Tag: Third Angel

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A Conversation With My Father Week 1

So, week one of four down as part of the A Conversation With My Father making process. Man, it was properly intense. It was also lovely, and natural, and sad, and strong and relaxed and heartwarming and hard to articulate. 5 days in a room with the effortlessly brilliant Alex Kelly at Embrace Arts in Leicester. Joined on day 3 by my dad, who talked to us both a bit more about policing, politics, protest and public order. By the end of the week we had a piece that ran to an invited audience at 50 minutes, with 5 major new sections, all of which expand on one of the three threads of the piece; policing, protest, and family. The post show discussion went on for over an hour, with people still wanting to talk more about all of the ideas bubbling under it. Here’s some highlights drawn from pictures I shared along the way. (And next up: Stockton on Tees at the ace ARC 4th-8th of Feb. Come along to the showing on the 8th if you can – let me know if you want a ticket)

All the kit ready at the beginning of the week

Alex and me on the first day in the studio. Where we did a lot of talking about me, my dad, and our history. We discovered the carbon monoxide story. And went through a lot of old photographs.

The beginning of the second day in the studio. Alex found two footballs. This day was much more heavily political. We talked about the things you wear for protest. We researched the laws around protest, kettling, policing public order, and talked about preparing for a protest. I drew diagrams. We found the exploded diagram protest gear section. Continue reading A Conversation With My Father Week 1

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A Conversation With My Father in 2013

ACW at Hatch earlier this year, image by David Wilson Clarke

So earlier on this Autumn I was really happy to announce that I’d got Grants for the Arts Support to match funding and support in kind from 3 venues which meant I was going to be able to develop A Conversation With My Father into a full length solo show. I promised further details, and here, just two weeks before it all starts (eek!) are those.

For those who might not remember, A Conversation With My Father is a solo piece born out of a conversation between my dad (an ex-policeman) and me (his protestor daughter). A conversation about fear, grey areas, them and us, duty, and standing up to protect what you think matters. I don’t intend it to be a piece about which side you should take, and it is not addressed at the police, or protestors specifically, rather it’s a conversation between a daughter and father, who is proud of her, which also happens to expose the problems with the idea of ‘sides’ in the first place. This is my first solo show, and will (fanfare…) be developed in the first three months of 2013 with the support of ARC Stockton, Sheffield Theatres, Embrace Arts, MYSTERY VENUE NUMBER FOUR, Third Angel and an Arts Council Grants for the Arts award. (Early work in progress showings have been seen at The Little Festival of Everything, Hatch: Scratch, Contact Theatre’s Flying Solo festival and The Junction’s Sampled Festival.)

The MYSTERY VENUE NUMBER FOUR is an exciting addition of new support – a fourth week at another venue in Yorkshire – which I’m just pinning down, and will announce as soon as possible.

The process will be four weeks in residence in each theatre (spread over three months) in a room with Alex Kelly of Third Angel as mentor and director, plus a visit or two from my dad, writing, improvising, making, learning, thinking and developing the material I’ve already got into something fuller. Full-length, in fact. At the end of each residency there will be an invited or open showing to the public, and in ARC and MYSTERY VENUE NUMBER FOUR options to come along to workshops with me. The aim is to get a finished-ish piece up and reading for Edinburgh and/or touring in  2013/14.

So in the meantime, I’m sure I’ll blog progress as and when it happens (though I won’t bother you about all the learning about spreadsheets and other professional development stuff that’s happening at the moment) and, if you’re interested in seeing one of the work in progress showings, let me know, and I’ll make sure you’re added to some kind of list or other. Here are the dates for those (times closer to the time, like)

January 11th 2013 – Embrace Arts, Leicester (very early work in progress)
February 8th 2013 – ARC Stockton (mid-process work in progress)
March 1st 2013 – The Crucible, Sheffield (invited showcase)
Mid-late March tbc 2013 – Yorkshire  (open showcase)

See you in 2013!