Oh dear god so today I’ve been down in London for work. Almost a dream job. Interviewing theatre producers for a Festivals project.
Went to the Royal Court and spoke with the Producer there and tried my hardest to impress her with my casual innate understanding of her world.
Desperately name dropping, I pathetically tell her I’ve done a play writing course with Zinnie Harris, vaguely thinking that Zinnie is doing something with them at the moment. Luckily she is. But in the same breath as me slagging off the others on the course for endlessly writing and never getting anywhere, I cheerfully admit that I have never written anything. And she tells me that Zinnie did a Royal Court workshop up in Edinburgh ten years ago that she herself attended and they knew within the first day that Zinnie was destined for greatness.
I think sadly of my slagging off the other writers that achieved nothing, in the next breath telling her that I myself have achieved nothing and of the fact that after however many playwriting sessions at the Traverse, I have not been plucked from obscurity and earmarked for stardom. Good work.
I came away resolved to set aside the nights I'd otherwise be rehearsing a week to write my masterpiece.
My final interview of the day was with the Artistic Director of a theatre company called Tall Stories. Toby Somethingorother. I have a bit of a thing about the name Toby. And by a delightful twist of fate, I'd seen a couple of early productions of theirs in the Fringe at least ten years ago, maybe twelve. So I was able to fawningly recount this to him.
He has a greatly inspiring story about holding down a day job at a publishers and taking, with his co-artistic director, several shows up to the Festival, purely out of love. Until they produced the Gruffalo, just before the book really took off. And the Gruffalo became their cash cow. So they went full time, toured internationally to great acclaim - and money. And here they are today, still dragging up to the Festival, purely for love now. Him with his three year old child in tow.
So I came away from him resolved to give it all up and become an amazing innovative theatre company.
Decisions decisions.
Went to the Royal Court and spoke with the Producer there and tried my hardest to impress her with my casual innate understanding of her world.
Desperately name dropping, I pathetically tell her I’ve done a play writing course with Zinnie Harris, vaguely thinking that Zinnie is doing something with them at the moment. Luckily she is. But in the same breath as me slagging off the others on the course for endlessly writing and never getting anywhere, I cheerfully admit that I have never written anything. And she tells me that Zinnie did a Royal Court workshop up in Edinburgh ten years ago that she herself attended and they knew within the first day that Zinnie was destined for greatness.
I think sadly of my slagging off the other writers that achieved nothing, in the next breath telling her that I myself have achieved nothing and of the fact that after however many playwriting sessions at the Traverse, I have not been plucked from obscurity and earmarked for stardom. Good work.
I came away resolved to set aside the nights I'd otherwise be rehearsing a week to write my masterpiece.
My final interview of the day was with the Artistic Director of a theatre company called Tall Stories. Toby Somethingorother. I have a bit of a thing about the name Toby. And by a delightful twist of fate, I'd seen a couple of early productions of theirs in the Fringe at least ten years ago, maybe twelve. So I was able to fawningly recount this to him.
He has a greatly inspiring story about holding down a day job at a publishers and taking, with his co-artistic director, several shows up to the Festival, purely out of love. Until they produced the Gruffalo, just before the book really took off. And the Gruffalo became their cash cow. So they went full time, toured internationally to great acclaim - and money. And here they are today, still dragging up to the Festival, purely for love now. Him with his three year old child in tow.
So I came away from him resolved to give it all up and become an amazing innovative theatre company.
Decisions decisions.
posted by Claire at 7:52 pm
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