Project Two: You Have Been Watching (YHBW) has started to crystallise. Today was the first open rehearsal, which was more an open chat really as I pitched the basic idea to a nascent cast - if you're interested in being involved, next Sunday at 1pm at the Quay Theatre is your last opportunity. And then we just tossed ideas back and forth, and I made lots of notes. I now know what the show will broadly look like, who will be in it and what shape it will now need to be. My original plan featured three areas of activity - though I have now jettisoned one of these as unrealistic. So there is the pre-show element and then the main feature, which I can now start to write material for.
What I now know is that it will definitely not be straight theatre - it will feed off a performance art tradition as threatened in previous blogs. How far I will break up my natural instinct of storytelling we will find out in rehearsal. For now, it's eyes down to the laptop and the creation of material. Though it maybe something that happens late in the night as time pressures take over more. Tomorrow (Monday) is the day I set aside to write the next episode of Project One for record and editing on Tuesday for release on Wednesday. Then there are the various performances I do of old and new storytelling material.
The last week has been really rather fun, doing home storytelling for people. I did some readings on Sunday and on Friday gave the world premiere of Attack of the Christmas Squirrels. Which, for a first bash, gave out rather well - though there's a lot of work still to do on it. The great thing about telling stories in peoples homes is that they are so up for the activity. It's such a novelty they want to listen. And the heckling is much easier to cope with.
Me: Now, is everyone comfortable?
Audience Member: We make a living.
Always nice to see an old joke given a good home.
And then I'm performing an old story The Wheel of Shame on Tuesday for a branch of the WI - so have rehearsals for that to fit in over tomorrows writing period.
What I'm rather clumsily saying is that for me, when it comes to being creative, everything tends to come at once, in a jumble, without much sense of order or narrative. I sometimes wish I could sit down and work on one project at a time, working in a less picaresque fashion. But, really, this is just who I am. I'm working actively on three Projects, and passively on another two, and it's all slotting together rather well. It means if I'm bored of one project one day I can always play around with another instead.
Of course, it could all turn into a seething pile of excrement in my hands - but that's the risk you take making new things. In fact, that reminds me, I haven't spoken properly to you about the last Storyteller Saturday from last year. Now that was a show that died on me. I will write about that soon...
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