Kneehigh Kitchen: cooking with creativity

Kneehigh Kitchen group with Mike Shepherd and Nandi Bhebhe

Most theatre makers and performers in this country will have heard of Kneehigh theatre company, originally formed in Cornwall and now performing internationally. Over its nearly 40 years of making theatre the company has built up a repertoire of exciting work that twists and turns traditional storytelling conventions on their head to delight and provoke its audiences. Moving down to Cornwall last year I felt perhaps I had inched a little closer to my dream of working with this company, physically if nothing else. When I gained a place on the first Kneehigh Kitchen workshop back in May and set off to the hallowed ‘Barns’, I couldn’t contain my excitement, and why indeed should I!

The Barns is Kneehigh’s rehearsal space, a National Trust barn near the Cornish coast, above the village of Gorran Haven. It is just as you would imagine it to be, with a woodburner to heat the rehearsal room, a lovely large kitchen, and outside a firepit to gather round of an evening, chatting about the day’s discoveries.

Mike Shepherd, who started Kneehigh in 1980, told us how special The Barns is to him and the company, a sort of sacred space. In that spirit I decided not to take any photos of the building and the spaces within, apart from the firepit. Those three days at The Barns were a special and unique experience shaped by and shared by only those present. What I now hope to share with you is the impact the experience has had on me as an artist.

I moved to Cornwall in April last year. I had been living in London for a few years and grown tired of the noise, pollution, chaos and general franticness of life in the capital. Although I now live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country I have struggled to find creative opportunities down here, the majority of my network being back in London. There has been a lot of travelling up the country for work, networking events and workshops, so when the opportunity arose to do something creative down here, with other people coming down here rather than it being me going up there yet again, it felt extra special. Although I live in Falmouth, about an hour from Gorran Haven, it felt like I was welcoming people to my neck of the woods.

Getting to play and work in The Barns was a rare privilege, and has created memories I will always cherish. It was lovely to work with Mike and the joyful energy that is Nandi Bhebhe, both whom I worked with at Curious. The artists I met and worked with during the workshop came from various different areas of performance, and this variety enriched the experience. I was able to learn from my fellow creatives, from their ideas, their energy, their bravery and their knowledge of how different parts of the industry work. I have been meaning to have a go at the dreaded funding applications for a while but not felt ready, after all I have only started my own theatre company, Muddy Boots Theatre, since finishing the Curious School of Puppetry. However, after talking to one of my lovely housemates during the workshop (Kneehigh put us up in fantastic accommodation nearby), who runs her own circus company and has extensive knowledge of the funding process, I took the plunge and sent off my first ever funding application.

I have a vision for Muddy Boots Theatre as a rural touring company eventually with its own base in Cornwall, an arts centre open to the community, offering workshops, shows, events, a little bookshop and café and a space to think and create. Marching along the cliff path as a group with Mike, singing out to the sea during our vocal warm-up, stretching up to the open sky with Nandi, taking the work out of the rehearsal room and into the open, showed me how I can make the most of my surroundings here in Cornwall when I get to the point of creating my first show down here with a group of performers. We will warm our voices up in the fresh sea air, work our muscles along the coast path, take inspiration from the land, sea and sky around us. There are companies down here already doing this of course, and making wonderful work – Kneehigh, Wildworks and Rogue Theatre just to name a few – but those few days at The Barns has shown me that there is always space for your own creativity, your own ideas.

With each course I do, each job I take, I expand my network of fellow creative souls. I expand my mind with new ideas. The Kneehigh Kitchen gave me the gift of a very special few days exploring, playing and learning with a group of warm, generous and inspiring people. I headed back to Falmouth with new friends, a strengthened vision of my future creative plans, and a smile.

Clod Ensemble movement workshop with osteopath Leon Baugh

As an actor and puppeteer with many years of dance classes behind me, I am greatly interested in how and why my body moves the way it does. This is particularly true when it comes to injuries that impede my movement, and how to both deal with them and prevent future injuries.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to take part in a free workshop on the body and how to keep it moving and performing the way we need it to. The workshop was run by osteopath and former dancer Leon Baugh, and aimed at dancers and other performers for whom movement plays a key part of their work.

Leon Baugh working with a client

Leon is a qualified osteopath, Anatomy in Motion practitioner, acupuncturist and sports injury massage therapist working in London. Before training as an osteopath he enjoy a career as a professional contemporary dancer, dancing with companies such as the Hofesh Schechter Company, before becoming an Olivier Award winning theatre choreographer.

On a snowy Sunday in early December I made my way into London (the trains were miraculously running), dressed in my usual movement get-up of leggings and baggy top, armed with a water bottle and notebook. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but the following seven hours would turn out to be some of the most useful of my career.

Persistent back pain

About nine years ago I injured my back. I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but over a period of several days a pain started to appear in my lower back and grew worse and worse, until one day I couldn’t move without horrendous painful spasms coursing up my spine. I’ve seen physiotherapists, osteopaths and chiropractors. I’ve tried pilates and swimming. Although each of these things gave me some immediate relief, it never lasted (though I can credit the swimming with improving my mobility and getting me walking again). After two weeks the intense pain had settled down to a persistent dull ache, and I was able to move about more or less as I had done before, with one exception – fear. The pain and immobility had been so terrifying, that ever since then I never made any sort of bending movement without an element of fear that it would happen again.

In more recent years I have injured the cartilage in my left knee playing badminton, and also feel niggles in my right. Perhaps lower back and knee problems are not the best recipe for a life as a puppeteer, but I think it can have some advantages, in that it makes me more aware of how I need to look after and protect my body when I’m working.

I’ve often wondered if the knee issues could be directly related to the original back injury, and through Leon’s workshop I discovered that this could very much be the case. I learnt how, when we suffer an injury, our body adjusts its centre to cope with this. However, long after the injury itself has healed, the body can continue to perceive this off-kilter centre as its true centre. This leaves us with a greatly reduced amount of mobility. Could my body have readjusted its centre when I hurt my back, and when it didn’t revert back to its true centre once my back had healed, could this off-kilter centre have put extra strain on my left knee, making it more susceptible to injury?

Listening to the body

Leon took us through several exercises to tune into our bodies and become aware of any trouble spots. Alongside my work in the theatre I work in communications at a university, which involves sitting at a computer for most of the day. Recently I’ve been very aware of how I’ve almost tuned out my body as I jostle the crowds in the tube, cram onto the train, or sit for hours staring at my computer screen. Leon’s workshop reminded me to listen when my body speaks, and to actively ask it how it’s feeling by taking the time to tune in.

Leon Baugh

Most of the other participants at the workshop were professional dancers, but the majority of what we covered could be directly applied to working as a puppeteer or other kind of movement practitioner. The warm-ups Leon took us through will be particularly useful, following the basic principle of preparing your body for the work ahead by doing a lower-intensity version of that same activity (for example, if you’re going to be jumping lots in a rehearsal then it makes sense to prepare your knees by doing bends and low-impact jumps). One revelation was to not always bend knees over toes when warming up (shock horror!). You cannot guarantee that in a rehearsal or performance you will land perfectly every time, so you need to prepare your knees for those times when you don’t.

There is so much useful information I took away from the day that I can’t possibly include it all here or I’ll end up writing a book! Suffice to say, that one workshop alone has changed the way I think about my body and its pain, and I can’t thank Leon and the organisers, Clod Ensemble, enough.

This workshop was organised as part of Reboot, Clod Ensemble’s free artist development programme for emerging and established practitioners. The programme provides a space for performers and performance makers, teachers and academics to explore ideas and develop their practice.

 

Images: courtesy of Leon Baugh

End of YSC tour

“And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain…”

So Bottom sang as Pyramus, just before he dropped dead in Pyramus and Thisbe. Well, in our version anyway. Sam, who played Bottom, came out with it one rehearsal and it just stuck. And it nearly always got a chuckle from the teachers.

But it’s true; we have faced the final metaphorical curtain on our Young Shakespeare Company tour of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Three weeks ago in fact. Since then I’ve had time to digest and reflect on the experience and everything I’ve learnt.

Touring is an amazing and invaluable experience for an actor. On this tour I have strengthened my resilience, seen new parts of the country, made new friends, and had the chance to perform to several thousand children, giving many of them their first taste of theatre.

Touring can also be very challenging. It’s tiring, you can spend a long time away from the comfort of home and loved ones (though on this tour we went home each weekend), you spend all your time with the same group of people, and you perform the same show many times. However, this is all part of being an actor.

I have learnt a lot about myself, both good and bad. I’ve worked with some very talented and creative people who have seen me at my best and my worst, and for whom I have developed a great deal of respect. I’ve encountered different ways of working and learnt to acknowledge that my way of doing things is by no means always the best way. I’ve had a lot of fun and made so many wonderful memories. Oh, and I got to say a bit of Shakespeare.

New writing at the Scene Gym

Get a bunch of actors, writers and directors together to have a play with some new writing and you end up with a day of creativity, networking and fun.

On Friday 4^th November I went along to Scene Gym, an event organised by actress Julia Taylor, the Artistic Director of Scene Gym, co-producer Tim Cook, and dramaturg and script reader Natassa Deparis. November’s ‘gym’ took place at the Old Vic Workrooms in Bermondsey and workshopped four scripts.

The piece I was cast in was Numeratti by actress and writer Shamiso Mushambi – a fantastic script with a very relevant premise and interesting characters. I played a character called ‘4’, and had great fun playing with the childlike side of me that this character brought out. It was pretty cool having the writer in the room too, though a little nerve-wracking as I’m sure we all wanted to be true to her vision of the piece.

The other cast members included my friend Vicky Winning, who I trained with at East 15, so it was brilliant ‘working’ with her (it’s strange to call something ‘work’ when it feels much more like play!). I also loved meeting the other actors and our director. Mostly, I find actors to be such open people, willing to take creative risks and without a lot of the usual walls people have carefully built up against strangers. The generous spirit of everyone there created a positive and playful environment and reminded me why I love doing this.

It felt great to flex the old acting muscles, and was an exciting opportunity to meet fellow creative folk and hear about their experiences in the industry. Thank you Julia and team for creating Scene Gym!

Peaks and troughs

I’m nearly at the end of my first year out of drama school. They say the first few years are the most difficult, and I’m starting to appreciate that.

It’s been an interesting year with mostly steady work and mostly very little money. There’s been the thrill of getting an agent (hi Carol!), the excitement of going to castings, the joy of getting stuck into a part, the constant niggle in the back of my mind about money, the effort not to compare myself to other actors who seem to be ‘doing better’, the elation when I got a job and the disappointment when I didn’t.

It’s very easy to start worrying that everyone else is getting more work, their careers are progressing faster, they’re more talented or luckier, and of course there’s that fear creeping in that I’ve failed before I’ve really begun. You fall into a trough and the more you struggle and flail your arms, the more you seem to sink into the mud. But recently I’ve come to realise, and maybe for many of you fellow performers this has been obvious all along, that this is the job. This is the life. This is not me failing at being an actor. This is me BEING an actor.

And so it’s ok! Just like choosing to start not only a new sentence but a whole new paragraph with the word ‘and’ is ok! (My mum will disagree.) Nothing’s wrong, this is just how it is on this particular path I’ve chosen. No wonder they went on about ‘building resilience’ so much at drama school. It all makes sense now. I guess you’ve got to actually live it in order to really understand.

Some of my friends and fellow actors have also been feeling a bit stuck in the mud, so for any of you performers out there feeling this way, you’re not alone. Remember your support network, and try to find the balance of work and play. If you need a bit of guidance with that, I’ve found the following book to be a great help: An Attitude for Acting by Andrew Tidmarsh and Dr Tara Swart. I’m sure there’s all manner of self-help books out there for actors, and many of them are probably a waste of money, but I think this one’s pretty good. It just helped me bring things back into focus.

I feel I’m back on the upward climb at the moment. I had that amazing experience working in Russia, and since I’ve been back I’ve had two auditions, one for a play, one for a commercial, and two for TIE tours. I’ve also just been offered the two TIE tours. So things are definitely happening, even if it’s a slow trickle. Onwards and upwards I say!

No no no no no no no yes

Thus says Jim Trott in The Vicar of Dibley. While causing much mirth, this phrase also sums up both of my passions and chosen professions. In both the acting and the writing world, getting accustomed to regular rejection is just part of the deal. For every ‘yes’ there has usually been a stream of ‘no’s beforehand. After two such ‘no’s today I was faced with several options: throw my laptop on the floor and start smashing up Costa, sob uncontrollably much to the alarm of everyone in Costa, or get back to work, and write. Thus I chose the latter…

It’s a crazy old thing, being a ‘creative’. You put your heart and soul, and a great deal of time and, often, money into your work, only to have someone tell you it’s not what they’re looking for, it’s not quite up to their standards, it’s too different/not different enough, it’s been seen before, it would never sell, or just… ‘no’. Faced with such criticism many people would sink into a deep mire of self-loathing, or else construct a solid concrete wall around themselves. Actors, however, are required by the very nature of both what we do and the industry itself, to keep going, keep trying and, very importantly, keep feeling. Admittedly, there is a certain degree of self-loathing, self-pity and self-defence that goes on, but it has to be a temporary state. In order to do the work, we have to rise up out of the mud time and time again, learn to take the knocks and still come back for more. And while doing this, we have to stay open, receptive and fully engaged in the world around us. We have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. It’s almost like going in the ring with a heavyweight boxer knowing full well we’re about to be hit in the face, yet not only doing nothing to defend ourselves, but in fact presenting our cheek for his glove.

The ‘no’s I’ve just received are actually for my writing, but the principle is the same. We put ourselves into our work then put it out there to get stamped on, discarded or, even worse, simply ignored. I have indeed just had a moment (or several) of doom and gloom, but as I pack up my things to head over to the theatre the grey clouds are lifting. Tonight I get to be a Russian, a flamingo and a wolf. I get to share a sacred space with my fellow actors and adventurers and tell the people gathered there a magical story. Tonight I get to play.

So I shake off the ‘no’ and remind myself why I’m doing this: for the love of it. For the sheer joy. It’s certainly not for the money! And I remind myself how lucky I am to get to do this every night this week. This is what sustains me through the ‘no’s. This is why it’s worth it.

Synchron Productions’ Chronicargo is on at the White Bear Theatre in Kennington tonight and tomorrow as part of the New Moon Festival.

The actor showcase

Ah, the industry showcase. That gem of an occasion, shrouded in mystery for the uninitiated, subject of both fear and wonder, and having become an almost ritualistic element on every drama school’s calendar.

Having just done my showcase, I must admit there is still a thin wispy cloud of the unknown hovering over the event. I still wonder at the conversations in the bar before we stepped boldly into the pit. I haven’t a clue what makes one brilliantly talented actor get an agent and another equally brilliantly talented actor hear nothing. And I am still asking myself: what exactly can you get across in just two minutes?

The showcase is unique. At least in my experience, nothing quite compares to it. From sitting in the café across the road from the theatre at 8am, sipping my cappuccino as the nerves slowly rumble in, to the thrill of performing on a West End stage, to the steps down into the bar afterwards where the agents await, the nerves by now attacking my digestive system with full force. In no other event has the concentration of conflicting emotions (or are they complimentary?) – fear and excitement – been so great.

My East 15 MA Acting showcase was at the Duchess Theatre in Covent Garden, and took place last Wednesday. Just before the showcase I moved to Putney to lodge with a friend and his family, so this last week has been a period of change all round. Of adapting to a different pace of life – the frantic rush of London set against the relatively ponderous pace of my life for the last few days. Of going from full-time student to being without a job for the first time since I was 21. Of graduating from the dream to the reality of life as an actor. Shit just got real.

Four days on, I can see more than ever how important my training was at East 15. I’m not talking about the voice work or the Laban or the units and objectives. I’m talking about the stuff to draw on when you don’t get an agent, or you haven’t had an audition in a while. The feeding of the soul. With that comes resilience and the power to carry on.

Some of us may sign with an agent straight away, for others it may take much longer. Some of us may find fame and fortune, others may never be rich but make good work and work consistently. Others still may turn to writing, directing, producing. Whatever our journey becomes, we must remember we have the training, and we have each other. Equipped with those two, the industry is our oyster.

My actor’s showreel

In the digital age, every emerging actor needs a showreel. Back in the day, if you wanted to get an agent you had to invite them to come see you in the flesh, acting in a play, but these days we have the internet at our fingertips. With agents’ and casting directors’ days getting even busier, they are just as likely, if not more, to click on a link on Spotlight to view your showreel, than trek out to whatever tiny theatre space above a pub you’ve saved up your meagre earnings to hire. This is not me dissing such venues – they’re the bread and butter of what we do and some of the most innovative and inspiring theatre I’ve seen has been in a black studio space above a bustling pub – but many agents just won’t travel that far from where they’re based unless they have an inkling it’s going to be worth their while. Which is where the showreel comes in….

This is our chance to give a taster of our talents, to hook the agent, pique their attention, and basically show them we can act. With this in mind, at drama school last term we were encouraged to put together our own short showreels and upload them to our Spotlight profile. Choosing the right material to film proved perhaps the biggest challenge – something not too emotionally heightened, outlandish or risqué – and then there was the task of trying to choose a location that worked well both for the action and on film, getting the lighting and sound levels right, and making sure we didn’t film over anybody else’s clips! It was a fantastic learning experience, and after a spot of editing training we all gave it a go.

I downloaded a free 30-day trial of Final Cut Pro so I could edit at my own leisure, but I have to say trying to edit footage on an 11-inch Macbook Air screen was not the easiest of tasks! You can watch the final edit below. Although it will suffice for the moment, I will be re-doing the showreel before our industry showcase in September. I don’t feel I did my best acting at all as I was still getting used to working in front of the camera rather than on stage (everything has to be brought down a few notches, and you certainly cannot lie to the camera!). The two clips also don’t show enough variety as they are rather similar, and in hindsight, they’re probably not the best scenes for my casting. So please be gentle! I’ll be posting the new and improved showreel on here later this year, so watch this space! Meanwhile, enjoy (yes, that is my best grumpy face to kick us off)…

Surviving Actors 2015

Few opportunities seem to exist for experienced and new actors alike to network for free and find out more about their industry for a fiver. Surviving Actors is one such opportunity. This year’s convention took place a few weeks ago in London. With a manic few weeks at drama school I’ve only just found a moment to blog about the day, but I definitely think it’s still worthwhile sharing my experience of the event.

The event itself was free to attend, then each workshop or talk was £5 each, so for £25 I got a day of networking, meeting potential employers for non-acting-paying-the-bills jobs, and five sessions – bargain! The sessions I booked covered marketing yourself as an actor, screen acting, working with a director, developing the right attitude to survive in the industry, and what happens in the casting room.

The marketing talk I attended was led by Lloyd Trott, editor of the Actors and Peformers Yearbook

 

Aside from being an extremely useful day for a rookie actor with very little knowledge of the industry, it was also inspiring. For the first time I really started to feel a part of something bigger, outside the sacred walls of drama school. There are other actors out there, yey!! Actors who aren’t just my friends and coursemates, but complete strangers who I may or may not work with in the future. It’s unlike any other industry I’ve come into contact with in my life. When I was working in corporate communications I went to the odd marketing or communications conference, where I found it interesting meeting and chatting to other professionals in the area, but I never felt a real camaraderie with them, nor was there that almost tangible zing of excitement at the thought that many of these people I was meeting for the first time might become colleagues and creative partners. I suppose it’s down to the creativity element – these are people whose talent and imagination are things I want to tap into, and with whom I’m hungry to share my creative process and ideas. Of course, it’s also an industry where reputation is everything, and where it really does pay to try to be nice to everyone.

The hall of exhibitors featured stands for Equity, Spotlight, various publishers, photographers specialising in headshots, an accountant, and various non-theatrical companies who employ actors. The latter included a call centre, sales company, and several teaching agencies employing actors as teaching assistants. The latter is definitely something I’m interested in as a back-up career, and with nine months’ experience teaching English to primary school children in Madrid I have some relevant experience. My mum’s a retired teacher, so maybe it’s in my genes!

At one of the publisher stands I bought a copy of this year’s Actors and Performers Yearbook, after attending the marketing talk that Yearbook editor and RADA dramaturg Lloyd Trott chaired. I also picked up a copy of ‘Voice into Acting‘ by Christina Gutekunst and John Gillett. Christina is our voice tutor on the MA Acting at East 15, and an absolute gem. Aside from bringing pure joy to my day with her colourful scarf and hat combinations, she is a brilliant teacher whose methods have opened up my voice to a depth and richness I never thought it possessed.

Acting and the theatre, film and television industry has often felt like a closed members-only club for which I’ve only got a visitor’s pass. Getting a place at drama school did go some way to upgrading that pass, at least in my mind, but I still feel like I’m on the outside looking in. At Surviving Actors, however, for the first time I felt like I was on the inside, that I was a fully paid-up member. Admittedly, I’m still in training, our industry showcase is still six months off, and I haven’t yet upgraded from student to full membership of Spotlight and Equity. However, for several hours that Saturday I strode around calling myself an actor, and it felt good.

 

 

First term of drama school done!

Term one of drama school is done and dusted, and with just a few days of the Christmas holidays left I thought it was about time I did a blog post about the course so far! My original intention was of course to blog regularly about my drama school adventures, but it has been a whirlwind so far with barely time to sit down, let alone open the laptop and get writing. So apologies for the radio silence…

One of the beautiful willow trees by the pond at drama school – yes, we have a pond!!

I can’t say much about what we actually do on the course, as there’s this kind of Fight Club thing where we keep schtum about the details of what goes on in classes and rehearsals. It’s partly to respect each other’s privacy and safeguard the honesty and safe space we’ve created as a group, and partly to keep our shared experiences as something sacred within the group. There are many things we experience that people outside of the course won’t understand or be able to relate to, and of course for people who will be starting the course next year we don’t want to give away any surprises. There’s a lot to be said for experiencing something fresh and for the first time, rather than knowing about it in advance and having time to build up preconceptions that you bring into the room.

What I can talk about is the personal discoveries I’ve made during the course so far, and how this has helped my development as an actor. First of all, let me make something clear: drama school is HARD. It is hard work, it is hard emotionally, it’s hard physically, and it challenges me in a way I have never been challenged before. It is also amazing, and the most eye-opening, soul-enhancing thing I have ever done.

There have been several times when I’ve been whimpering to my boyfriend on FaceTime, telling him I just want to come home. There have also been many times when I’ve felt like there is no other place I would rather be. I do think the hardest thing for me has actually been being apart from him, not having my best friend there every evening to run home to and tell about my day and get a big hug from.

The second hardest thing has been the sheer volume of work involved. The work of a professional actor is not easy, therefore it makes sense that your training to be a professional actor isn’t easy, however I wasn’t prepared for the amount of information my brain would have to hold, or the amount of line-learning, research and regular practice that I would need to fit into very little free time. Well, once you’ve done all that there is no free time, but with only a year to get us industry-ready, every minute counts.

I don’t think I’d realised before coming here how much work is involved in being an actor, or how hard actors work, at least the good ones. In preparing a role there is a great amount of research and preparation to do before you even get to the rehearsal room. There is a lot of work to do to get the role in the first place. And if you don’t quite feel like putting in the blood, sweat and tears, you can betcha someone else will!

But please don’t take these as negative aspects of the training. They’re quite the opposite – drama school is the place to be tested to our limits, to try and fail and try and fail again, to discover just how crazy this industry is and how hard we need to work if we want to be a part of it. This is why we train. We also train to discover who we really are, underneath all the many layers of protection we have carefully built up over the years, under the various masks we like to wear depending on our mood. We delve down into the deepest, darkest recesses, put the key in the rusty lock and creak open that long-hidden door, then step into the room of secrets. We face our demons and we learn to love them, for they are what have made us who we are today, and who we are today, right here, right now, is all we have. A body in time and space.

Through my training I am rediscovering the person I am, warts and all, and learning to be comfortable here. I am also embracing the importance of my spine in supporting my speech, exploring new languages of movement with my body, discovering a depth and strength of voice I never new I had, and learning for the first time how to really read a play. If there is one word to describe this year most accurately it is a ‘journey’. A journey from amateur to professional actor. A journey from running away from my fears to embracing them. A journey that hopefully I will be blogging about a bit more regularly from now on……!