Thursday 4th Feb 2016

It’s been a busy old while. Lots of plays submitted to Cast Iron 7, and it was a tough time whittling down the selection to the final six. Even then, casting was a bit of a challenge, since there are a terrific amount of projects going on in Brighton at the moment, not least as people begin to batten down the hatches for the Brighton Fringe. I think we’re almost settled on the line up for Cast Iron 7, but I’m going to hold fire on a proper announcement until after the weekend, just in case anything else changes. (IT’S NOT GOING TO CHANGE. IT CAN NEVER CHANGE.)

In the meantime, I’ve been doing a lot of research and redrafting for Year Without Summer, which is a play that I’m writing and directing at the DukeBox Theatre for the Brighton Festival Fringe. As you may know, 200 years ago this May, the poets Byron and Shelley rocked up to Lake Geneva. With Shelley is Mary Godwin – later known as Mary Shelley – and pretty much the only reason that Byron is there is because he wants to meet Mary and Percy, who he admires and respects. The whole meeting has been somewhat engineered by Claire Clairmont, Mary’s stepsister, who has been somewhat besotted with Byron for a while, and is running the risk of losing his interest. History has, with the exception of a few dedicated biographers, pretty much forgotten Claire (Polidori, Byron’s physician, gets more footnotes), but if it hadn’t been for her bringing these poets together, Byron would not have been around to suggest to the group that they all tell each other ghost stories. And if he hadn’t done that, it’s at least possible that Mary Shelley would not have put pen to paper to write Frankenstein.

I’m ploughing through drafts at the moment (as well as tinkering with some Cast Iron 7 stuff), but hope to announce audition notices very soon. Whatever happens, the auditions will be at the end of February, with rehearsals kicking in early/mid March.

Also in mid March are two events – well, two events as well as Cast Iron 7. There’s Not Just The Companion, held as part of a special week celebrating International Womans Day, and Cast Iron Theatre, along with Iron Clad Improv, are holding a series of writing and storytelling workshops during the HoveGrown Festival. More details about all of that very soon.

Thursday 28th January 2016

So, where are we? This week, I managed to (finally) assign scenes and speeches to performers in Not Just The Companion - the evening that Cast Iron Theatre is presenting for International Woman's Day at the DukeBox Theatre -

- and that's quite enough words in bold font for one paragraph, thank you very much. If I haven't explained before, the idea behind Not Just The Companion is reasonably simple - there will be a group of performers, all female, delivering scenes that are traditionally, iconically, male. While we don't intend to get too political about it, and simply deliver an evening of drama and comedy that is entertaining, the night is, by the very nature of its existence, a political statement: without getting too deeply side-tracked by the figures (in this blog entry, at least) it remains true that men are far better represented on stage and screen than women. It may be too combative (while somewhat true) that all the best parts go to the boys, while generally the women have to play wives and girlfriends. That's not happening 100% of the time, but it happens often enough for it to be a real problem. It happens often enough that characters like Rey (Star Wars) and Furiosa (Mad Max) become noteworthy purely because they exist - the very fact that they are front and centre of a movie is somehow worthy of mention. In 2016, that's depressing.

Not Just The Companion isn't anywhere near a redressing of that balance, but it's at least a smudge on the ledger - a response. A reminder that 'male' does not have to be the default casting, the default character. So much so that you can take a part written for a male - sometimes specifically for a male - and have it performed by a woman, changing nothing more than gender pronouns (and on occasion, not even that much). We're very excited about what the evening will bring. At the bottom of this blog entry is a link for the facebook page for Not Just The Companion.
Staying with Cast Iron, I've been putting a lot of work this week into casting Cast Iron 7. In truth, it's not actually the seventh show we've put on, but we haven't numbered our Halloween and Christmas specials, as well as any of the other one-off shows we've curated. This Cast Iron will be part of Hove Grown, a new writing festival which will be in its first year for 2016. Many people will be delivering their own shows, workshops and plays in the festival, which is brilliant, beautiful and bountiful .. and means that a lot of the supremely talented people I had intended to cast in Cast Iron 7 simply aren't available. It has meant that I've had to switch a few things and scripts around, and some plays are going to get shunted to the next Cast Iron (which, in all honesty, probably will be called Cast Iron 8), but it has meant that the casting process this time round has taken a little longer than I'd expected. Frankly however, it's a nice problem to have.
Finally, Iron Clad Improv is having a real burst of energy at the moment - still really welcoming to nervous newcomers, but also genuinely challenging. We're talking a lot this month about leaving your ego at the door, dropping the jokes, and increasing the generosity for your fellow performers. Each Sunday between 7 and 9 is a revelation, and I consider myself lucky to share a learning environment with such hungry students*
*hungry for knowledge, not for food. That would be upsetting.
https://www.facebook.com/NotJustTheCompanion/?fref=ts

Thursday 24th December 2015

Taking advantage of the lull before the (Christmas) storm in order to prep all manner of things for 2016. I'm in the odd position of turning things down (or at the very least postponing them), which I've never had the intelligence to do before. But that doesn't mean things aren't going to be horrifically busy in the first quarter of the year. Two things will be happening in the same month (March): we have Cast Iron VII, which will be the next batch of short plays - ten minutes long or so - produced at the DukeBox Theatre in Hove. We've been doing Cast Iron Theatre for a couple of years now, and I've been overwhelmed by the support we continually get from our audiences. We're currently seeking new plays - and also actors and directors - for our next shows. The dates are still to be confirmed, but the deadline for the scripts will be in early January (ideally, everyone will have started rehearsals by mid January).
Also in March, Cast Iron Theatre is curating an event for International Woman's Day. Called Not Just The Companion, it will be an evening of women performers parts that are traditionally male. As you may already be aware, there's a huge imbalance in roles that are iconic for men, versus similar for women. This is not reflected in the number of hugely talented women both in the professional and amateur world who are simply not served by sometimes unsatisfying and / or undemanding roles. Quite often, women can be reduced to playing wives and girlfriends, without having agency of their own. Not Just The Companion is a (very) small attempt to begin to redress that balance. More details as we go along.