausting. But through facebook & twitter shout outs, friends connected us with the incredible spreadsheet master Laura Elmes who came on board as our producer.   

How did you become interested in making performance?
We have both been interested in creating theatre for as long as we can remember. We both attended Playbox Youth Theatre in Warwickshire, which just made us want to never leave the world of theatre, everything was so magical and being on the stage under lights in a costume telling a fantastic story was just the most exiting thing when you are 8! As we grew and developed more political work, we're careful to ensure we never lose that sense of wonder and magic.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
As this is our debut show as a company, we're constantly developing and refining our process. We seem to start off with a very research and text heavy few months, before we throw all of that away, and see what bits stuck in our brain and what bits can become beautiful. For this show we had to watch a hell of a lot of Britney and experimented with so much lip syncing - and choreography, which was certainly unexpected!

What do you hope that the audience will experience?
First of all, we hope that the audience want to come on this journey with us, our style is very casual and chatty, there's a level of trust we give the audience that they're not stupid, and they've paid money and given up their time for us - so we owe them a good time. But we also hope that it makes them think about the fabric of fairytales, both classical and modern day - and the representation of women within them.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?
In order for the audience to get on board with us, and understand the subtext and subtleties of this (pretty madcap) adventure we're taking them on, they need to trust us and feel like they know us. By using the music of our childhood we ensure that they're feeling nostalgic and comfortable with us. 

We talk about how we first fell in love with music, and that's a pretty universal experience. Once they’re on our team, we plunge them deep underwater, and welcome them into our magical MerWorld!

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
I think its clear from our inspirations that we're not defined by one specific genre, we use elements of Cabaret, Contemporary Theatre, Story Telling and more to create something a little bit unexpected. 

As a freelance director Teddy Lamb has created work in both the UK and the US, working with companies such as Culturcated Theatre Company, Santa Monica Playhouse, and Riff Raff Theatre. Most recently he has been working with Cabaret artists, such as Alfie Ordinary and Mary Beth Morossa. 

As a performer Holly Norrington has worked on devised performances with Under Construction Theatre and has worked extensively with Playbox Theatre as a workshop facilitator.


Producer Laura Elmes graduated from King’s College London in 2015, where she studied philosophy. She is producer for Holly&Ted and Sandbox Theatre, as well as having several productions under development through her own company, Laura Elmes Productions Ltd. 

Most recently, Laura produced the critically acclaimed The Ascension of Mrs Leech at the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Laura also works in the West End as a production assistant for Runaway Entertainment.

Out of Our Father’s Dramaturgy:Eve Merriam @ Edfringe 2016

Ines Wurth Presents with Red Compass Productions:

Out of Our Father’s House

Written by Eve Merriam, Paula Wagner and Jack Hofsiss

3 – 28 August I Gilded Balloon, The Night Club I 12.15-13.15 I 60 minutes

Following the lives of six real-life leaders of the American women's suffrage movement, Out of Our Father’s House is a revealing look at the human struggle for freedom and identity, starring Whitton Frank and directed by Marya Mazor. 

Drawn from the diaries, journals and letters of schoolgirl Eliza Southgate  (1753-1809); Founder of the Women’s Suffrage Movement Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902); Astronomer Maria Mitchell (1818-1889); Labour Organiser ‘Mother’ Mary Jones (1830-1930); Minister and Doctor Dr. Anna Howard Shaw (1847-1919); and American author and essayist Elizabeth Gertrude Stern (1890-1954), the play looks at a large portion of America’s history.

Written by Eve Merriam, Paula Wagner and Jack Hofsiss and based on Eve Merriam’s book Growing Up Female in America, the play is a lyrical and richly layered show that encompasses repression in all its forms.

What was the inspiration for this performance?
Opportunities for women in theater - as actors, directors, playwrights, and producers - continue to be limited. Female playwrights write less than a quarter of plays produced in the United States, and less than 20% of the producers in the United States are women. We started this project to give women the chance to tell their stories on stage in a space designed, directed, and produced by women.

How did you go about gathering the team for it?
We started with the mission - to find women to design and tell the stories of American women. This singular vision drove everything from our copy to our casting calls to our interview questions for the cast and crew. It has brought together women from across the Los Angeles basin and beyond, and continues to drive the artistic vision for this project.


How did you become interested in making performance?

I couldn’t find the stories I wanted to hear - the accomplishments, perspectives, and lives of women, both everyday and extraordinary - so I gathered a team, found stories that needed to be told, and here we are.


Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
Gosh, I wish I could say yes. This is the first play I have produced, the first I have experienced with an all female cast and crew. It has been eye-opening and transformative, and it will certainly be a model for my performances moving forward..

What do you hope that the audience will experience?
These stories, the stories of women, have gone untold for generations. I want the audience to hear the experiences and lives of the women that came before us, to know their struggles and triumphs. We will shift the traditional notions of womanhood and bring to light perspectives that are crucial to our identities as women. Experiencing art that champions women’s voices will give us new ways to see ourselves and other women.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?


It has been critical to the artistic process to reflect the cannon in which this work was produced - the work of women - which has always been a physical space. Sewing, cleaning, birthing, bathing, and running a household have always been extremely taxing physical chores, and it has been important to bring that sense of physicality into the artistic space. 

Especially in differentiating between the women played by the actors, finding physicality in each of the stories has been important in bringing out the essence of the characters and giving life to their voices and stories.

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
Certainly within the tradition of feminist theater and storytelling, but even more so within the tradition of female experience and identity itself. I see this work as part of the tradition of female storytelling and cultural work that has always existed, and continues to be illuminated and brought to audiences through plays that highlight the voices, experiences, and identities of women.

A Remarkable Dramaturgy: Pernille Dahl Johnsen @ Edfringe 2016

Ines Wurth Presents with Johnsen & Johnsen produksjoner:

A Remarkable Person

Written by Norwegian playwright Pernille Dahl Johnsen

5 – 27 August I Pleasance, Queen’s Dome I 13.05 – 14.15

Identity and self-realisation are modern day obsessions, with many people staging their lives for the benefit of others. A Remarkable Person explores one woman’s self-obsession as she writes the most important book of her career and discovers the whole project is one big staging of her life. 

This new play by award-winning Norwegian playwright Pernille Dahl Johnsen asks the question does identity illusion prevent people from figuring out what they want from their lives. Starring Pernille Dahj Johnsen, Kristine Myhre Tunheim and Espen Oestman

She was utterly remarkable. As a person. And as an author. Everybody knew that. But did she know?

In this thought provoking, inventive, cut-throat-self-revealing and humourous look at our contemporary psyche, an author gets caught in the very trap she’s spent her life warning other people from falling into: the identity-trap. 

What was the inspiration for this performance?
My own realization that I wasn’t the free spirit I always thought of myself as, both as a human being and an artist, but rather someone who feared her critics on a deep and potentially detrimental level. There was nothing I longed for more than to free myself from that prison of the soul.


How did you go about gathering the team for it?

A hard as nails, all-women-production – until we hired a man for a woman’s part. And voilà; a baby!

When it comes to the script consulent, the National Centre for New Playwriting in Norway assigned a dramaturg to the project who turned out to be an absolute perfect match for me as a playwright: Hard as nails, super-demanding, but able to think outside the box and be highly respectful of the inner logic of the play – even though, as she laconically said: “You start the script off by breaking all the rules. However, I wanna go with it, since you do it so well.” After that I pretty much trusted her, and we had a very fruitful two years together.

When it comes to the actors and the director, we – my colleague in

our production company Johnsen & Johnsen produksjoner, Maja, and I – chose people whose work we knew from other productions we had seen, and they all said yes. 

But then I got pregnant and we had to postpone the production almost two years. 

By the time we were ready to start again, the director had gotten the job as Artistic Director for the State Theatre in the region, and both actors had other assignments. Then I decided to direct it myself, a terrifying and exhilarating prospect. But one I am truly happy and relieved about in retrospect. As for the actors, we went hunting once more for the best we could think of – and actually hired a man for a woman’s part! It turned out beautifully! 


How did you become interested in making performance?
My script was presented by actors from the Norwegian National Theatre at an evening specially devoted to that purpose at the National Centre for New Playwriting in Norway.  
I was there that night and witnessed the enthusiasm from both the audience and the actors, and also experienced the play “from outside” for the first time. This made me realize I wanted to produce it myself in the company I already had established some years before that, Johnsen & Johnsen produksjoner. 


Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
No. The writing took 6 years. That’s how long it took before I realized I not only had to write about myself; I also had to go all in, with no-mercy-self-revelation.


What do you hope that the audience will experience? 
As my character in A Remarkable Person answers when confronted by a critic in a culture TV-show: 

“I want people to be so shaken by what I show them that they collapse! On the spot! And take stock of themselves and their lives.” 

Well… grandiose, but it’s the truth. (What can I say?)

People have actually stopped me on the street, and said that they saw their life in a new light after having seen A Remarkable Person, and kept pondering on it for a long time afterwards. I’ve been approached this way all kinds of places; in shops, at someone’s 40th birthday, at someone else's name-giving-day for their child, at a festival, etc. 

The last time this happened, was three months ago when I was hired as an actress by the State Theatre. In the canteen one day, an actress in another production there told me something similar ¬– 2 years after she saw A Remarkable Person. She had felt that everything she did in public as a mother was only for shows and not for the benefit of her children. Such episodes make me feel it’s all worthwhile, in spite of all the “upstream work” implied in running one’s own theatre company.


What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?
To sign “a realism contract” with the audience in the beginning, only to break the contract again and again, until we take off in absurdum, thus enticing them to join us on a wild journey into someone’s psyche.


Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
No. I feel that every production is a world of its own, and functions in accordance with its own inner logic and motive power as these reveals themselves to us during the working process.

The Dramaturgy of Meat: Gabriella Zeno @ Edfringe 2016

I LOVE URSULA HAMDRESS 

I love Ursula Hamdress is a performance on feminine identity, inspired by the lecture of The Sexual Politics of Meat, by Carol Adams.

Ursula Hamdress was a sow, dressed up like a Playmate that appeared on Playboar, “the Playboy magazine of the pig farmers” in 1981. The work examines the meaning of being female, beyond the aspect of being human and being animal, through an exploration that compares the condition of women to the farmed animals. According to this analysis, women and animals in contemporary society are considered merely a consumable body. 

The work is not yet published and wants to be a tribute to all females and the consumable body, against the oppression and exploitation of women and animals made by patriarchal system. On stage we could see an aspiring showgirl, Ursula Hamdress, talking about

herself.

At the beginning of her monologue she seems to be an ordinary ditsy girl that tries to get attention from the boys; at a certain point her story is connected with the story of other females, and her life overlaps with the life of a farmed cow, of a farmed sow, until their identities correspond to each other, just because of their female nature. 

In fact, they have mammary glands, they have a uterus, capable of giving life, they have a body violated and exploited for its beauty and fertility, a consumable body.


I love Ursula Hamdress

Company: Gabriella Zeno

Venue: Spotlites, Venue 278, 22-26 George Street- Edinburgh E H2 2PQ

Dates: Sunday 21 August to sunday 28 August


Time: 13:00 pm ( 40 mins)

What was the inspiration for this performance?
About 2 years ago I became vegan. Instinctively I suspected that there was an invisible analogy between the violence against women and meat consumption. One day,  by change, I discovered the essay by Carol Adams The Sexual Politics of Meat,  and all my unclear and dark intuitions became clear with her lucid  analysis. 

So I discovered the existence of Ursula Hamdress, a sow, dressed up like a Playmate that appeared on Playboar, “the Playboy magazine of the pig farmers” in 1981, and of a lot of another awful things about condition of women around the world and about farmed animals. 

The matter was (and it is again) extremely strong emotionally  for me and I started to investigate this  subject again and again, only for a my personal need.  At the beginning I decided to tell only about the maternity and about the violence against women, and I believed that there was a difference between these  things, but during my research I realized that the female body with its uterus and mammary gland is an object used only for profit, that the same maternity is a violent experience for more females, especially for farmed female, and that  the control on the female bodies is  the real emblem of the power. 

Think for example  the "Truman meat", a thick wooden cutting board with about a dozen large steaks and chops for his celebratory press conference in Jupiter, Florida, after his  electoral  victory in the Mississippi and Michigan in  March 8, 2016. 

These steaks were "meat", or rather, corpses of creatures "produced" through forced maternity of the farmed animals. What we say as "meat" actually wouldn't can exist without the control and the awful exploitation of the uterus and mammary glands of all the female farmed animals. Without the experiments on female farmed animals  for increasing their reproduction functions -with the embryo transfer and the ovum pick up - the same surrogacy and exploitation of women uterus couldn't have exist. 

Actually,  there are a lot of correlations  between the condition of women and the condition of farmed female animals, and I love Ursula Hamdress is  only a small try to let emerge a part of them a way to examine the meaning of being female, beyond the aspect of being human and being animal.

How did you go gathering the team for it?

For this show I worked completely alone.

How did you become interested in making performance? 
Since I was a girl, I have always written and especially read a lot. I read and I wrote about stories that were alive only in my mind. When I started to study theatre, these stories began to be alive also through my body; one day, while I was writing a piece about Joan of Arc, I felt the necessity to be that which I had written. Now I'm able to experience the stories that I wrote with my full body. 

I think that all writers and maybe also the authentic readers can be performers or directors, et cetera, if they discover the theatre. I believe that the step from imagination to the life is brief. The step to experience something  only with the mind and together with all yourself it is brief.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
When I decide in according with my heart and my mind to work about a theme, before I study and read a lot about it and I research imagines, pictures, on it. Then, I start to write and make some physical improvisations keeping the memory of that I read, I saw, and I continue to write. 

When I have the text, I have the show. 

For I love Ursula Hamdress for example, I read a lot of books like "The sexual politics of meat" by Carol Adams, "Objectification" by Martha Nussbaum (translated in Italian as "Persona Oggetto"), "Masculine domination" by Pierre Bourdieu. 

I studied  pictures by Playboy magazine about the erotic and pornographic body, the work  of female artists  like Carol Rama, Tamara de Lempicka, and lastly  for my researching about the “consumable body”, I watched a lot of images and videos about farmed animals and about their bodies used by factory machine, massacred, cut...

What do you hope that the audience will esperience?
 A performance has to stimulate reflection and the emotional life, has to wake up the parts of our self  that in the daily life we can't feel. 

The audience has to make an experiences out the ordinary.
I hope that I love Ursula Hamdress will be a strong emotional and visual experience for the spectators, and so, that some of them really  can take awareness about the condition of women and farmed animals. I hope that it increases in the female audience the awareness  about own identity,  and it  will be a deep and intimate experience inside female identity.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?
The performance can be a strong emotional and visual experience for the audience, if  all  that I  archived in my brain and in my body memory - the imagines, the thoughts, the emotions - can take life through my movement and my voice and so to be reached by the senses of the spectators. 

Often it happens in a mysterious process that is physical and metaphysical at the same time, dark and inaccessible for all us. So, I believe I don't have a real strategy, I have only to be true in the whole process of creation, and especially  when I perform.

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
I don't like to be trapped in one determinate aesthetic shape because an aesthetic shape becomes also and inevitably a particular point of view on the art, on the life. I want only to be free from a determinate structure  and to have  my personal style that obviously, comes from all the experiences I done and that I will do, without to be none of these in particular. I can say only that I'm really interesting in  the research on movement, and nothing else.


Gabriella Zeno, Italian performer and experimental theater director, is always focused on topics of social relevance and on the female matter, like in "Mirabilia" a work about the meaning of "martyrdom" in our contemporary society, or in "Jeannette" a piece about Joan of Arc. 

For her, the main purpose of Art is  to expand awareness on “sacred”. So, in this production she goes on with this goal;  I love Ursula Hamdress is a tribute to all the female creatures in order to sacralize their “consumable body” and femininity, its purpose is to bring awareness to the sacredness of the female body and how it is not just a body to consume.