The Milk Bottle Spring Newsletter 2013

The first official newsletter for a while, though we've not been unbusy.  Though we have few positive dates for your diaries at present, there are lots of projects in the offing, which you can view, assist, even - dare we suggest - purchase, from the comfort of your homes.

The Summoning of Everyman
For the first time since 2004 (not including rehearsed readings) Milk Bottle produced a revival of a classic play.  The tryouts for the show were performed just prior to Good Friday (appropriate for a morality drama) and had some excellent feedback.  We're now looking for small non-theatre venues, religious or secular, for additional performances of this beautiful play, later in the year.  We're open to invites - suggestions for locations on a postcard to us here - the space needs to comfortably hold about thirty in two rows of seating, in an end on configuration.

The Milk Bottle Irregulars
Continuing to break the trend of the last decade, Milk Bottle is looking to produce more classic plays with our Irregulars.  The Milk Bottle Irregulars is a new venture, an experiment to create a pop-up theatre company that uses technology to make the creation of theatre easier; to use technology to reduce the time it takes to create a new show; to use technology to share Shakespeare (and other dramatists, but mostly Shakespeare) with as many people as possible, and not just one play every-so-often but many and frequently.  But the aim is the technology will be as hidden as possible.  We’ll use technology to give us an edge - to cheat, in other words.

We’re testing this out at the end of April with scenes from The Tempest on Monday 22^nd April at 8.30pm at the Quay Theatre.  The show should last about an hour and entrance is completely free, just email contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk for your name to be put on the guest list – or call 07704 704 469 and leave your name and number of tickets requested on the answer phone.

Publication of AMLETH

It's been a while since the first read through and general testing of the material, but Amleth is (at last) available to purchase in book form - just click here to order your copy.  It's not a short play - as it is in two parts - and runs at over five hours of drama, not to be missed.  An ebook version will follow shortly.

AMLETH - Parts 1 & 2

By Robert Crighton

"I’m not mad, I’m the only sane one here."

Hamlet, as you've never seen him before.  Before there was Hamlet, there was Amleth - a lying, cheating, mass murdering Dane - who doesn't die as he avenges the death of his father, but who lives on to conquer Briton, commit bigamy and fight great battles.  Funny and cruel, dark and light, award-winning playwright Robert Crighton captures an earlier version of this iconic character in the epic two part play, Amleth.

Viva Espana

No news at present on the upcoming Spanish production of Teaching Gods, which has been delayed due to illness.  A scratch performance of The Alternative Seagull and Sleep Inc. last year went well, so we're all hoping for new production dates soon.

Sleep Inc.

And for those in London, Sleep Inc. will make its in town premiere this July as part of this years Face to Face festival at the LOST Theatre, performed by Robert.  Performance date to follow.

Audiobooks

We've been dragging our feet a bit over audiobook versions of our back catalogue of monologues.  But have no fear - we're planning to start releasing downloadable versions very soon, starting with our first CD release, Teaching Gods & Bink!  Details will follow soon.

As ever, word of mouth / of electronic meme, is very important to us.  If you don't already, do follow Milk Bottle Productions or Robert Crighton: Storyteller on facebook.  On Twitter we're just @RobertCrighton.  It was RobertCrighton:Storyteller, but Twitter stole the Storyteller from us.  No idea why... they didn't even tell us they were doing it.

I've Accidentally Written A Play!

Writing.  It's an odd activity.  Most of the time you're planning, thinking, procrastinating... and then you have to actually do some work.  I'm currently juggling a lot of writing commitments and they've all come together into one rather glorious mess.  Each day I get up, take the tablets, make myself the one real cup of coffee I can have a day and sit before the laptop surrounded by paper.  And then, because I've got several projects on the go, I choose the one I want to write that day dependent entirely on my mood.  On my moooood.  It is lovely.
Now, one of the reasons I don't solely write (beyond the fact it doesn't bring in enough money) is that this loveliness is entirely transitory.  I'm having a whale of a time at the moment because the writing is going well, the projects are all in a final stage of completion, so it's mostly a job of polishing, spitting and general silliness.  Most of the time this is not the case.
I should be mixing up my day more.  I have to learn some lines for Ghost Storyteller (the first half of the script has been locked and will not change, so I have no excuse not to learn it now) but the writing is going soooo well I just don't want to break the spell.
I'm writing in little bursts only.  I put on an album and work for 45 minutes to an hour (however long the album is) and then stop.  Sometimes I go straight on, sometimes I have a little break.  Food does get eaten.  (I've never understood the whole starving artist thing - food is pretty central to my writing process.  Hunger is not helpful - as the last 24 hours of starvation (and subsequent food obsession) for my most recent sigmoidoscopy has proved.)
The other day this process of random work generation took an alarming course.  I didn't even work on something in progress - it wasn't for the Christmas Storyteller shows, it wasn't even on the long distance radar.  It's just a play I've been picking at for the last couple of years, Complicated Pleasures, which - to my amazement - is up to length, has some great scenes and now just needs a lot of panel beating to get it into the right shape.  In fact, I'm planning on organising a reading of the script next Saturday.  Two days ago I wasn't even thinking of it, now I'm that confident I'll get it finished in a week.  When I picked it up on Tuesday I couldn't believe I'd somehow written a whole play and not really noticed.  I'd even forgotten about a whole subplot.  So, if you're based in Suffolk and would like to help read a play, pop down to the bar at the Quay Theatre, Sudbury on Saturday 15th September at 12.15pm.  I'll put a same float down at the bar for coffee and the like - though this will not be an infinite largess.  It should take a couple of hours to get through and is, I have to confess, a little bit rude.  So, no puritans please.
In other news, last week my cast for The Fantasy Terrorist Variations got together in dribs and drabs to read over the scripts.  FTV is made of three plays - the first is the award-winning Fantasy Terrorist League, which is to be performed by the marvellous Keith Hill - the second is a completely reworked Keynote Speaker, which I had a great session with the fantastic Simon Nader picking the original version apart and putting together again, but better - and the last play, which will feature both the above people of fabulousness, is currently titled The Project After, which is sitting in draft behind me now.  That is the next task.  It's sort of there, it's sort of ready, but it needs sharpening - and when I start doing that sharpening (i.e. when I'm in the mood) I will tell you all about the play.  Let's put it this way, halfway through the read through Mr Nader stopped mid sentence and cried out "Oh, Jesus Christ!"  Which I would hope is the reaction of the audience, if we do our job properly.  I think I've been tempted to produce too much nice theatre recently.  It's time to be a little dangerous.  I mean, it's lovely when a local vicar writes a letter praising my production of The Passion, but it does also suggest that somewhere I've failed.  But this is the subject of next weeks blog - let's not get ahead of ourselves.