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Improbable: The Unofficial Job Ad (re-post)

We published this a couple years ago, but we’re re-posting it now because it feels just as relevant and we hope it might be useful to potential applicants.

As you may have heard, we’re recruiting a new Open Space Producer, and if you’re reading this you might be thinking about applying. You can find all the practical information you need to do that here.  

Before you apply, I thought I’d try to give you a better sense of what working with Improbable is really like; things it’d be hard to pick up from the formal job descriptions. I started working with the company 7 ½ years ago, because I went to a Devoted & Disgruntled event, and in closing circle they asked if anyone wanted the job of Open Space Producer. I put my hand up and said yes to it. Over the intervening years, what I learnt about this company is that most of the time it works because we all individually and collectively keep doing that exact same thing. It’s a company of improvisers, and we do what improvisers do - we say yes to the offers.

This means it’s really hard to pin down what kind of company Improbable is. Sometimes there are massive operas going on, sometimes there are tiny delicate impro experiments, sometimes there’s devised theatre, and almost all of the time there’s Open Space - Devotion and Disgruntlement. It all depends what offers are being made, and who is around to say yes to them.

It’s also kind of hard to stay rigid about things like job descriptions. I’ve previously done a whole bunch of things with the company that weren’t in my job description - digging through the archives, helping to design websites, joining the creative team for the Eldership Project, being part of the Permission Improbable workshops, becoming an Open Space facilitator, helping to cast a show, staging a choral concert for Refugee Week. None of these were what I was “supposed” to be doing on paper, but they all happened because we were able to say yes to each other and really mean it.

I’m saying yes to a slightly different offer just at the moment, and starting a PhD on a project I’ve been carrying around for about 15 years. I asked Improbable to be my research partner on it. They said yes. We’re really all each other’s research partners already, so in a way it’s just a formalising of a relationship that already existed.  

I think that’s the most important thing I can tell you. The job descriptions might look a bit intimidating, a bit too much for one person; and yes, both jobs require rigour and carry some important responsibilities. But they’re also more flexible than the formal job descriptions might imply; they’re an invitation to join a 24-year-long-and-counting research and development project. There are plenty of offers to be made by you, by the company; there’ll be a balance to find between the possibilities of those offers and the attention to detail of the every-day. There’s lots of room to try things out, to play, to fail, to do it differently in the ongoing experiment that is Improbable.

Improbable doesn’t know who the Right Person is for either job. You might already be working in theatre or might not; might be a producer, artist, marketeer, student, improviser, aerialist… You might have been to an Improbable event or you might not. You might be applying for your first job after graduating or after a career break. You might bring your kids to the office (I bring my dog). We want and need people from a variety of backgrounds with different skills, experiences and stories to join us, and to influence and develop our working practice (I’d especially love to hand the Devoted & Disgruntled programme to someone with lived experience of the big issues); so any candidate who identifies as D/deaf, disabled or neurodivergent, as a person of colour, and/or as genderqueer, and who meets the person specification, is guaranteed an interview. If you’d like a conversation before applying you can get in touch with us – you can find details of how to do all that here.

Apply. Find out what happens if you say yes, and…

Ess Grange

Research Associate, Improbable

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Unofficial Job Advert: Trustee

The Paper Man (2018). Photo by Camilla Greenwell.

Hello.

You’ve probably read that Improbable is recruiting for new people to join our board of trustees. Perhaps you’re intrigued by that idea but aren’t really sure what a trustee does. Or perhaps you’re thinking “That sounds interesting but I’m not the sort of person who sits on the board of a theatre company.” (I feel that too. Even though I’m an Artistic Director of a theatre company so I know something about theatre companies and I work closely with our board, the feeling that such things are not for the likes of me persists).

Well, I hope I can say a bit more about who Improbable are, what being a trustee means, why you might be the sort of person who could do that after all – and perhaps that might help you decide whether you’d be interested in joining us.  

I guess the first thing would be to say something about Improbable and what we do, although that is quite hard to describe because we do such a ludicrously wide range of things (that you can look up on our website). The best place to start, the thing that holds it all together, the unified theory of Improbable if you will, is improvisation.

What do we mean by “improvisation”? For us it covers a wide area of practice. There’s Improv of course, the funny stuff that people do in comedy clubs and I’m all for that – it’s paid my rent over the years and was the only form of funding that Improbable had in the early years. Since then Phelim and me have taken improvisation and allowed it to create all sorts of theatre beyond comedy. We’ve found ways to turn improvisation into text and even to improvise when someone has already written the play or libretto. But for us the practice of improvisation now goes out beyond performance into all sorts of disciplines which are founded on the same principles as improvisation but they just call it different things. We see so many systems and interactions out in the in the world that could be made simpler and more effective with a bit of improv.

The next question might be “What does a Trustee do?” (I thought they got to hand out the library books to Ronnie Barker in ‘Porridge’). A Trustee does attend board meetings, no getting away from that, but those are not dry, paper shuffling sessions, they’re a chance to get the hot news on the company’s artistic plans, hear the latest from the rehearsal room and interrogate, guide and offer a view on where Improbable is – are we headed in roughly the right direction? What opportunity or pitfall have we missed? Who do you know that can help us make that project happen? By the way, the rest of the Trustees at these meetings are good people. You’ll have great chats.

However, the Trustee’s activities often go well beyond the board meeting. You’ll experience, as a member of the team, the shows, the rehearsal rooms, the workshops and the Open Space of our Devoted and Disgruntled events (some of our board meetings are held in Open Space – always interesting).

It might be that there are some projects you want to get more intimately involved in. For example, one current Trustee and me have regular FaceTime chats where she talks about a project she is working on and I talk about one of mine in a peer mentoring exchange. Another trustee guides and mentors some of our marketing and communications team, and a third helps us with our workshops for businesses. It might not be a specific project you have a special interest in but a sector of our work, be it education, finance, improvisation, opera or something that we are not doing yet that we jolly well should.

In the end we’re not looking for someone with answers or expertise, though that may play its part. No, we are looking for passion that leads to interest that leads to honest and constructive questioning that leads to really good conversations. Because good conversations are improvised. Listening, making offers, being ready to change your mind, bringing your passion – these are improvisational. Call it being a sounding board, call it another pair of eyes or a fresh perspective, whatever it is, our conversations with our Trustees are a vital part of the process of our artistic work finding its winding way into existence and out into the world.

If any of that rings any kind of bell you could be exactly the sort of person who might want to make a connection and have some conversations. Bring yourself, your excitement and whatever else comes with that.

Lee Simpson Co-Artistic Director, Improbable

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A Fairy Tale called Michael Hall: A Chance to Change the Story

Once upon a time there was a very special school. It was called Michael Hall. It was the flagship Steiner school, the longest-running one in the UK, on the edge of a great forest. Let me tell you about it.

The grounds are stunning – great old oaks, rolling lawns, deer, a stream, an iron spring. The facilities are amazing – a big gym, a proper theatre, a huge vegetable garden, a carpentry workshop, even a forge where you can make a real sword which they showed us on the school tour, the jewellery, the axes and blades that students had made in the fire, like something straight out of a story. I could see my son, the proud owner of three lightsabres, being happy there. My husband and I are theatre-makers and writers: story is the stuff of our work, and here was an educational system with stories at its heart - fairy tales, fables, saints’ tales, Norse and Greek myths, shaping the curriculum.

So we went for it. Like many others we made momentous changes in order to bring our son, now aged 7, to Michael Hall, and in time my daughter too, now aged 2. My mother sold the family home after 55 years so that she could buy a small house in Forest Row where she and I and the children could live. My husband had to stay in London because of work – we’d see him at weekends and in the holidays. It would be hard but it was worth it, for the school. I have heard many similar tales – of people coming from much further afield than London, from Japan, from America so their children can come here.

To make such major changes people are following big dreams, high ideals, deeply held convictions. What are mine? I do not necessarily want ‘the best for my children’ – I think ‘best-ness’ is overrated. Coming from a family of highly powered Oxford academics I tried to be the best and get the best for many years and it left me in a mess. I want rather to give my children a good chance of coming out of school in one piece, whole, connected to themselves, to a community, not ready for the big wide world – that old narrative of adventure and conquest – but rather already in it, present in the world and ready to care for it and each other as well as they can in these uncertain times. Wholeness, community and connection, an ability to be vulnerable and to act from a place of integrity - those were the things I was after when we upped and moved ourselves here at the end of last summer, ready for the start of the new school year.

Very soon after our arrival on the edge of Ashdown Forest, full of hope, I was struck by the amount of cynicism I encountered. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised – where you find dreams that big, you are going to find disappointment on a similar scale. In the woods where Winnie the Pooh lives, there also dwells Eyeore: “Your son’s going to Michael Hall? Oh well, good luck with that – I hope he fares better than me, but I doubt he will,” – heavy sigh, returns to thistles and damp, lonely corner. The pessimism, juxtaposed with the optimistic dreams that also surround the school, have reminded me not only of Eyeore’s gloom but even a level up - the desperate, intractable situations found in many fairytales and myths: the most beautiful king’s daughter that has fallen terribly sick and cannot be cured; the monster that haunts the lands that were once full of wonder; the evil empire that is trying to take over the universe and kill off the amazing Jedi.

Meanwhile, sometimes all is well in the woods, the kingdom, the universe. Peace reigns. I have heard hopeful stories too. I was amazed and encouraged by how many parents are old scholars. I am much more used to the narrative of “I am never letting my child go through what I had to endure” than the story of “I had such a great time at school, I want the same for my little one.” My son was and is having a good time in class one. He is an intense lad, with big emotions and grand ideas, and so far the school have been very quick to respond to his needs and challenges. His teacher is wonderful and there is a gradually growing sense of community amongst the parents of the class. For all of this I am deeply grateful.

As far as I can tell, from the anecdotes I have gathered in the short time I have been here, the school is brilliant until it isn’t - until something goes wrong, until the monster/ sickness/ evil fairy turns up. I realize this is tautological – the problems begin when the problems begin – but problems will always show up, so the true problem is not the monster but how we respond to it. All too often our knee jerk response is to blame another, and with this ‘us’ and ‘them’-ness kicks in, the good guys and the baddies, the innocents and the guilty. First off, inside the story that is Michael Hall, there is the parent body versus the school – ‘us’ being the parents and ‘them’ being the school - how the school does not listen and never changes. I have encountered the story the other way round too- the school versus the parents – the parents who are always complaining, ready to attack, but rarely listen, or turn up in low numbers when the school has tried to lay on an event in response to a parent request. I have also heard about internal ‘us’ and ‘them’ dynamics: the teachers versus the management and an iteration of the same story and Eyeore-like complaint, “They never listen. No one understands.”

I tried to learn more about the structure of the school and found it incredibly difficult. Even those who have apparently been here for many years could not easily explain to me how it actually operates. I gathered there were different elements- a council, trustees, an Education Management Team, teachers, office staff – but how these positions fitted together and ran everything remained mysterious, a kind of tangled thicket of roles growing around the mansion and keeping princes and parents from being able to break in and have any impact. I had come in quest of wholeness, connection, community, integrity and I was finding people who felt disempowered, fractured and stuck.

           In the absence of any head teacher, a hallmark of traditional Steiner schools, from the way people talked ‘The School’ had become in itself a kind of mythical authority figure, hard to reach and impossible to change. I like a challenge and I am not very good at cynicism (though I do a good line in imagining terrible happenings and did, in fact, identify with Eyeore as a child) so I joined the Parents Working Group (PWG) to see if I could make a positive contribution to the school. I had spent the first term feeling like a failure as a Steiner parent because I cannot sew to save my life, had to buy instead of make my son’s crayon roll and could be of very little help in crafting anything for the Advent Fair, so I figured I had better find another way to play my part in the school community.

           When I told people about the PWG and its aim to initiate and hold space for constructive dialogue with the school and support positive change, I was hit by a fresh wave of cynicism: “Ah, be careful the school will take all it can get from you, suck you dry and spit you out!”; “Well, good luck with that. You might make a small dent in its side but that’ll be it!” So there we have it – the school as the monster, the dragon that can devour you and that has such massive scaly flanks it can barely be dented, despite the beautiful swords that its pupils forge on its grounds. Or the school as an institution wrapped in creepers and thickets, under a heavy curse that cannot be lifted.

           Enter stage right a strange knight in heavy armour with clipboards for shields and a knife of regulation, an outsider, called Sir Ofsted - hero or villain? He rode from the city to the woods, slashed through the thickets, confronted the dragon, gave Sleeping Beauty an “Inadequate” kiss – blessing or further curse? - and lo and behold we all woke up. And, as in the original story, everyone woke up: the kings, the courtiers, the cooks and the gardeners, the parents, the teachers and the management. After 100 years of Steiner education we all have an amazing chance to wake up and decide what happens now, shape how the story unfolds from here. Let me pause at this cliff hanger to introduce a new strand of narrative.

           15 years ago my husband, Phelim McDermott, was feeling fed up. He works in theatre. He runs a company called Improbable, which makes big shows and tiny ones, with improvisation at their core. He had dedicated his whole life to theatre, he felt passionate about it, and he spent much of his time complaining about it. He was often angry about how it was carried out, about how people did not listen to each other and things did not change (notice the parallels to our other story). He was doubly fed up – frustrated by the ways things were done and frustrated by hearing himself moan about it but unable to do anything effective. He came across a book: Open Space Technology, A User’s Guide by Harrison Owen. It described a way for groups to self-organise around issues of shared concern, a way that was radically non-hierarchical, refreshingly playful, able to cut to the heart of complex situations really fast and allow truths to emerge and change to begin. He thought he would give it a go. It sounded like a good improvisation exercise. He followed the instructions in the book and wrote an invitation (step 1). He called it ‘Devoted and Disgruntled’ because that’s what he was feeling. It’s a good title and if I could I would steal it to use here at Michael Hall for all the many deeply devoted and disgruntled people whom I have met here. To his amazement and delight people responded to his invitation – about 200 people turned up (step 2). And it was incredible. Now, instead of the constant moaning, people were getting to work, fuelled by their passion and devotion, connecting, taking action, agreeing on change (step 3). 15 years later Devoted and Disgruntled has transformed the landscape of the performing arts in the UK. We have run literally hundreds of Open Space events under this banner, in every corner of the country and even overseas. We have an entire website dedicated to this great, unfolding conversation. Check it out: www.devotedanddisgruntled.com. Some people worry that it is ‘just’ a conversation, a talking shop – but almost all change starts with a conversation and an enormous number of actions have come out of our Open Spaces: shows made, companies formed, new initiatives, collaborations, even marriages (my own included) have emerged out of our events. It is an amazing practice, a brilliant tool – not a sword, but a circle, an open space.

           Having witnessed first hand the impact of opening space on the UK theatre scene, how it harnesses the devotion and helps to shift the disgruntlement, I want to bring it here, to Michael Hall, now in this moment more than ever. I think it holds the power of a forge – the hot, glowing place that can make hard things soft and malleable again, where change and transformation is possible. And yet it is beautifully simple. You send out an invite. (I have done this– it was in the last Friday Flier (You can read it here: http://www.michaelhall.co.uk/friday-flier) People who want to be there come along. We sit in a circle and a facilitator explains how it works – anyone who wants to call a session can do so, by writing the title on a piece of paper and putting it up on the wall. Together we co-create an agenda. Then we get to work and we follow the magical and yet entirely pragmatic ‘law of two feet’: you don’t stay where you don’t want to be, you follow yourself and go where your time and energy will be best used, and only you know where that is. This is the radical non-hierarchy of it – the fixed roles can fall away and a new fluidity is possible. Not ‘us’ and ‘them’ but me and you, listening to each other and having a conversation on an issue about which we both care deeply and on which we both want to act.

           There are many things that I am sure need to change within the school, but fundamentally, for me, the underlying shift that needs to happen is a cultural one. I think we need to start to model the sense of agency and possibility that I am sure we all hope the education is giving to our children. We need to wake up inside the story and notice how we are part of shaping it – we are not passive victims of a terrible curse from a wicked fairy or an evil dragon, or at least as well as playing the part of the victim, there are times when we also step into the role of the dragon, steam coming out of our ears, and curses falling out of our mouths. Notice these. And this fire, these strong words, whomever they come from – teacher, parent, manager - are not bad. They are potent, they are passionate and they are integral to our ability to bring about change.

When my son was in Kindergarten, at another Steiner school in London, he came home one day, in his first term, with a complaint. It was Michaelmas and they had been told a story about a dragon, “But the dragon didn’t do much! It wasn’t scary enough. They tamed it too quickly.” So there we have it. In opening space at Michael Hall I don’t want to tame all the dragons. I want them to come. All of them. I want the dragons, I want the kings and the queens, the princes and princesses, I want the peasants, the wicked stepmothers, the caring fathers, the confounded leaders, wise teachers, the witches, the wolves. If you identify with any of these roles, please come. If I have left your role off the list please come and put it on there – make sure it is part of the story. Because right now we have an incredible opportunity to shape what happens next – this is in fact always true, but thanks to the dubious Sir Ofsted we just all managed to notice it.

I am not looking for a happy-ever-after ending. Or even an ‘outstanding-ever-after.’ I want what I wanted when I and my family decided to move here: I want connected-ever-after. Actually even ‘ever-after’ sounds like rather a high demand from which we might all come crashing down with a sense of failure. I will settle for connected-a-good-deal-of-the-time, whole as much as possible, in community through the rough and the smooth. What do you want? How do you wish your story and the school’s story to unfold from here? I am inviting you to come and tell me, and others. Because telling is the beginning of making. Making is the start of happening. The details of the dates and the times are here- http://www.michaelhall.co.uk/pwg- I look forward to seeing you there and to hearing your tales and those of others – the more diverse the better - and to us creating a new one together.

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Defining the indefinable

From our Artistic Director Phelim (@clusterform) :

Over the last 25 years, I’ve been lucky to tread an exciting path with many Improbable collaborators. From devising genre-defying show such as Shockheaded Peter (we called it a Junk Opera), to creating unique opera productions with Philip Glass such as Satyagraha and Akhnaten. During that time, our work has had an enjoyable track record of re-defining new ways of creating theatre with music.

If you’ve watched our video about our Kickstarter campaign you may be asking what exactly is different about the way Improbable make shows and what exactly is it we are aiming to do?

Whilst we have been making these shows, in the background there have been a number of principles present in the work which has shaped it. From the beginning we’ve strived to change rehearsal spaces from ones that are often hierarchical in nature to more horizontal creative landscapes. Including all members of a company onstage and offstage can transform artistic practice from competition to one of collaboration. We’ve been transforming not just what appears onstage through the culture of the rehearsal room, but also what happens backstage and how these productions are produced.

It is our belief that one of the most important things when making shows is growing creative and effective working environments and, ultimately, this reveals itself in the quality and value of the shows themselves. It is my experience that this can change the atmosphere in an organisation or a theatre building in powerful ways. This spirit is potent and audiences are drawn to this. They are not just being impressed by what they are seeing, they are also responding to the work with their hearts. Many of our shows have had amazing responses form people who “Would not normally go to see an Opera”. We have been changing the way people perceive opera and music in theatre.

It is our aim, as part of our Future Sounds programme, to create more intelligent and creative working environments where all people are enrolled and engaged in the process of creating the shows. This is not the only way to make theatre or opera. (There are many other people and companies doing amazing work in this challenging form). Who knows, it may not be the best. However, when it works it is the thing that we at Improbable celebrate the most.

Opera and music theatre presents a unique opportunity to bring different forms and disciplines together in ways that have never been experienced before. At Improbable, we have only been creating shows in the opera world for about 15 years. However, during that time we have developed our own unique skillset which deserves to be shared and supported more. This work makes surprising connections, synergising different disciplines and skills, joining the dots in ways that could previously only be imagined.

We create a total theatre that aims to reinvigorates the possibility of the form. These are total theatre experiences which communicate the un-spoken, define the indefinable. Performances that reimagine what is possible. From how it is played to how it is made.

Help us to do it more and support us to do it better.  You can contribute to our Future Sounds fundraising campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1529483675/future-sounds/description

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Karen Kamensek on working with Improbable

"My experience of working with director Phelim McDermott the first time (Akhnaten ENO 2016) was definitely eye-opening, and to me—surprisingly!—-soul-opening.  Phelim’s connection to Philip Glass’s music and aesthetic is as personal as my own, so we hit it off as collaborators immediately.

In the 6 weeks spent preparing and mounting the premiere of Akhnaten, I could hardly think about anything else except the germination and birth of this production. I lived it, breathed it, walked it, dreamt it, thought about it constantly, and each rehearsal, and performance, was an upping of my own game.

In all of my vast opera and theatrical experiences, I had never experienced this unique approach to putting an opera on it‘s feet and giving it wings to freely fly. Phelim‘s big BIG BIIIGGGGG heart and generous soul transfer over to every person in the room through his massively inclusive and non-predictive way of engaging artists and encouraging collective artistry in the NOW.

While this may irk some „traditionalists“ in the often museum-like opera world, because it places full responsibility for creation on themselves individually and requires them to show up and help represent the whole instead of the individual, those who rise to the challenge and task and allow themselves to be ego-less facilitators of art as a living process, and to be molded to truly—„all in“—belong to a greater and symbiotic artistic whole, find themselves forever transformed and craving the next opportunity to work in this way.

Phelim‘s approach to theatrical creation is the most inclusive, judgement-free, soul-searchingly intense, liberating, honorable method I have ever experienced.  It‘s difficult for me, actually, to put into words because it means so much to me.  One must live it and observe it to „get it“.  It is a method which, personally, is a total creative addiction.  I would jump at any opportunity to work with Phelim McDermott!!!!"

Find out more about Karen on her website.

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Almeida Young Critics review The Paper Man

We had the distinct pleasure of welcoming the Almeida Young Critics to The Paper Man at Soho Theatre a couple weeks ago. The Almeida Young Critics are a group of 10 young people aged 15–25 who work with the Almeida over a year to produce responses to theatre across London.You can read more about the group here.

Here are a few of their responses to the show 👇

Minna Jeffery:

Sometimes touching, sometimes joyful, sometimes uncomfortable, and always complicated, I’m finding The Paper Man a tricky show to review. In some ways that implies that I found it a tricky show to watch, but I didn’t really, mostly. I found it funny and engaging and o p e n.

So what is The Paper Man about? It’s sort of about football. Originally, it was supposed to be about the eponymous ‘paper man’, Matthias Sindelar, once the world’s best footballer, who lead the Austrian team to victory against the Nazi orders. An apt story of resistance in a time of escalating far-right violence. The idea to make a show about Sindelar came from Lee Simpson, Improbable’s co-artistic director. Simpson cast four women to help him make and perform the show (Vera Chok, Jess Mabel Jones, Keziah Joseph, and Adrienne Quartly), and quickly found that they were resisting the direction he wanted for the show, uninterested in making ‘yet another show about a dead white man’.

I would say there are broadly three things going on in The Paper Man:

1. The telling of the story of Matthias Sindelar, complete with evocative shadow puppetry (Jess Mabel Jones) and mournful cello playing (Adrienne Quartly). 2. The telling of the performers’ own relationships with football, from Lee Simpson’s self-confessed addiction, to Jess Mabel Jones’ tale of pulling boys from the sidelines of school games. 3. The telling and showing of the making of the show.

The Paper Man shows its workings, laying out pieces of the puzzle one after another, saying ‘see, this is how we got to where we are now, and where we are now is how we got here’. I tend to feel some resistance towards work that places a lot of its emphasis on ‘process’. It can feel a bit unready, a bit like you’re seeing the bits you shouldn’t be seeing, stuff that’s unfinished. Or it can also feel like ‘oh wow what a beautiful, transformational, formative experience these guys have had in making this, which I didn’t get to be a part of, and what I’m seeing is that being condensed into 90 minutes and it feels slightly unsatisfying’. I think it’s really hard to pull off process heavy shows, that put the rehearsal and making on stage, but The Paper Man does it. It does it by making that its subject. Ultimately, for me, it’s a show about telling and making, about how we tell stories and make theatre now in 2019.

I read that The Paper Man was devised through using Open Space Technology, which is a system through which the work/agendas are shaped by the people involved – diminishing hierarchy and inviting fluidity and openness, a process called ‘self-organising’. No wonder then that it ended up like this, with lots of different things going on, different threads, and everyone seemingly talking about what they want to talk about. That really excites me as a working practice, but also slightly scares me as an audience member.

Unsurprisingly, given its genesis, it’s quite episodic. I’m not always sure of what each episode is doing, but I enjoy each one in some way. And even that thought I just had there is written in to the show. There’s a bit where the show’s sound designer Adrienne Quartly comes on stage to a song (I think it was Pet Shop Boys’ It’s A Sin) and holds up placards telling the story of how formative this song was for her as a teenager. At the end of that bit Lee Simpson comes on and says something along the lines of ‘ok well I’m not really sure why that bit’s relevant to the show…’. I mean, same, but I don’t mind that it was there because I really enjoyed it and found it touching and relatable (particularly as a queer woman I guess?). The point is, they know exactly what they’re doing. The show is constantly self-aware.

There’s clear affection between Lee Simpson and the other performers, and at the beginning and end of the show they really seem like a cohesive ensemble. But a lot of the time they do also seem like an entity separate from him. The Sindelar bits, largely led by Simpson, are the most traditionally ‘theatre-y’ bits. These sections are often very beautiful, but they do feel remote from the cast members’ own stories, which feel much more immediate and ‘real’ (whatever that means). It’s weird watching that dynamic between the two forms played out on stage, and I’m not entirely sure what the end result is and what I think about this opposition.  

Looking back at the notes I took whilst watching I can see that I’ve scrawled ‘openness’ and ‘vulnerability’ several times. The heavy use of improvisation and the performers’ own biographies both feel open and vulnerable, and openness and vulnerability can really feel like endearing qualities in a performance. And The Paper Man and all its performers were, indeed, very endearing. That might sound a bit patronising, but I don’t mean it to be at all. There’s a real feeling of generosity.

It’s great to see a diverse group of women performers given prominence on stage, taking control of the narrative and being themselves unapologetically. But I do think that the show necessarily puts a lot on the women involved, asks them to share a lot of themselves. The pro of this is that it’s them taking up space and making their voices and narratives heard, but is that at the expense of giving part of themselves away? There’s a bit where the four women get audience members to pick personal questions out of a bowl for each performer to answer. Lee chooses not to take part in this exercise. The idea of these questions is that they make the participants vulnerable, which then creates a closeness between everyone involved. We, the audience, are involved insofar as we pick the questions, but we’re not giving anything of ourselves away. It’s a weird power dynamic, and this section, for all its generosity and openness and charm, does feel uncomfortable.

I really liked this show. It’s a living, breathing piece of work, a little bit different every night, always moving and changing. I’m a theatre-maker and, specifically, a dramaturg. I’m constantly examining my own and others’ working practices, so that inevitably made this an exciting show for me. It’s about what stories we choose to tell and how we tell them and what we as artists want to participate in and the work we want to make and how we value it. Listen, this review was squeezed out of a document containing over two thousand words of notes. There are bits in there like ‘the set is germane, playful yet somehow also ominous’, which I’m just not going to address now because this particular review doesn’t feel like the place for that sort of thing. Suffice to say that it’s a sticky, fun, complicated, show that does something very exciting in addressing how we make work in this current political and artistic moment. Just go and see The Paper Man so we can talk about it, yeah?

Bellaray Bertrand-Webb:

What can I say about the Paper Man? It wasn’t a traditional play but rather a real show. The performers play with the audience and with what is real and not. There was so much meat on the bone it is hard to shred down. Essentially, Paper Man is about 3 women reaffirming their identities. They do this by reclaiming a space traditionally dominated by white men, the stage. The arc of the story is that the Improbable co-Artistic Director Lee Simpson, has brought them together to tell the story of  Matthias Sindelar captain of the Austrian football team in the 1920s and 30s. To the dismay of Lee, the 3 women attempt to reconstruct the story, to take control and reuse Sindelars story for their own purpose. They will not just tell another white man’s story; instead they will rebel.

One of the ways they deconstruct Sindelar’s story, is by giving each character the spot light to relay a football memory. Not shying away from the stereotype that women don’t like football. Keziah told her story whilst playing football with Lee the only white male in the show, who ironically cut the story short by walking away. Vera Chok’s narrative was through a silent dance, the music trapped in her headphones, made it strangely moving to watch her jump from one side of the stage to the other, with just her breath as music. They were experimenting with how you tell a story, the power of the narrator and the different forms one uses for articulate truth. 

For me, what made this creatively disjointed performance click, was in one of the many moments the actors broke the forth wall. In this specific scene, they turned to the audience and asked them to take a question out of a hat to then ask it to one of the actors. So, Keziah cheekily ran up the stairs to her mum who was sitting in the back, having the best time, and asked her to choose a question, which she then asked Jess: Do you think humour can easily cross the line to be offensive? Jess responded quickly with a no, and then said it depends who is saying the joke and then retracted the latter and stuck with the original no. For me, this specific question and this specific answer summarised the play. This question serendipitously responded to an earlier scene, whereby, Jess, Keziah and Vera, dressed in their black and white football gear, wearing Hitler’s moustache, dancing to heavy grime music and on occasion incorporating the Nazi salute with the Eminem rap battle arm bounce, while the sound technician, Adrienne Quartly, held up a sign saying Feminazi. 

Writing it down plainly it does seem like a cause of concern, and probably makes you think- that is the definition of humour becoming offensive. But to be in the room and to have the previous scenes amounting to this moment, it made it almost revolutionary rather than baselessly offensive. For me, they were reclaiming an insult thrown left, right and centre by misogynists around the country. To me, it was a big ‘fuck you’ to the suppressors, oppressors, fascists and so was an empowering act to witness. 3 women from African, Chinese and British decent were having so much fun by using dancing to dominate the stage and show that they are proud of their feminism, owning the insult and in doing so ridiculing it. It made me question, what is offensive? What is humour? What is a revolutionary act? Obviously, this could have gone unbelievably badly and most of the time, it is the oppressors who feel comfortable enough to make offensive hollow jokes. But when executed well, it is liberating. 

Similarly, Sindelar, protested on the football stage. Sindelar was told to loose or draw to the Nazis but refused and consequently won against the Germans. Sindelar then walked to the Nazi delegation and danced a solo, silent, Viennese Waltz. For me both acts of protest were extremely powerful, they didn’t chain themselves to objects, shout, resort to violence, or remain subdued but rather, they translated their frustration and presented their identities through something joyful, un-seemingly political and in a way silent. For Sindelar, some believe this led to his assassination of Carbon- monoxide poisoning a few months later. Witnessing the Feminazi dance in this context I was reminded of the freedom we have on stage and in this country, our lives aren’t on the line, but we still have causes to fight for and to play with. We can have the last laugh.  

A Paper Man is clearly a feminist piece but also has the bravery to critise itself. They recognise the issues with white feminism, with a moving and deliberately awkward scene where Keziah tells Jess and Vera that the first woman football player was in fact a black woman called, Emma Clarke in 1800s as opposed to the famous white female football player Lily Parr in the 1920s, who was their poster girl for feminism and football throughout the show. Jess and Vera respond to Keziah’s sheepish reveal by saying, ‘we can’t tell everyone’s story’. Mic drop. Advocacy has its limits and that boundary is race. The scene ends with the 3 seemingly politically conscious women, shying away from the issue of white feminism and institutional racism, they have a cautious disagreement and each abort the stage. This conflict further highlights how complicated all the issues the play addresses are. There are fine lines between feminist fractions, between experiences, between doing something right and doing something wrong, between comedy and offense. Having fun and rebelling. We are all on the brink of paper thin boundaries.

Pamela Vera:

My thoughts of the Paper Man…..on paper.

Improbable co-Artistic Director Lee Simpson, a former-football-addict wanted to retell Austrian footballer Matthias Sindelar stand against fascism in 1939 Nazi Germany, ‘Nazi and football’ was the premise, however, the thanks to his diverse and outspoken four-female co-stars, it was reduced into a small sub-plot. . Keziah, Jess, Vera and Adrienne richly layered the narrative with intimate discussions and debates, about race, stereotypes, and of course gender. Creating a half-acting, half-Q & A, participatory political production with backstage segments that ultimately felt like a conversational social commentary.

As the cast reviews their own progress in between scenes, Vera, dressed in black sportswear asks ‘If we need another show about a dead white man?’ whilst casually stretching. In the era of #MeToo, gender pay gap scandals, Irish Abortion Referendum, the answer points to no. An answer that the show illustrates with fun quirky flare, whereby several narratives are told in conjunction with Sindelar’s rise and rebellion. This features monologues of football memories, a sort of backstage expose in which the cast eats, changes and discuss the show and its topics; culminating into a commentary on racial and gender inequalities, with the treatment of football greats Emily Clarke and Lily Parr symbolising the difference of ‘girly goals’ and ‘boys goals’. I’m aware of the oxymoron, illustrating how history glorified dead white men, to contrasts how other greats are discarded due to their race and gender; as to just producing a show that focuses on those unrecognised heroes and heroines in their own accord. However, the irony is so creatively executed, that it powerfully exemplifies the injustices, helping to make the Paperman one of the most idiosyncratic shows that I have seen.

The exposed set of a white framed pillar, with wooden stools scattered across the stage also instrumental to the play’s authenticity. Much like the narrative, a layering process ensued; the cast overtly constructed the set in front of the audience, during scenes. They added white curtains, tinsel, created paper projections of the dancers to the soothing violins and the visuals of fluorescent lighting, creating a lively disco atmosphere. Even the sound designer is on stage throughout the play, dressed understatedly, like the rest of the female cast who  were in either jeans, sportswear and plain tops. The DIY feel to the set design mirrored the show’s experimental essence, producing an immersive environment. As an audience, you were no longer just watching a social commentary, but also a participant. This added a lively unpredictability to the show, making the skilled actors think and react quickly, with impressive comical timing.

The show’s endearingly immature tones were cleverly offset with transitions in composition that forebode upcoming segments of thought-provoking conversations about racial and gender inequalities. The simplicity of Lee, a middle aged man, in jeans and a shirt, just standing to narrate the details of the Nazi’s systematic killing of Jewish people was an unsettling reminder of the two sides of humanity.

The show’s premise of ‘Nazis and football’ is not something I would’ve relied on for laughs,  but laugh I did, along with everyone else. There were a few times however, where boundaries were crossed. Imagine, one minute you are swaying in a fun sing-along, then next minute there is an unnecessarily overly sexualised dance of three 20-something females dressed as referees, with Hitler mustaches, finishing off with a Nazi-salute.

So word of warning, the Paper Man might not be everyone’s taste. For some, it could be a crude kerfuffle, for others bold and brilliant. For me, it was the latter; complex topics told with an authentic accessibility.

[weareimprobable]

Dropping the ball(s)

Image credit: Jane Hobson

From Zachary James, currently performing in Philip Glass’ Akhnaten at the English National Opera (a collaboration with Improbable):

I dropped my balls tonight in Akhnaten.

In this show I’m onstage with ten of the best jugglers IN THE WORLD, literally. We have a scene where we all juggle three balls each as an organism while doing a grapevine walking pattern weaving around each other sharing balls in a complex pattern as we go. There’s a spotlight on me, the relative amateur who has only been juggling three years, while my expert level, internationally acclaimed, genius friends are shadowy figures. It’s not something I can think about or I wouldn’t leave bed. It’s something I just do when the music tells me to and the spotlight beckons. It’s that time, you have to do that thing, the environment tells me. It’s terrifying and the feeling of triumph when successful is enormous.

The most common question I get asked about doing this show is “have you ever dropped while juggling?” and now I have. I think that means I’m a juggler. I always wondered how I’d feel if it happened and I’m glad it did because I lived and carried on and the audience loved the show regardless, I didn’t ruin it. It parallels the decades old fear that I’ll forget my words while on stage. I finally did a couple years ago, an Alidoro Cenerentola recit left me mid scene, vanished, and I made up gibberish Italian while my generous, kind scene partner squeezed my hand like we were on a rollercoaster together, which we were. She had been there and knew I needed grounding and to know I wasn’t alone. I lived and carried on.

Another fear recently faced, the inevitable bad review. Nabucco, great reviews all around and then one critic said my voice wasn’t pretty. It stung. But I lived. And then, like realizing tonight by dropping a ball that I’m actually a juggler, I realized by putting myself out there for fifteen years as a singer and finally getting a bad review all the while battling the all too present voice that many artists deal with, that voice that says you are an untalented, uninteresting fraud and will soon be found out, in that hurtful moment of receiving harsh public criticism I realized I was an opera singer and finally felt like one for the first time. 

What we do onstage is scary shit. A veteran colleague once compared it to jumping out of a plane. We get out there in front of thousands of strangers and give of ourselves and hope it’s received meaningfully, hope it entertains, moves, is remembered. When friends come to shows they often ask “did you have fun?”. I would rarely use the word fun to describe the experience. It’s stressful. It’s rewarding. I love the beauty of the shared experience of connecting with people onstage and in the audience. It’s very hard work to intensely focus your brain and connect your heart to your more tangible means of expression and hope they align in spontaneous yet rehearsed authenticity. It’s unnaturally demanding. And this is why I remind myself I can quit at any time. Sometimes I quit once a week. Especially in audition season when the drain of constantly selling oneself can be excruciating yet confusingly intoxicating. It usually only lasts a few minutes before I decide to pick it up again.

Tonight, for the first time, I remembered while onstage performing that I can quit. So I did. And for five seconds I checked out of ancient Egypt. I fantasized about getting an online masters degree, moving to a suburb and having a house with an automatic garage door. Then the spotlight came on me. I involuntarily opened my mouth and made love to it in front of 2500 people, texts of ancient Egypt pouring out of me accompanied by the music of Philip Glass. But I could have walked offstage and left the building. It would have been crazy. But I could have. And that’s basically the only thing you can really control when onstage, being there or not. I choose to be there. Because it’s really cool. And I don’t know what else I could do with my life that makes me feel the way this does. I want to be in the trenches. And sometimes that means you drop your balls.

[weareimprobable]

Improvisation and Awareness

Post originally from Phelim’s blog

A call for proposals

Thirty five years ago I read a book called Impro. It had been given to me by John Wright one of my lecturers at Middlesex Polytechnic. It was a book that I devoured, I read it in bed and stayed up late into the night finishing it.

That summer I sat in the back of our Austin Maxi and infuriated my mum (an English Lit teacher), reading bits out loud as we drove to the Lake district for what was to be our last family holiday in Kendal. Life was never the same again. I had found a theatre book that inspired me and like a badly behaved companion to Peter Brook’s Empty Space it held my hand as I entered the world of making theatre. By 1985 I’d formed a theatre company of my own with Julia Bardsley dereck, dereck Productions. We’d managed to get shows on at The newly formed Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh and the Almeida theatre in London. Julia was a star director and as she got offered assisting jobs at the Royal Court and the NT I felt lost and at a loose end. I was young and unconfident and not sure what was next for me. I spotted a tiny advert posted in the back of The Stage for a workshop at Monkton Wyld Court. Organised by Anne Jellicoe and John Oram it was an Impro workshop to be be taught by Keith Johnstone. I signed up.

Reading Impro was one thing, doing Keith’s workshop was quite another as I now had the heady experience of doing his exercises in the flesh rather than just reading about them. The paradigm and skills that I was introduced to all those years ago have stayed with me ever since and inform everything I do when I’m performing, when I’m making theatre with people and sometimes, when I’m courageous, how I live my life. Working on not knowing what happens next has been the most reliable thing in my career.

It is my belief that the sharing of the many aspects of improvisation and the ways it may help us navigate this chaotic world are still untapped. Improvisation demands that we develop a relationship with awareness. It engenders in those who practice and explore it a relationship to life which is more creative than mere rationality and is more exciting than certainty.

Myself, I am still learning how to do it, how to use it, and what it’s true gifts are for theatre and beyond that into other areas of life.  It’s an ongoing research project into how the world could be a more generous, creative place.  In these testing times when groundlessness seems to be the norm, improvisation is a thing that could save the world.  Frankly it may be the only way out of the woods, even if its big lesson might be we have to go deeper in to find a way through.

The sharing and study of the many aspects of improvisation and the way it may help us navigate this fast changing chaotic world is essential for our future. So next May 2019 as the “International Institute of Improvisation” our company Improbable we will be co hosting an exciting Global event to bring together creative and inspired minds who are also fascinated and passionate about Improvisation. The Second Global Improvisation Initiative is an international gathering of all those interested in Improv and all its manifestations and applications. Coming together to work on the theme of AWARENESS. It’ll take place at Middlesex University in London from 15th – 19th May.

Would you like to be involved?

We’re currently inviting calls for proposals from improvisers, teachers, makers, performers, researchers and students from any field to consider the symposium theme of “awareness.”

We are interested in proposals across a range of formats. It’s open to anyone and there are a few weeks left to get in any kind of paper, presentation or proposal if you desire. This includes performances, talks, workshops, presentations, papers, panel discussions, making and craft-based sessions, roundtables, or any other format you’d like to suggest.

Expressions of interest should be 150-250 words, and the deadline is Monday 15th October 2018. You can read more about the GII and how to submit a proposal here.Tickets to attend the GII will be available later this year. Two days of the conference will be in open space. So there will be an amazing opportunity for collaboration and deep conversation with an inspiring International community I looking forward to seeing you there.

[weareimprobable]

Improbable: The Unofficial Job Ad

You might have heard that we're recruiting two new people, a Producer and an Operations & Finance Administrator; and if you’re reading this you might be thinking about applying. You can find all the practical information you need to do that here.  

Before you apply, I thought I'd try to give you a better sense of what working with Improbable is really like; things it’d be hard to pick up from the formal job descriptions. I started working with the company 5 ½ years ago, because I went to a Devoted & Disgruntled event, and in closing circle they asked if anyone wanted the job of Open Space Producer. I put my hand up and said yes to it. Over the intervening years, what I learnt about this company is that most of the time it works because we all individually and collectively keep doing that exact same thing. It’s a company of improvisers, and we do what improvisers do - we say yes to the offers. 

This means it’s really hard to pin down what kind of company Improbable is. Sometimes there are massive operas going on, sometimes there are tiny delicate impro experiments, sometimes there’s devised theatre, and almost all of the time there’s Open Space - Devotion and Disgruntlement. It all depends what offers are being made, and who is around to say yes to them. 

It’s also kind of hard to stay rigid about things like job descriptions. I’ve previously done a whole bunch of things with the company that weren’t in my job description - digging through the archives, helping to design websites, joining the creative team for the Eldership Project, being part of the Permission Improbable workshops, becoming an Open Space facilitator, helping to cast a show, staging a choral concert for Refugee Week. None of these were what I was “supposed” to be doing on paper, but they all happened because we were able to say yes to each other and really mean it. 

I’m saying yes to a slightly different offer just at the moment, and starting a PhD on a project I’ve been carrying around for about 15 years. I asked Improbable to be my research partner on it. They said yes. We’re really all each other’s research partners already, so in a way it’s just a formalising of a relationship that already existed.  

I think that’s the most important thing I can tell you. The job descriptions might look a bit intimidating, a bit too much for one person; and yes, both jobs require rigour and carry some important responsibilities. But they’re also more flexible than the formal job descriptions might imply; they’re an invitation to join a 22-year-long-and-counting research and development project. There are plenty of offers to be made by you, by the company; there'll be a balance to find between the possibilities of those offers and the attention to detail of the every-day. There’s lots of room to try things out, to play, to fail, to do it differently in the ongoing experiment that is Improbable. 

Improbable doesn’t know who the Right Person is for either job. You might already be working in theatre or might not; might be a producer, artist, marketeer, student, improviser, aerialist… You might have been to an Improbable event or you might not. You might be applying for your first job after graduating or after a career break. You might bring your kids to the office (I bring my dog). We want and need people from a variety of backgrounds with different skills, experiences and stories to join us, and to influence and develop our working practice (I'd especially love to hand the Devoted & Disgruntled programme to someone with lived experience of the big issues); so any candidate who identifies as D/deaf, disabled or neurodivergent, as a person of colour, and/or as genderqueer, and who meets the person specification, is guaranteed an interview.If you’d like a conversation before applying you can get in touch with us – you can find details of how to do all that here. 

Apply. Find out what happens if you say yes, and… 

Sarah Grange

Open Space Producer, Improbable

[weareimprobable]

Permission Improbable: What happened? Was the mission too impossible?

           Last year was the 9th year of my leading on a project called Permission Improbable which had the humble aim of changing the world through the improbable means of holding space for women to improvise and exploring what a female-grown impro culture might look like. It seemed to be going strong. We had held two R&Ds, two weeklong summer schools, a fortnight of shows at BAC. I was hosting monthly Sundays sessions at Clapham Omnibus and had done two gigs there, open to all, with the possibility of building on this. Then suddenly it stopped. It all went quiet – plug pulled. One of the Open Space principles with which Improbable works so often is ‘When it’s over it’s over’ but the corollary to this is ‘When it’s not over it’s not over.’ If Permission Improbable is a project that set out to change the world then it is clear that the job is not done – it’s definitely not over. So what happened? Why the sudden long silence?

           I feel I owe you an explanation – it’s coming about 9 months late so I realise it had better be a good one. Let me give it to you in the form of a story. I will try and keep it brief and use the fantastic swiftness of a fairy tale in which great swathes of time and multiple happenings can be covered in a couple of sentences. Here goes….

           Once upon a time there were four men who formed a theatre company. They had made an improvised show together called Improbable Tales, so they decided to call themselves Improbable. They liked making things up on the spot and some of those things were extraordinary, bizarre and surprising so it seemed a good name. They made many shows – good, bad and brilliant. They did it for many years. Sometimes when they were doing an improvised show and they asked the audience what people wanted to see on stage the answer came back, “More women!” They did work with women but not all the time and when they did the women were almost always outnumbered by the men. At last they decided to do something about this, so they made a show in which only one of the men was on the stage and they invited three women to be on the stage with him. This changed everything forever……

           For a start one of the women fell in love with the man on the stage and he with her. They got married and the woman joined the company. One of the other men left. Now it was a company of three men and one woman. The woman loved the man but she also loved what he did. She loved the improvising and she wanted to do it too because she saw there was a powerful magic in it– a most surprising and improbable magic that might change the world. She had a go and she discovered that she did not do it as well as the men did. She noticed that whenever she made a bold choice, as a proper heroine in a story is supposed to do, whenever she went towards trouble, whenever she was about to take hold of anything magical and potent, she got the giggles and had to step out of the story. This infuriated her. It was very frustrating. She realised it happened because she felt unsure whether she had a right to be there, on the stage, making a choice, telling a story, getting into trouble, wielding power and she guessed this had something to do with her being a woman. She decided to investigate further, to go and meet the monster, slay the dragon and get into deeper trouble – it seemed like the only way forwards. So she started a project and she called it Permission Improbable because she was on a mission about giving herself and others permission. She wanted to see whether she could do things differently. She wanted to see what would happen if there were four women on stage instead of four men, or if there were even more women on stage than four. What if there were no men in the room at all  - not even in the audience? Wouldn’t that be radical? Different? World-changing?

           It was a good project – it caused some trouble. She met and gathered many other women together who played and supported the (per)mission. They did a small number of shows – they had some good bits, some bad and some brilliant. Then one night something happened. The woman came home to her improbable husband after doing a not good show. He asked her how it had gone. She said, “Not very well.” He said, “Never mind. That’s how it goes. That’s what happens, you just need to do a hundred more.” The woman went upstairs to put the children to bed (did I mention they had had two children by now?) and when she came back downstairs she looked sad. “What’s the matter?” said the man. “I don’t want to do one hundred not very good shows,” she said. “I don’t have the time. I don’t have the energy.” It was then that she realised that all this time she had still, in truth, been trying to be like the men, was still using them as a measure to test herself against and she also knew that she would never catch up with them and that this was not the way to change the world. She felt great grief at this so she decided to stop. She needed to sit down and have a big think (except she had two small children so she was rarely able to sit down to do her thinking). After a year of thinking and a lot of talking to some of the other women that had been involved, she slowly began to come up with a new plan, in fact two plans.

           One of them was a big slow plan. She wanted to make an improvised show that was not trying to do what the men had done at all - it would be utterly different, involving a different kind of magic. For now, she called it the Slow Show. It had fairy tale-like proportions. It would go on for a hundred years. It would involve a hundred women. It would not be fast and funny. It would be slow and funny, and sad, and surprising, and necessary.

           The other plan was a slow, detailed plan and it was dreamt up by another of the women, Alex Murdoch, with whom she had spoken and worked and played. This woman wanted to ask more questions, to slow everything down. She wanted to find out exactly what took place between the men and the women when they were improvising, to look at the nature of listening and how that happened or didn’t and how it impacted on the play and the magic on the stage. Everything usually happened much too fast for anyone to be able to catch hold of it. She wanted to listen and to find out what happened when she or others got the giggles or ducked or dived or fell out of the story, when they lost their sense of permission and the magical powers slipped away.

           Which brings us to the present moment. This is as far as the story has got – we have begun to talk about doing a show, a very slow one, and some further research. That’s all very well, I imagine you saying, but where does that leave everyone who was having a good time within Permission Improbable as it was?? Well, you have a few options. Here they are: you can make your own group or collective, building on the one that PI started – I would be happy to help you, as much as I can, to make this happen – get in touch if you are interested in this. Second option: you can go along to another impro class – there are lots of great impro teachers who are women and many of them run women only groups as well. I will post some links at the bottom of this blog. Another option: you can notice the improvising you are already doing, the ways in which you are and are not giving yourself permission. Notice when you duck out of the story, dodge the trouble. And lastly, you can wait a bit longer and see what emerges from the slow show and the slow research…..

           So, no, the mission was not too impossible, but it did need to be even more improbable – right on the edge of the possible. And the ending? Will they live happily ever after? Well, it’s not over, not by a long way, so let’s just say they live on stepping sure-footed, open-hearted, towards the next lot of trouble.

 Suggestions for other impro classes:

http://thenurserytheatre.com

http://www.thecrunchyfrogcollective.com

https://www.thesuggestibles.co.uk/school-of-improv

http://www.hooplaimpro.com

https://thefreeassociation.co.uk

[weareimprobable]

A open letter from Improbable’s D&D Producer to members of the Garrick Club. (It’s all a personal opinion, you understand..)

Since it’s International Women’s Day I thought I’d write a little post for the boys because you’re probably feeling a bit left out today and I’m a compassionate soul. This probably isn’t one of the most pressing issues around right now, but there’s something under the surface of it that feels important, and it’s something you can potentially take some action around - especially if you’re Stephen Fry or Hugh Bonneville or Benedict Cumberbatch*. So here goes.

A while back I was at a Devoted & Disgruntled event about commercial & subsidised producers. In one session about how to get more reviews and critical attention, a guy said: “If you really want critics to come see your shows, to be honest the best thing to do is take them out for dinner at the Garrick Club”.

Ouch. There it was, right there. The bullshit system at work. The problem that I’d long suspected but not really been able to prove. If you want critics to come to your show, be a man.

It wasn’t just rumour and myth either. The speaker was talking from experience, having worked for someone who did this regularly. This was the first time I’d heard someone articulate so bluntly what it was that went on at the Garrick, why it is such a problem; not just that it nurtures an exclusive, segregated, superior attitude or creates a space for one-sided argument, but that it keeps key tools for success unavailable to women**. It keeps the networks and handshakes and connections that oil the wheels of negotiations out of the reach of women.

Some months later, I can’t shake this conversation. I read the #MeToo accounts of systemic abuses of power, and about that other men’s club charity event*** that was all pretty disgusting and I think, yeah so the Garrick ain’t the frikkin' Bastille but there it is, squatting like persistent, heavy-breathing toad at the core of the theatre industry. Men in, women out, it croaks.

The Garrick Club website states that “No part of the clubhouse may be used for business purposes, which includes discussing business matters” which I suppose is their excuse. It’s all just a harmless bit of fun! Quality time for the lads! I’m also struck by how many of the articles following the last vote on accepting women describe it as being a place mostly inhabited by over-70s, an insistence that it’s just some harmless old fuddy-duddys sitting about reading Dickens, that we’re really not missing out on anything. “You don’t want to come in here ladies, it’s very very dull!” (turns gaslight down again). Other arguments put forward focus on the existence of women-only clubs. But there’s a fundamental difference here. Women-only spaces generally come into existence because women need a safe place to hang out where their drinks aren’t being spiked, where they aren’t getting talked over by manologuing**** mansplainers, where their arses aren’t being grabbed or they can just have a decent conversation without being interrupted by men who think the only possible reason women exist is to entertain men. Men’s clubs, on the other hand, exist to bolster power networks and do all that secret stuff that they all insist doesn’t exist. Until you find out that, if you want to get critics to come to your show, you take them for dinner at the Garrick. Looking beyond theatre, the Garrick is also very popular among the judiciary, which is everyone’s problem. *****

A few Garrick members said they’d resign after the last vote was unsuccessful in changing the policy, and I expect quite a lot more of the ~55% thought they’d done a good turn for feminism there and sorry it didn’t work out, we tried etc. So here’s my challenge to all you dudes who are still hanging on in there. If you really disagree with the policy, and if it really is just a bunch of harmless boring old conservatives, QUIT. If we’re not missing out on anything, RESIGN YOUR MEMBERSHIP. If it’s really not a place where useful conversations, deals and connections that further your career take place, STOP GOING THERE. Because frankly, looking at the fact that this vote passed in 2015 and there has been no move to admit women since and you are still a member, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe that it is just some jolly japes among the boys. I do not believe that you are not benefitting. If there was so little at stake, and if you really cared about equality, you would not have remained as a member, would you? Would you?

So either you are the kind of man-child who remains utterly terrified of women being better than him and thus have decided that women are all some sort of terrible mutant seagulls who literally cannot stop talking about “stuff” or you are basically a coward.

It’s International Women’s Day. Step up. Grasp the nettle of your own privilege. Share the power. Abandon this leaky, ancient, creaking ship and let’s find some better ways to make friends and influence people.

Happy IWD,

x Sarah

This post was extensively edited following a really nice conversation with the guy who made the comment that kicked it all off. In the first version he bore the brunt of my ire, unfairly it turns out as he’d made the comment ironically, which I’d missed at the time. Which all goes to show we should really all find time to have more proper conversations with each other when we get cross about stuff, and I think also proves once again that segregation is deeply unhealthy, so let’s not ever hang out in exclusive clubs with only People Like Us to talk to.

* Big fans of my work, absolutely.

** I definitely include trans and non-binary people in my definition of women here, because I bet the GC doesn’t. Please correct me if I’m wrong about that. It might turn out they have a great trans-inclusive policy created in consultation with some actual trans people but since they had a vote about women at which 0 women spoke, I reeeeeally doubt it.

*** Hey, you know who’s really good at charitable work without having to grope anyone in the process? Yes, that’s right, WOMEN!

**** Thanks, yeah you can have that for free.

*****Since the membership list is a closely guarded secret, I can’t tell you what this picture looks like from an intersectional point of view, but I’d bet my secret handshake they are not winning any awards for diversity. If anyone has any insight about this, I’d be grateful to hear it.

A little club-based disclaimer postscript. Personally I’m against private members clubs as a whole, whether divided along a gender-binary or mixed, because I’m not really into them as a concept. I was offered free membership of a new theatre club that opened in London last year and went along a couple of times out of curiosity. I came to the conclusion that it was just an expensive wine bar with added inconvenience. On learning that it was completely inaccessible to anyone with mobility issues, being up three flights with no lift, I decided I wasn’t up for giving my money to that kind of exclusivity and haven’t been back since. In fact I can’t really think of any kind of exclusivity that I’m ok with. Apart from toilet cubicles. My point is, if you disagree with the infrastructure, don’t support it. Find another place to hang out where everyone can join the conversation.

[weareimprobable]

Fundraising Officer: an unofficial job ad

Dear Improbable Fundraising Officer-to-be

If you're reading this you've probably heard that Improbable is recruiting a Fundraising Officer; and you're - hopefully - interested enough to find out more.

You can find all the practical information you need to make an application here. But alongside that, we thought we'd write a few things that it might be useful for you to know if you're thinking about applying. This blog is inspired by our associate director Matilda Leyser, who wrote an unofficial job ad when she was recruiting a producer recently, and which seemed to give a much better sense of what the job was than the official advert. So here's our version of that.

The first thing to say about the fundraising officer role is that it's new. We don't have a fixed idea of the person we're looking for. He / she / they might already be working in fundraising, or might be a producer, artist, marketeer, student, improviser, aerialist... They might have been to an Improbable event or they might not. They might be working in the arts or they might not. They might be applying for their first job after graduating or after a career break. They might bring their kids to the office. We've created this role because we know that we don't do as much fundraising as we could, mostly because we don't have the time or capacity to - but we don't know what type of person is going to help us change that. We're interested in having a conversation with anyone who thinks that person might be them. So if you're thinking "this sounds interesting but I've never worked in fundraising", then don't let that put you off.

We’re also guaranteeing a first round interview to people from a BAMER background or who describe themselves as D/deaf or disabled, and who meet the person specification. We hope to engage with a range of people, voices and perspectives, including those under-represented in the company at the moment.*

The second thing to say about this job is that it's an experiment. There's a chance with fundraising roles that the implication is "we're looking for someone to raise £1billion, and if they do that they'll keep their job and if they don't then this hasn't worked." We're approaching it differently. Yes we have some targets, but if we don't raise that amount of money by the end of the 12 months that's not necessarily going to mean the experiment has failed. (And the target isn't £1billion). Our reason for creating this role isn't just to raise money - it's about helping us to think differently about fundraising; and about creating a little bit more capacity in the Improbable team so that, as a whole, we're able to do more. We're excited about the idea of having a fundraising officer but we're not expecting them to know all the answers.

The final thing to say is some more about us. That might be useful because people often think Improbable is bigger than it really is. There are seven of us, and only two - administrator Anabel and executive director Ben - are full time. We have an office but we're not all in it at the same time very often. In the last 18 months we’ve broken at least four coffee machines. At least once a month we spend a few hours together as a company in Open Space, working on whatever needs to be worked on. We use Open Space a lot. If you don't know Improbable's work already, it'd be a good idea to check it out before applying - we're as likely to be making a huge opera in a grand opera house as we are teaching impro in a community centre.

Within this context, we want to support the fundraising officer as much as possible - whether that's through training you might want or going to conferences or working with a mentor. We've created a new role within the company, rather than using an external consultant, because we'd like the fundraising officer to develop their skills from within Improbable. That feels like it'll be better for us both in the long term.

We hope that gives you a bit more of a sense of what the job is about. If you're thinking of applying and would like a conversation about things first then feel free to get in touch - or if you'd just like to send in an application that's fine too. You can find details of how to do all that here. The deadline is 1st March at 5pm.

We look forward to hearing from you. Best wishes,

Improbable.

*Some legal info: We’re guaranteeing first-round interviews to applicants who meet the person specification and who have protected characteristics that are under-represented in our workforce, under the terms of the Equality Act 2010. All applications will be assessed on merit. 

[weareimprobable]

D&D13 invite from David Byrne

Artistic and Executive Director of New Diorama Theatre

It’s time to get off Twitter and get to work. Since the last Devoted and Disgruntled, the country and the whole world has been plunged into uncertainty. Here at New Diorama we’ve seen audiences and members of our local community more nervous about the present and fearful of the future. But we can’t afford to be afraid. I believe that theatre can change the world. I know that many of you do too. Now it’s time to prove it. Nobody is going to do it for us: it’s down to us. Reality may look bleak right now, but everyone will need imagination, creativity and bold ideas to get us optimistic again. Who else will unlock that if not us? It’s time to pull our sleeves up, to assemble en-masse, talk about the problems we face, the challenges ahead of us, and, together, work out how we’re going to overcome each and every one of them. We’re going to need everybody there. This D&D will be the most accessible ever and we’re offering to buy 150 tickets for artists from diverse backgrounds. Remember: whenever it happens is the right time. And it’s happening now. And: whoever is there are the right people. You may be able to do without attending, but can the future of the arts do without you? Don’t deny us your voice. I can’t wait to welcome every single one of you. Let’s be unafraid. Let’s get together, and get to work.

https://www.devotedanddisgruntled.com/Event/devoted-disgruntled-13-what-are-we-going-to-do-about-theatre-and-the-performing-arts

[weareimprobable]

PERMISSION IMPROBABLE : THE PRINCIPLES

From our Associate Director, Matilda Leyser

“What would an improvisation culture grown by women look like?” Answering this question, or at least asking it, has been the purported aim of the project Permission Improbable for the last seven years. The project has the modest ambition of changing the world through the improbable means of holding space for women to improvise. We have done R&Ds, shows, and almost three years worth of monthly women-only impro workshops.

This year, for many reasons, some of them personal (I had another baby); some of them impro-related (there are now far more women out there improvising than when the project began– hooray!); some of them global (oh my, where do we begin?!) I have been taking time to think about how best to take the project forwards.

In the process I have realised that the question we have been asking about a women-grown impro culture is in some ways a disingenuous one: I already know what I want it to look like. To this end I have written down a set of Permission Improbable principles that outline the kind of impro culture I want to foster. A more honest question then might be: what kind of impro might happen if we were to commit to following these principles? I imagine there are an infinite number of answers to this. I was trying to explain infinity to my son yesterday:

“What’s the biggest number there is?” he asked me.

“There isn’t one. They just keep going up. You can always think of one bigger than the last one you named,” I said.

“Okay, but let’s decide on one biggest number. Let’s say it is a trillion,” he said.

“But what about the star that is a trillion and one miles away? What do we do about that?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, let’s just start counting and see how far we get.”

Here are the PI principles. I hope they are helpful. Let’s just start using them and see how far we get……..

Permission Improbable Principles

Do it as a Practice

Do it – improvise- for the sake of doing it, not to produce a particular result. Do it over again. You will never do it, or any particular impro exercise, so much that you need never repeat it. Do not master it. ‘It’ is not piano scales. It is the rigour of not knowing. It is being present and seeing what’s there, now.

Notice Everything

Seeing what’s there. What is there? Notice it. Another word for this: listen. Listen harder. Listen softer. You have not heard everything yet. Listen to the other players. Listen to the audience. Listen to the dust in the air between you. Listen to the cars on the street outside the theatre. Listen to the gods. Listen to yourself. Listen to your breath, heart, half thoughts. Listen to the white noise crackle of fear inside you that means that you cannot hear anything else. Listen to the judge in the head that thinks this is rubbish. Good. You heard it.  It is always good – whatever you have noticed or heard or seen. Read Rumi – he’ll tell you – there are no unwanted guests.* Welcome everything you notice. It is gold. You are rich. And there is always more.

Be Changed

Be prepared to be changed by what you notice. Notice that you are already being changed by it. It is already happening. Let it happen. Everything will change faster than you would ever believe is possible because in the world we call ordinary things appear to be fixed.  This is how impro can change the world, by you being the change that is happening. This is vulnerable work.

Give Yourself Permission

So you have noticed what you noticed. You have been/ are being changed. Own it. Say a big fat “YES” to the change – that is the choice you have. Give yourself permission to be who you are and do what you are doing. It has to be you that gives yourself permission. No one else can do it. Be a man, a woman, boy, girl, be queer, be other things: cat, tree, stone, river, the North Wind, Zeus, a ghost, your mother, Superman. Give yourself permission to be funny, suddenly serious, sad, slow, loving, anxious, outraged, confused. Different roles, different qualities, all permissible. You are not in control but you are in charge. Step up and own it so that you can give it away, so that you can be generous.

Care, Don’t Care

One final thing – the show does not need to go on. Life must go on, which means caring for, looking after each other. Which means children and grannies are welcome in the room. Which means you can leave the room whenever you need, or arrive late to it. Which means you can go home and look after whoever needs you there. Which means you can rest when you want. None of this is irrelevant or embarrassing or less important than the playing. It is the place the playing begins and ends. Care passionately and then don’t care, then let it go. It was just an improvisation and that is a practice so you’ll do it again, soon.

* The Guest House by Rumi

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.

meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

— Jellaludin Rumi,

translation by Coleman Barks

[weareimprobable]

“You never stop learning, no matter your age...”

LOST WITHOUT WORDS show diary from Assistant Director, Caroline Williams. Part 5

WEEK 4

MOVE TO THE NATIONAL


The move to The National arrived and we began the process of settling into our new rehearsal room. We had learnt about how vital public showings were and so we opened up our room every afternoon to people who wanted to come. These showings enabled us to slowly build a shape to the show as well as continue to practice in front of a live audience.

LOWERING THE STAKES


It was agreed by the cast and directors that the tone of our show needed to be consciously positive, i.e the stakes needed to be low. Low stakes allowed for an agreed contract between the cast and the directors: the cast had to be happy to have the directors offer suggestions and the directors had to have fun offering them. My overall note throughout rehearsals became “if we see that you all like each other, then the audience are happy.”

GETTING LOST


The central dramaturgy within Lost Without Words is that in choosing to be lost new stories and dreams are made. The director’s job is to intervene to provoke the cast to wake up to where they are if they got lost. Is it possible to stop and notice where you are (what you’ve made) if you get lost and when you do get lost is it possible to get even more lost? There is no doubt that what the actors were about to do was intimidating but they were not going to do it alone- we’d all be there as a team singing to the last.

A COLLECTION OF POEMS


Lee Simpson had made the observation that he wanted Lost Without Words to be like a collection of poems. The scenes wouldn’t necessarily hang together narratively or even stylistically but there may be an overall atmosphere as though the scenes had sprung from the same source.

The opening of the show was slow, present and connected. This informed us to make the next decision: Lee and Phelim would simply step out of the opening picture and introduce the company, explaining the roles of sound, music, light and themselves. Phelim would leave the audience with some questions around getting lost and the show would begin.

INTERVENTIONS


Phelim and Lee began to learn a vocabulary for their interventions. Sometimes they would give a scene title, sometimes they would be stage hands doing object manipulation or asking the cast to say specific lines. At times they would present a game to play: The Alphabet Game, Not Saying The Letter S Game, Speaking in Verse Game. What was vital to these interventions was being simple and clear with explaining them to the audience and to the cast. Nothing was hidden. One note that always got a laugh from the audience and allowed the cast the freedom to get

things wrong with pleasure was: “include any pain you have with getting the game wrong as an acting choice within the scene”.

BUILDING OF TRUST


Our run at The National was really an extension of our work in the weeks before but now we had over four hundred people cheering us along: what changed most was the confidence it gave the company.

The remarkable cast who have worked all their lives to only be on stage when their work on a character is complete, were now stepping on stage with a completely new set of rules and a new arena to play. The absolute trust that they had found with each other and with Lee and Phelim was awe inspiring. They had truly begun to enjoy the freedom.

Previous anxieties and fears gave way to a new language- shows weren’t shows they were gigs - sometimes they would go well, sometimes less well and that was fine. There was an atmosphere of having nothing to prove and an acceptance that some people would love the show and some people might hate it. This sense of adventure married with the cast’s age created an inspiring philosophy amongst us: you never stop learning no matter your age.

Caroline Blakiston admitted with great emotion that she’d always wanted to sing and here she was in her older years on stage at The National improvising an operatic aria. We joked that Lost Without Words should continue until Lee and Phelim are old enough to be in the cast.

A BEGINNING

When our run at The National came to an end we had other actors desperate to take part in the next manifestation of the project. We left, agreeing this wasn’t the end of Lost Without Words. Georgine Anderson, our oldest cast member, reminded us: “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

Little Gidding, T. S. Eliot.

[weareimprobable]

“Be even more Ordinary.”

LOST WITHOUT WORDS show diary from Assistant Director, Caroline Williams. Part 4

‘You’ve got to believe us when we say it’s good’, Lee Simpson

At the start of week 3 we fed back on our experiences of performing at the Jerwood Space the week before. There was still a feeling of anxiety around improvising in front of an audience. We discussed how to make the performances feel more like a game.

Is it possible to lower the stakes and instead allow ourselves to laugh at our mistakes? Could Phelim and Lee have a quality mirrored by that of the cast: one of generosity and love?

LOVE

Throughout rehearsals we discussed how learning the art of improvisation can throw up a lot of personal feelings. Without a character to hide behind, there is a direct line to an audience and that line can feel over exposing and too close to feelings of approval or disapproval. If you allow these feelings to get in the way, you will forget the principles that will hold you: slow down, be obvious and say yes.  

If you are nervous, be nervous, don’t hide it- allow it to exist in the atmosphere of the scene. With this in mind we worked on our own inner critics and tried to go into improvisations with an atmosphere of love and generosity.

ONLY SAY STATEMENTS Creating scenes with endless questions is another way of not making active choices and instead asking your fellow player to take responsibility for defining the scene. We began to work on scenes in which no player was allowed to ask a question. We observed that only saying statements helps you to play characters that know each other and so the worlds within the scenes feel immediately more vivid and lived in. We noted how it was easier to build the world around the players when using statements - clear stories came from the environment and agreements on place were made far more quickly. It’s also helpful in forcing your fellow player to say yes to your ideas!

OFF-DUTY

We began to notice that in our breaks the cast would often improvise for fun before we started rehearsing. Steven Edis would be tinkling on the piano and the company would improvise a song. Mid week Caroline Blakiston and Lynn Farleigh improvised an opera. The cast were saying yes to each others’ ideas and the atmosphere was playful and alive. Lee Simpson created the term ‘off-duty’ to remind the cast to find this same playful quality when the illusion of pressure by having ‘an audience’ got in the way.

BE EVEN MORE ORDINARY

“The best scenes will make you feel you did nothing. You were just there” Phelim McDermott.

We now referred to defining the who/what/where of a scene as having built a ‘positive platform’. Phelim and Lee made it clear that when a positive platform is built then a change can happen. It was interesting to see this in the light of the ordinary. If an ordinary doctor is changed somehow, that is more extraordinary and more moving than an already strange doctor changing. We also discovered if you return to an ordinary action at the end of a scene in which the characters have been changed that action will take on a new meaning and significance. 

MICHAEL CHEKHOV MOVEMENT QUALITIES AND ATMOSPHERE WORK

Phelim McDermott led the cast though Chekhov’s movement qualities: moulding, floating, flying and radiating. He reiterated that these movement qualities aren’t dance - they are psychological.

It was noted that these movement qualities were nothing new to these actors, they would have done them on stage a hundred times but this was a new way of harnessing them and having a shared language to be specific about it. The movement qualities became tools of exploring atmospheres, for example an atmosphere of hope anger or an atmosphere of regret. Within these atmospheres the actors were given permission to see what emotions might arise. Nothing should be forced.

FINAL SHOWING AT DIORAMA

Our final showing at Diorama confirmed that Phelim and Lee’s roles as side coaches was becoming part of the show that would go onto The National Theatre. Our final week would include working on the dramaturgy of their interventions and what that role meant. What does the audience need from directors on stage? What does the cast need from them? The same rules would apply to the directors as to the cast: slow down, be obvious and say yes.

[weareimprobable]

“Be positive about the emotion that exists...”

LOST WITHOUT WORDS show diary from Assistant Director, Caroline Williams. Part 3

Week 2 OPEN SPACE


Week 2 opened with Harrison Owen’s technique of Open Space. The company had a chance to call a session on anything that was alive in them. All of these sessions were put up on the wall and would form the palette of what was looked at over the following weeks. Some example sessions: practice, practice, practice.

Staying within in the frame. Chekhov’s Atmospheres. Dream Time.

STAY IN THE FRAME 
 Lee called the above session and reiterated one of the first principles we learnt: don’t be afraid to be obvious. Staying in the frame relates this specifically to story. If you’ve made a promise at the start of the improvisation that you are on a boat, then stay on that boat (stay within that frame) don’t end up on the moon a second later. Pay enough attention to what is going on in the scene to remain in the frame and give it your full commitment. Allow the story to emerge: what does the boat look like, how fast is it moving, how high are the waves? Believe in the scene you’ve created and stay with it.

THOSE CHAIRS.

“People will laugh at us because we are old” 

A discussion arose following the arrival of a set of chairs from an old people’s home. Two of our cast, Caroline Blakiston and Tim Preece had performed with them in Improbable’s Eldership project. Phelim had been inspired to play with them, after a director, Peter Avery had suggested these chairs should be banned. They are designed to prevent movement; a death sentence of sorts. In the previous show the cast had very much beaten this sentence by performing abstract movement on and around the chairs but in our rehearsal room they appeared to be looming over our set and Lynn Farleigh bravely voiced her dislike of them.

This began a discussion about old-age within Lost Without Words. The piece itself isn’t about being old but it is, in its content and form, about reclaiming space. Elderly actors are almost never centre stage; those lucky enough to play Lear are usually much younger than what Shakespeare’s text suggests. As is true of society as a whole, elderly people are marginalised in the theatre industry.

The chairs being present, with horrid dark patches where unwashed hair had sat unmoving for months, made this idea alive in the room and it was a painful thing to sit with. It made the company articulate more than ever why this show is important. It’s gesture is strong and clear: being elderly is nothing to be ashamed of. We are not invisible and we’re not going away.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO CHANGE 
 We discovered that often when the players say no it is because they are afraid to change. Good stories happen when characters are forced to change. If someone raises the stakes don’t be afraid to go higher.

Lee pointed out that is in saying ‘yes’ to something that you wouldn’t normally say ‘yes’ to that a character emerges. If you can allow yourself to be changed by your fellow player, then scenes will remain active. If a scene suggests your character has to die, then die - see what happens next! How do we deal with death? That’s what theatre’s for - to help us find out.

OUR SECOND SHOWINGS AND SIDE COACHING


In our second set of showings we discussed the role of Lee and Phelim as ‘side-coaches’ (A phrase coined by Viola Spolin). Lee and Phelim are not directors so to speak but rather active players who will give suggestions and challenges to focus the stage action. It is more like a sport with them as the sideline managers egging the players on and reminding them of how to play to their strengths.

LAUGHTER IS AN INVITATION TO GO DEEPER 


Our first showing was very funny and we discussed that by it being so funny something had been lost. The pace and concentration of previous shows had been replaced by confidence in the comedic. Phelim observed that when we get laughter from an audience it is an invitation to take the material even more seriously. Be positive about the emotion that exists within the scene and allow that to be the thing that guides the way.