Good Morning, 2012

Q: What spans 13000 years and 3 continents?

A: Something I’ve been working on for the last twenty-four hours and have nearly finished. I can’t say too much right now, but this could well be the seed of something huge for me.

Just a quick one, off-topic. Zuzu, who was my little brother’s cat, died today. Zuzu was fucking awesome. He made it quite clear that he didn’t think much of you, and in recent years reinforced this point by urinating in inconvenient places. I had the honour of carrying Zuzu to Canada through customs. When I arrived in Poole to pick him up in his little carrying cage, he was glaring at me, and marking my card. When I got him out of the car at Heathrow, he still was. 10 hours later, as he was wheeled out to me in Toronto, there he was, glaring straight ahead at me. He let you know in no uncertain terms that he was waiting for the right moment to fuck your shit right up. But sometimes he let me stroke him, and he would come up to me, meowing for no apparent reason other than to have a chat or tell me off. In that photo above, he’s saying “I’ma be waiting for you sunshine. See you in a few years. Bring boxing gloves.” That’s how I’ll remember him. Merry christmas fuck knuckles.

Just a quick one, off-topic.

Zuzu, who was my little brother’s cat, died today. Zuzu was fucking awesome. He made it quite clear that he didn’t think much of you, and in recent years reinforced this point by urinating in inconvenient places.

I had the honour of carrying Zuzu to Canada through customs. When I arrived in Poole to pick him up in his little carrying cage, he was glaring at me, and marking my card. When I got him out of the car at Heathrow, he still was. 10 hours later, as he was wheeled out to me in Toronto, there he was, glaring straight ahead at me.

He let you know in no uncertain terms that he was waiting for the right moment to fuck your shit right up. But sometimes he let me stroke him, and he would come up to me, meowing for no apparent reason other than to have a chat or tell me off.

In that photo above, he’s saying “I’ma be waiting for you sunshine. See you in a few years. Bring boxing gloves.”

That’s how I’ll remember him.

Merry christmas fuck knuckles.

fer1972: Mike Davis Neo-Dali!!

fer1972:

Mike Davis

Neo-Dali!!

Lessons From A Land Island

Just a quick one, as I promised myself I’d steer clear of work-related thoughts whilst in Canada…

I’m here in Toronto, which is giving me food for though. It’s a medium-big city, nowhere near London’s size, but the nearest other major Canadian city is an immensely long way away. Culturally that’s the equivalent of reducing London in size and then obliterating Manchester, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cardiff… even Paris. It’s a cultural enclave (ignoring the USA cities across the border, like Detroit).

This makes me think of storylines. How could I feasibly represent an isolated culture in Influence Theatre style… Intriguing idea. Any thoughts?

The Full Beast on Flickr. Welcome back… I assume you’re here to witness the conclusion to the epic spreadsheet-theatre debacle. If you’re confused what this is all about, go back and read my previous post. I’ll wait here. Done? Good. See, when I did this for Anima, I was plotting 14 cast members and crew against 30 broad segments of time. That’s 420 individual person-segments, a respectable workload by any standards. LovePlay has 36 cast and crew. Across 120 minutes. That’s 4320 person-minutes. Every one of which has to be cross-referenced against every other row and column. Fuck me. 4320. That’s insane. Luckily, I’d recently been on a caffeine detox, so coffee would have maximum effectiveness when I needed it again. So I settled down to it, to crack on. Woah there, Clancy, there’s something else you’ve overlooked. Because, yes, this spreadsheet would be a formidable, indispensable tool during rehearsal. But to write this spreadsheet… I need another spreadsheet. See, to write new bits of drama to fill the time, I need to know not only where this person is at what time, but I need to know who is in what room at what time. I needed a 3D spreadsheet. That’s slightly beyond me, so I settled for a second spreadsheet. So now the task is to create: Spreadsheet A, where the columns are rooms, the rows are time, and the cells are lists of characters who inhabit that room-minute, and Spreadsheet B, where the columns are people, the rows are time, and the cells are descriptions of actions or locations. The new spreadsheet A plots 17 spaces against 120 minutes. Wait, dammit, they have to be ALREADY in placed when the audience arrives, so it’s 121 minutes. So that’s… *deep breath* Spreadsheet A = 121 minutes x 17 spaces = 2057 Spreadsheet B = 121 minutes x 36 people = 4356 Spreadsheet A + Spreadsheet B = 6413 That’s the equivalent of doing over 15 productions of Anima’s scale. In a quarter of the time. Remember that snapshot up at the beginning of the post? Here’s the entire spreadsheet, zoomed out: I couldn’t fit the entire sheet into one screen, so that’s missing about a quarter of its total. You get the idea nonetheless. But the important thing about this? I bloody did it. I did it, and it works. If there is any performance that has ever been this complex, I don’t know about it (though incidentally, I’d love to hear of one if you know of any; ‘tis a collaborative art form I’m in, not a whose-dick-is-bigger contest). Next time, I might talk briefly (just the interesting bits, which I promise do exist) about the budgeting, which is a whole other kettle of fish. Nightmarish, money grubbing fish that rape your dreams in your sleep. * In the spirit of aforementioned collaboration, let’s see if we can get any feedback here… So if you’ve any opinions or questions about my endeavour, or if you’ve created any grand follies of your own, I’d love to read about them. Leave a comment below…

The Full Beast on Flickr.

Welcome back… I assume you’re here to witness the conclusion to the epic spreadsheet-theatre debacle. If you’re confused what this is all about, go back and read my previous post. I’ll wait here.

Done? Good.

See, when I did this for Anima, I was plotting 14 cast members and crew against 30 broad segments of time. That’s 420 individual person-segments, a respectable workload by any standards.

LovePlay has 36 cast and crew. Across 120 minutes. That’s 4320 person-minutes. Every one of which has to be cross-referenced against every other row and column.

Fuck me. 4320. That’s insane. Luckily, I’d recently been on a caffeine detox, so coffee would have maximum effectiveness when I needed it again. So I settled down to it, to crack on.

Woah there, Clancy, there’s something else you’ve overlooked. Because, yes, this spreadsheet would be a formidable, indispensable tool during rehearsal. But to write this spreadsheet… I need another spreadsheet.

See, to write new bits of drama to fill the time, I need to know not only where this person is at what time, but I need to know who is in what room at what time. I needed a 3D spreadsheet. That’s slightly beyond me, so I settled for a second spreadsheet.

So now the task is to create:

Spreadsheet A, where the columns are rooms, the rows are time, and the cells are lists of characters who inhabit that room-minute,

and

Spreadsheet B, where the columns are people, the rows are time, and the cells are descriptions of actions or locations.

The new spreadsheet A plots 17 spaces against 120 minutes. Wait, dammit, they have to be ALREADY in placed when the audience arrives, so it’s 121 minutes. So that’s…

*deep breath*

Spreadsheet A = 121 minutes x 17 spaces = 2057

Spreadsheet B = 121 minutes x 36 people = 4356

Spreadsheet A + Spreadsheet B = 6413

That’s the equivalent of doing over 15 productions of Anima’s scale. In a quarter of the time.

Remember that snapshot up at the beginning of the post? Here’s the entire spreadsheet, zoomed out:



I couldn’t fit the entire sheet into one screen, so that’s missing about a quarter of its total. You get the idea nonetheless. But the important thing about this? I bloody did it. I did it, and it works. If there is any performance that has ever been this complex, I don’t know about it (though incidentally, I’d love to hear of one if you know of any; ‘tis a collaborative art form I’m in, not a whose-dick-is-bigger contest).

Next time, I might talk briefly (just the interesting bits, which I promise do exist) about the budgeting, which is a whole other kettle of fish.

Nightmarish, money grubbing fish that rape your dreams in your sleep.

*

In the spirit of aforementioned collaboration, let’s see if we can get any feedback here… So if you’ve any opinions or questions about my endeavour, or if you’ve created any grand follies of your own, I’d love to read about them. Leave a comment below…

A Snippet of Madness on Flickr. So artistic considerations aside, how on earth do you organise something like Loveplay? 36 cast members, 17 rooms plus corridors, 120 minutes, every one of which has to be occupied with action the entire time… Combine this with a case of fairly pronounced ADD and you have a recipe for… absolutely nothing at all. Those of you acquainted enough with me to remember Anima may have a horrendous premonition of how this had to happen. You’d be quite right to worry. The resulting work ruined my sleep pattern, and it still hasn’t recovered. It was, of course, the dreaded Spreadsheet. In this post you’ve got a lovely little glimpse of it. That’s a small snapshot of part of it, the top-left corner to be precise. You can see how this works. The columns are characters, the rows are minutes. Each cell shows where a cast member is in a given minute, with basic information about their activity at that moment. When I make a decision for a character, I plot the info into this chart. Any future choices, I simply check against the tables to see if I’m creating a scheduling conflict (“oh look, I’ve put the 1930’s prostitute in video room. That’s patently absurd, she quite obviously needs to be in the Dark Ages Saxon forest to witness the rape scene at this time”). Shade cells in orange where they’re part of a written scene, leave them white if they’re something I’ve created, shade them black if I haven’t assigned them yet. That’s fairly ordered, right? A little bit lengthy, but a good way of keeping track of the project. That’s the impression I had, anyway. But maths isn’t my strong point, and there was a sum I forgot to do. A pretty basic one that would show me the depth of my folly. In the next post, we’ll delve into the full lunacy of this…

A Snippet of Madness on Flickr.

So artistic considerations aside, how on earth do you organise something like Loveplay? 36 cast members, 17 rooms plus corridors, 120 minutes, every one of which has to be occupied with action the entire time… Combine this with a case of fairly pronounced ADD and you have a recipe for… absolutely nothing at all.

Those of you acquainted enough with me to remember Anima may have a horrendous premonition of how this had to happen. You’d be quite right to worry. The resulting work ruined my sleep pattern, and it still hasn’t recovered.

It was, of course, the dreaded Spreadsheet. In this post you’ve got a lovely little glimpse of it.

That’s a small snapshot of part of it, the top-left corner to be precise. You can see how this works. The columns are characters, the rows are minutes. Each cell shows where a cast member is in a given minute, with basic information about their activity at that moment. When I make a decision for a character, I plot the info into this chart. Any future choices, I simply check against the tables to see if I’m creating a scheduling conflict (“oh look, I’ve put the 1930’s prostitute in video room. That’s patently absurd, she quite obviously needs to be in the Dark Ages Saxon forest to witness the rape scene at this time”). Shade cells in orange where they’re part of a written scene, leave them white if they’re something I’ve created, shade them black if I haven’t assigned them yet.

That’s fairly ordered, right? A little bit lengthy, but a good way of keeping track of the project. That’s the impression I had, anyway. But maths isn’t my strong point, and there was a sum I forgot to do. A pretty basic one that would show me the depth of my folly.

In the next post, we’ll delve into the full lunacy of this…

And the last three… Click on them to get descriptions. And more importantly, go tell her how awesome she is. Because that way she’s more likely to agree when I turn up on her doorstep, wild-eyed and raving with my head shaved and wearing only rags, screaming about a new project.

Part 1 of Alex Shaw’s magnificent designs

LovePlay - With Apologies To Moira Buffini

So long-term friends or associate will know I’m embroiled in this grand idea I call #influencetheatre, an ideal where theatre becomes a two-way visceral & intellectual experience rather than a one-way sentimental one. To further this, I’m currently studying an MA at East 15 in London (note - Debden is not really in London, despite what it thinks…).

And, with characteristic narcissism, I managed to shift my latest unit project into a laboratory for some of my ideas.

What I Should Have Done - Studying The Design Process (As Applied To An Already Written Text)

What I Actually Did - Finding Out Whether I Can Create An Entire Fictional World Based On Someone Else’s Writing

Before I go any further, it’s only fair to point out that a lot of the design work on this was carried out by the wonderful Alexandra Shaw, who manages to combine being a phenomenally gifted and creative artist with being one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life.

So we took Loveplay…

Loveplay

This play is ten scenes, each separated by centuries but ostensibly occurring in the same physical space. This space was, of course, the basement of a Victorian building. Because I’m such a closet goth it’s unbelievable. Ground plan shall follow in the next post, as I can’t figure out how to post a Flickr link into a Tumblr post without it Workng… I mean working. Oh, wait, just figured it out:

And we created something mental. Out of these ten scenes in one room, we created two hours of interactive freeroaming theatre set in an afterlife dating agency in over thirteen rooms. Moira, I apologise, we may have taken slight liberties with your work there…

That said, I achieved the target I set myself, which was not to do anything that compromised the integrity of the play as originally written. That’s a big landmark for my career, as I know I can apply my ideas to someone else’s text now. Score 1 for Influence Theatre.

In the next couple of posts, I’ll show you the ground plan, and then Alex’s superb room designs… It’s early/late and I need to sleep/get up.

XS: RSNG

So here’s some skinny on AXIS.

As it stands right now, the structure of the piece is about 50% done. The first half of the story is all worked out, along with all the boring stuff saying who goes where and when that happens. Boring boring, right?

So here’s some background on what the audience are going to be doing when they first come in. The story is there’s a plague currently ripping an unspecified amount of the world into shreds, and the school where we’re performing is a quarantine centre run by a quasi-government agency. They control everything the audience/survivors do in this safe haven. However, they’re not quite as in control as everyone first thinks.

Cue a lot of moral choices for the audience, a lot of security-vs-liberty dilemmas that will hold a mirror up to how people truly feel in this time of terrorism scares. Families will find themselves on opposite sides of a war, quite by accident, and if we’ve done our job correctly they’ll accept the necessity of fighting on anyway.

We’re looking to create confusion in the story, but not in the self-reflection… The audience will end up having seen a particular part of the story based on one thing only, and that’s their personality. All those little decisions you make throughout the piece, who you talk to and what information you act on, that’s all going to put you firmly in a moral and idealogical position when the shit finally hits the fan. It might be you who decides who lives and dies.

All of this would be easier to explain with examples, but obviously that’d ruin the performance. For now, imagine Promenade Theatre, something Punchdrunk-esque, but throw in a big dash of claustrophobia and a tiny smidgeon of Artaud.

We’re getting more excited about this every week.

Some of the casting is, if I may say so, fucking genius. There’s a very Marxist division of labour going on, but in terms of the initially most recognisable characters there’s a core of four who completely throw overboard the traditional roles we see in most productions. Innocent-looking blonde-haired blue-eyed silent psychopathic killers, charismatic yet brutal leaders of “the people”, a smiling and jolly doctor responsible for huge amounts of suffering, you get the gist.

What I’m looking forward to in the next phase of rehearsal is seeing these characters develop. We have our concepts, now it’s up to each actor to create a full personality. Again, our principle is that we won’t shove the full character sketch down your throat. If a personality interests you, go looking for more of it. Watch them carefully, see how they react to certain stimuli.

But make sure that doesn’t mean you miss out reacting to the stimuli yourself. Etc etc.

*****

I’m hoping to turn some attention on the draft write for Fragment soon. I left my bag at a friend’s for over a week, which meant I couldn’t even look at my notes. This was a Good Thing (tm), as it made me miss it. Creative block resolved.