Writing

VAULT 2023: the best new work at London’s VAULT festival

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Vault festival

VAULT Festival, London’s biggest arts and entertainment festival, is now underway in Waterloo, where it runs until 19 March. With hundreds of events taking place throughout the eight weeks of the festival, including theatre, comedy, cabaret, immersive and VR experiences, family shows, late-night parties and more, there’s something for everyone. And to celebrate the publication of Plays from VAULT 6, an exciting collection of five of the best plays from the festival, we asked the authors whose work is featured in the anthology to tell us a bit about their play, and what VAULT means to them – plus, at the bottom, a few handy tips on what to see at this year’s festival…

Sellman-Leava, JoeJoe Sellman-Leava on his play Fanboy:

I’ve always loved Nintendo games. And superheroes. In my early teens I got into The Lord of the Rings and Warhammer in quite a big way. For some, such childhood obsessions fade away, but I continued to be very into one or other of them. In late 2019, I started to wonder why this might be. Why was I so readily giving my time and money to play, watch or read the things I loved as a kid, or the various remakes, reboots, spin-offs and adaptations of them? Why were so many other adults doing the same? Why was talking about these things, with such passion and in such depth, the closest thing men like me got to discussing our feelings with one another? And why did those discussions so often become hateful or abusive online?

Fanboy tries to answer some of these questions. It begins as a sort of fan letter to all the things I love to geek-out about – Star Wars, The Muppet Christmas Carol and Donkey Kong Country, to name a few – and then asks why my generation is so obsessed with its own childhood. It examines the force of nostalgia, not just in entertainment but in our politics too (‘Take Back Control’ and ‘Make America Great Again’ are both slogans that invite people to think back to an imagined vision of the past). It also examines heroes, why and how we worship them, as well as loneliness, mental health, and male friendship.

Fanboy is a solo show – with a twist! I don’t want to spoil anything (I hate spoilers), but there’s a device in the show which is used to play with our experience of time and the theme of nostalgia, and the creative team and I are really proud of it.

It means a lot to bring Fanboy to VAULT Festival, because this is where the show first found its feet. It had a series of work-in-progress performances at VAULT 2020, before that festival had to close due to Covid. The team and I were busy tweaking things during the day, performing in the evenings, then chatting to audiences afterwards over a pint – it was a great way to learn more about what worked in the show, and what needed further work. Like lots of others, we had to pause development on the show. The festival has been sorely missed over the last few years, so it feels great to bring the finished show back here for VAULT 2023.

Click here to book for Fanboy, 7–12 March

Fanboy

Saul Boyer & Eloka Obi

Saul Boyer and Eloka Obi on their play Five Years with the White Man:

Five Years with the White Man is the first theatrical adaptation of the life and work of Augustus Boyle Chamberlayne Merriman-Labor (or ABC), a Sierra-Leonean satirist who came to London at the beginning of the twentieth century to make his name as the greatest writer of his generation. Navigating heartbreak, prejudice and financial destitution, he published the deliciously urbane and gloriously funny Britons Through Negro Spectacles in 1909, detailing his experiences in London. His observations about British culture and all its contradictions feel as prescient now as ever.

Saul first stumbled across ABC’s story while researching an original TV project set in Edwardian Soho. The story seemed too big to play a bit-part in that original project – it demanded a starring role. So Saul brought the story to the team. At that point, ABC’s book Britons had not yet been marked for republication by Penguin – and we all felt this real sense of injustice. Here was a comic work, a witty work, by such an urbane and confident voice, dealing virtuosically with first-hand experience of structural and economic racial injustice, gender-based prejudice – frankly, ignorance in all its forms. And it had been forgotten. Lost to the record. Invisible to the canon. It really felt like the authorial perspective was a twenty-first-century one – which was striking, particularly given the edition of the book that we had then was published by Forgotten Books, which specialises in the publication of obscure and out-of-print works.

That discovery was the real jumping-off point. It led us to Danell Jones’ wonderful biography of ABC, and then to research his other works. As we began to write the play, we quickly realised that our take on ABC’s story could never be a straightforward, biopic-style adaptation – his work is far too mischievous and genre-defying for that. We felt strongly that we wanted to do something innovative – something that spoke more directly to the present. We discussed a lot of genre-defying shows – seven methods of killing kylie jenner and many others – and felt there was room for a little metatheatricality in the storytelling. We wanted some kind of modern mediation of these complex themes – it seemed only fair to the wonderfully variegated source material. Competing with the bravura comic style and emotional depth of Merriman-Labor is a challenge – one that forced us to dig deep as writers. Our play begins as a straightforward story, but as the piece progresses we see another layer emerge: that of the performer himself. Soon these two stories – one modern, one historical – begin to respond to and coincide with each other in unexpected ways. The play is like an epic in miniature, touching on deep themes of love, loss and identity. It’s certainly a challenge for the performer, really putting them through their paces!

VAULT festival has always been such a vibrant exhibition of emerging voices in our national theatre ecology. The sheer energy, excitement, and progressive quality of the work makes it a bubbling cauldron of creativity. You feel that the spirit of fringe theatre is alive and well. The work feels fresh, artistically engaged and on the experimental side. In short: it’s a destination for the curious. A place to be inspired. Artists at VAULT are genuinely experimenting and pushing the envelope, in terms of form – and the kinds of stories platformed and told are ahead of the curve. As a company, we discussed long and hard where would be the best place to showcase this work on its very first outing. In the end, there was no other choice – and we can genuinely think of no better place for this show to debut than at VAULT!

Click here to book for Five Years with the White Man, 28 Feb–5 March

Five Years

Jassi, ZahraZahra Jassi on her play Honour-Bound:

My play Honour-Bound is a solo show about honour-based violence (HBV) and anti-Blackness in South Asian communities. It follows Simran, on her way to City Airport because she’s fleeing HBV, and the journey she’s been on over the last two years from meeting her now-boyfriend, her relationship with her family, and the friend she lost to HBV.

I was inspired to write the play during my time at drama school, after my teacher asked us to write 10-minute solo shows over Christmas. I enjoy making theatre that focuses on race and culture and working with Black and Brown artists, and this was difficult to do within the curriculum as the only student of colour on my course. So Honour-Bound was born and was, for me, an exploration of a South Asian issue, even though HBV and anti-Blackness occur in other communities.

I feel very grateful to be at VAULT 2023. Having such a fantastic opportunity straight after graduating has been incredible and has allowed me to keep up the creative momentum from drama school that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to. I feel very privileged to be at the festival among 500+ fantastic shows, and hopefully this experience will allow me to connect with artists, especially Black and Brown artists, also bringing shows to VAULT.

Click here to book for Honour-Bound, 7–10 March

Honour Bound

Elisabeth Lewerenz

Elisabeth Lewerenz on her play How We Begin:

My play How We Begin is about two women, Helen and Diana, who’ve been friends since uni, have settled into their adult lives – and then fall in love with each other. Neither of them expected that to happen, and Diana already has a boyfriend, so they kind of try to explore that new part of their lives in secret – which, as you can imagine, does not go entirely smoothly.

It’s not strictly speaking an autobiographical play, but it’s based on a situation from my own life. I’m bisexual myself and I didn’t figure that out until my mid-twenties. I think that’s not uncommon for queer women, but it’s not spoken about that often, so I really wanted to dig deeper into what it means to come out (to yourself and to the people around you) when you’ve already settled into your adult life a little bit – and how it throws things off-balance for a while.

I wrote the first scene of How We Begin when I was applying for the VAULT New Writers Programme in 2019, so it’s an absolute joy to have it programmed at the festival this year. I love the intimacy of the VAULT tunnels, so it feels like a very natural home for the play, which really relies on the performers’ connection to the audience.

Click here to book for How We Begin, 14–19 Feb

How We Begin

Louis Emmitt-SternLouis Emmitt-Stern on his play I Fucked You in My Spaceship:

Part romantic comedy, part psychological thriller, part science fiction, my play I Fucked You in My Spaceship follows two couples: Leo & Dan, and Anna & Emily. For different reasons, they both invite a third person into their relationship. What happens next depends on how you choose to read the story. Fundamentally, I think the play is interested in the idea of abduction. Someone coming into your life and invading your home, your relationship, your sense of self. Whether that’s literal or metaphorical is up to each audience.

When relationships have to reject traditional or heteronormative ways of navigating children or sex or family or intimacy, the rule book goes out the window. There’s new uncharted territory, and we’re not exactly sure what the boundaries are yet – which can be hilarious, but also quite scary. I think these characters walk that tightrope between funny and fearful. In many ways, it’s my anti-nuclear family play. But it’s not presenting a utopian or dystopian alternative. It’s just as lonely and messy and awkward and farcical.

Live theatre wasn’t accessible to me growing up. My love and enthusiasm for drama was encouraged largely through reading plays. I so vividly remember reading Lucy Burke’s Glitter Punch in Plays from VAULT 3; the way the narrative gripped me, the twist at the end that knocked me out, the rawness and inventiveness of the storytelling that feels unique to the shows at VAULT Festival.

To have my show on at VAULT Festival now, and to be published in the anthology that introduced me to it all? Yeah, it’s pretty immense. I just feel very grateful.

Click here to book for I Fucked You in My Spaceship, 7–10 Feb

I Fucked You

What to see at VAULT Festival 2023…

With the festival opening this week, we asked our authors which shows from this year’s programme they were most excited to see. Check out their picks:

Joe Sellman-Leava: I’m excited to see lots of other things at VAULT 2023. Particularly the other plays in Plays from VAULT 6, as well as Liv Ello’s Swarm (7–10 Feb), Joz Norris’ Blink (3–4 Feb), and Hexenhammer (10–11 Feb).

Saul Boyer and Eloka Obi: There are so many shows to pick from, but a few honourable mentions: we’re really looking forward to Strange Fruit Cabaret, written and performed the wickedly talented Black Venus in Furs and Mars De Lite (11 Mar), Wonder Drug written and performed by the brilliant Charlie Merriman (15 Feb–3 Mar) and Hildegard Von Bingen by Kristen Winters and BoundByTheatre (21–26 Feb).

Zahra Jassi: I’m excited to see Right of Way by Beth Bowden (21–26 Feb), Hear Me Now by Burnt Orange Theatre (14–17 Feb), Under Heaven’s Eyes by Resistance Theatre Company (7–12 Feb), Asian Girls in Therapy by Gurjot Dhaliwal and Megan Soh (28 Feb), The Ballerina by Khaos (31 Jan–5 Feb), Patient Vultures by Daydreamer Productions (14–17 Mar), Maud by Sic Theatre (21–25 Feb) and For A Brief Moment and Never Again Since by Judi Amato (28–29 Jan).

Elisabeth Lewerenz: I’m super-excited about all the other plays from this volume, what a selection! My friend Matt Neubauer, who did the VAULT New Writers Programme with me, is bringing his genre-bending western play Spur to the festival (4–9 Mar), which I can’t wait to see. And as a lover of drag, I’m also excited about drag king collective Pecs’ Icons (25 Feb) (shoutout to my drag dad, Loose Willis!) and the drag wrestling show Fist Club – Beyond Vaulterdome (26 Feb). And so, so many plays, including SNAIL by Bebe Sanders (28 Feb–5 Mar), in Good Spirits by KT Miles, Ana Smoleanu & Greta Rilletti-Zaltieri (18–19 Feb) and Thirsty by Stephanie Martin (31 Jan–5 Feb).

Louis Emmitt-Stern: Aside from the other four fantastic plays included in Plays from VAULT 6, I’m excited to see the work of this year’s Tony Craze Award shortlist: GUSH by Abby-Vicky Russell (7–12 Mar), and Mwansa Phiri’s new play Waiting for a Train at the Bus Stop (29 Jan–5 Feb). James McDermott returns to London with his new show Acid’s Reign (14–19 Mar), a drag-cabaret about climate change and the queerness of nature. Actor and writer Sanjay Lago’s debut stand-up show Love Me like a Chai Tea Latte (7–8 Feb). Finally, Con-Version (14–19 Mar) by Rory Thomas-Howes, the multi-hyphenated and multi-talented actor-writer-producer who is going from strength to strength at the moment.

Plays from VAULT 6Plays from VAULT 6, containing five of the best plays from this year’s festival, is published by Nick Hern Books. To buy your copy for just £13.59 (RRP £16.99), visit our website now.

Collections from previous VAULT Festivals are also available on our website here.

VAULT Festival 2023 runs from 24 January – 19 March at the Vaults, Waterloo, London. Visit the festival website here.

Thank you to the authors of Plays from VAULT 6 for their contributions to this blog.

Three plays, one cast, all at the same time: Chris Bush on her ambitious dramatic triptych Rock / Paper / Scissors

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Bush, Chris for blogFor the fiftieth anniversary of the Crucible, Sheffield Theatres commissioned playwright Chris Bush to write three plays that could be performed by the same cast, simultaneously, in all three of their spaces (the Crucible, the Lyceum, and the Studio). Nothing quite like it had ever been attempted before. As the resulting plays Rock / Paper / Scissors are premiered in Sheffield, Chris explains how the idea came about…

This is a very silly idea.

We first started dreaming up these shows in February 2021. Directors Rob Hastie and Anthony Lau, designer Ben Stones and myself were making The Band Plays On at the Crucible and going slightly insane through the pressures of creating work during a global pandemic, trying to imagine a brighter future while struggling to navigate the strange new realities of the day to day. The fiftieth anniversary of the Crucible was coming up in November, and who knew how we were going to mark it, or even if the theatre would be open at all by then? While I went home to work on rewrites and do deep dives into lesser known Sheffield Britpop acts, the directors were putting together funding applications and drawing up bold new seasons with a combination of blind hope and bloody-mindedness that all theatre professionals know only too well.

One morning, Rob met me outside my digs to walk with me to the theatre. He had an idea. What if we threw caution to the wind and thought big – even bigger than usual? What if we tried to do something never attempted before – something that could more or less only be done here, within a complex of three world-class stages all only a few metres from each other? What if we took over every inch of Sheffield Theatres with three brand-new standalone shows with a shared a cast, playing simultaneously in the Crucible, Lyceum, and Crucible Studio? Alan Ayckbourn’s House and Garden had done the same thing with two plays, but no one had ever tried it with three (arguably for good reason). The concept was absurd. Would we even be open in a year’s time? What was the story? How do you even begin to plan something like this? I had no idea. Of course I said yes immediately.

Denise Black in Rock

Denise Black in Rock by Chris Bush at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, 2022 (Photograph by Johan Persson)

We started kicking ideas around straight away. What was the hook, beside the sheer audacity of attempting it? What if each show had a distinct genre – one farce, one murder mystery, one musical, all linked by the same set of characters? What if we showed the same character at different points in their life?

A christening, a wedding, a funeral (Birth, Marriage and Death as your three titles)? Time travel was definitely discussed at one point. Then for a while we settled on the idea of two weddings, one in the Crucible, one in the Lyceum, and the caterers in the studio (working titles of Bride, Groom and Cake). What if two childhood sweethearts were now getting married on the same day to different people, next door to each other, and hilarity ensued? This concept evolved into one real wedding in the Crucible, and a local am-dram production of a wedding-themed musical in the Lyceum, with all the potential for mistaken identities that might entail. I even came up with the fake show-within-a-show, Wits ’n’ Weddings, a 1980s mega-flop based on the works of Philip Larkin with a book by a young Richard Curtis… alas, it was not to be.

As fun as some of these ideas were, I was never quite sure why we wanted to tell any of these stories, beyond the technical challenge they presented. We all agreed some kind of ‘farce engine’ felt useful, but then a lot of the comedy in farce comes from the audience knowing more than the characters onstage – this is difficult when any given audience might only be getting a third of the overall story at any given time, and these shows needed to be entirely self-contained, as well as forming part of a greater whole. We were all enjoying ourselves, but I felt like I needed to go back to the dramaturgical drawing board.

Paper

Paper by Chris Bush at the Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, 2022 (Photograph by Johan Persson)

What makes good drama?

All drama fundamentally revolves around conflict. All stories are about a hero (protagonist) who wants something (a goal) but there’s something or someone (an obstacle) in their way. Sometimes that obstacle is physical, or psychological, or elemental, but often it takes the form of an antagonist – a villain – a character whose dramatic function is to stop our hero from getting what they want. This might be because the antagonist despises the hero, and wishes them to suffer, but equally it could just be because they have goals of their own, and those goals are incompatible. The crucial takeaway is this: we are all protagonists in our own stories, but we could very easily be antagonists in someone else’s, whether we’re trying to be or not.

‘Main Character Syndrome’ is a contemporary term for a timeless condition. It describes someone who believes that they are the centre of the universe, and anyone else is of little or no significance. It’s a twenty-first-century form of solipsism, and something we can all be guilty of. Three standalone plays with a shared company – three distinct viewpoints on a common event – is the theatrical antidote to this. Each play would have its own protagonist(s), but said protagonist might become a primary or secondary antagonist when they step off one stage and onto another. It doesn’t mean any of these people are monsters, they just want different things. Theatre, at its best, is a machine for generating empathy – it can transport us to strange and unfamiliar worlds and populate them with characters we’ll come to care deeply for, and learn to understand, despite the fact that they might appear to be nothing like us. This simultaneous-trilogy structure offers a unique opportunity for further experiments in empathy: we can watch villains become heroes and vice versa when we watch the same events from a different angle. Our sympathies may shift entirely depending on what order we watch the shows in. A traditional ‘hero’s journey’ three-act saga can often get a bit black-and-white in terms of its morality, in part due to the necessary primacy it places on the hero’s perspective – here we can gently remind an audience, through the theatrical form, that life is messy and complicated and we rarely have the full picture.

Scissors

Scissors by Chris Bush at the Studio Theatre, Sheffield, 2022 (Photograph by Johan Persson)

However, I still didn’t know what the plays were about. I wanted to write about intergenerational conflict, and how each generation might have a legitimate reason to feel uniquely hard done by. The next trilogy concept was Work, Rest and Play – a young generation of school-leavers facing an uncertain future, their parents representing the squeezed middle, and their grandparents in retirement. Was this a family saga of three spaces within the same house? The granny annex, the grown-up dinner party downstairs, the teenagers getting high in the garage? What event would throw them all into crisis? ‘No one wants to see a play called Work,’ said Rob Hastie. And a play called Play felt a little sub-Beckett. Fair enough. Keep thinking. What about a properly Sheffield trilogy, using local placenames as generational markers? Intake (the youth), Halfway (middle-aged), and Endcliffe (for the OAPs)? Was that a bit niche? Furthermore, I felt like we’d explored intergenerational family dynamics in the domestic realm quite thoroughly in Standing at the Sky’s Edge, so maybe this should move into the world of work. At this fiftieth anniversary moment of reflection, it was a chance to think about what cities are for, what civic/public spaces are for, who owns our heritage, who owns our future? Where have we come from and how does that inform where we’re going?

For all this intellectualising, we also just brainstormed a lot of three-part lists. What words went together and did any of them mean anything? How about…

Hop, Skip, Jump
Stop, Look, Listen
Ready, Set, Go
Red, Yellow, Green
Faith, Hope, Charity (the National Theatre got there first)
Snap, Crackle, Pop (almost definitely trademarked)

Then, on 3 September 2021, with time rapidly running out and a season announcement due very soon, Rob and I had the following exchange over WhatsApp (edited only for clarity).

Chris Bush, 17:29
‘I feel like Rock, Paper, Scissors could be a good name for something (and hints at three competing forces of equal strength) but I don’t know what they mean by themselves.’

Chris Bush, 17:30
‘Scissors = stainless steel, Sheffield history etc etc, Paper = office work? Or press? Rock = rock music? Teenage rebellion? Dunno…’

Rob Hastie, 17.31
‘Oo that’s quite fun’

Chris Bush, 17:37
‘Could be something in whatever they’re competing over – an inherited building, for instance – could it stay testament to industrial heritage (scissors), become a cool music venue (rock), or just bland but commercially lucrative office space (paper)?

Rob Hastie, 17:44
‘Oh that’s VERY good’

Chris Bush, 17:46
‘I wonder if then (another rethink) do we want our stages to all be different parts of the same building/complex – the factory floor, the old manager’s office, the break room or something? And lean into that idea of everyone milling around the same space in real time?’

And that was that. Of course this was still only the sketchiest of ideas, but in just over fifteen minutes something had crystalised. It now felt like we had the bones of a story (or multiple stories) worth telling. Something that spoke to intergenerational conflict, about heritage, about legacy, about autonomy, and how much any of us are in control of our destiny at any given time. What has been done here, and how does that inform what we should do next? How can we work together when no one really has enough? No heroes, no villains, just a group of people trying to survive in difficult circumstances. An exercise in empathy – which is, after all, the best reason to make theatre in the first place.

This is an edited version of Chris Bush’s introduction to Rock / Paper / Scissors published by Nick Hern Books. Save 20% on your copy when you order direct from the Nick Hern Books website here.

The plays are in production at Sheffield Theatres until 2 July. For more information, and to book tickets, visit the Sheffield Theatres website.

‘Theatre needs to be reoccupied by the theatremakers’: Russell Lucas on breaking through industry barriers

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Russell LucasRussell Lucas doesn’t exist. At least, not according to conventional theatre categories. He’s a writer, deviser, producer, actor and director – often all at once. He’s a lecturer too. And why not? In his new book, 300 Thoughts for Theatremakers, he offers inspiration and encouragement for theatremakers everywhere, and argues that the maverick, hybrid, jack-of-all-trades theatremaker is what’s needed now, more than ever.

With a background like mine, you’re really not supposed to work in the arts  – never mind be successful and then write a book about it. Of course, I’m being glib, as we’re all allowed to work in the theatre, but that message doesn’t always get through to society – let alone to the lost artists who’ve been encouraged to ‘Go get a real job’.

I come from Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, where it’s all about economic survival – and back in the seventies and eighties it was even more so. When you reached your sixteenth birthday you were expected to work in a chip shop or on the pier and that was you done. You’d peaked. Any deeper discussions about utilising your existing skill set or having a career… Well, there were no debates on either of those, as no one knew what they were and we probably couldn’t afford them anyway. Dreams were for the rich. So, one week after my sixteenth birthday, I began real-jobbing in my local chippy, The Plaice To Be, and one week and one hour after my sixteenth birthday, I silently whispered: ‘This isn’t the place for me’. Admittedly, I didn’t know where I wanted to go next or how to get there but, as it turns out, it’s enough to keep pulling at a thread, because I’m here now, working in the arts, despite society telling me that I couldn’t, and my parents saying that I probably shouldn’t.

From a very early age, every time I went into a theatre I felt completely at home. Its magic, its possibilities and its warmth were palpable to me. I wanted to live and work in there forever, and thanks to my teenage whisper finally finding a voice, I got there. Here.

So, how did I do it? And how can you make a successful and long career in the arts? Well, what type of career do you want?

One piece of immediate advice I can offer you is that you should resolve right now that, no matter what, you’re going to stick around. You should also acknowledge you really do wish to live your life in the theatre. It’s only then – after you’ve given voice to your ambition – that the flimsy, self-imposed barriers that have stopped you from seeing the theatre as a real job will melt away.

Evening without Kate Bush

Sarah-Louise Young in An Evening Without Kate Bush, made by Sarah-Louise Young and Russell Lucas (Photograph by James Millar)

Next, you need to redefine two words: ‘industry’ and ‘success’. These two nouns are responsible for so many artists falling by the wayside because they seemingly couldn’t get into the industry nor achieve success. So let’s redefine them.

‘Success’, from this point forward, will be when you have begun to take steps towards achieving an income from your artistic work; and the ‘industry’ will now be called your ‘trade’.

Now, I acknowledge that your path won’t be an easy one – but that’s one reason why we all feel so at home in the theatre, isn’t it? We’re not regular people, nor do we seek the ‘normal’ life. We desire creativity, freedom, stories, illusion, applause, a team, agency, travel – in fact: a life filled with imagination. Every day.

So, suit up; for you are allowed to work in the theatre.

Who Are the Theatremakers?

A theatremaker is anyone involved in the making of theatre. Whether you are a director, actor, writer, designer or another creative, this – of course – makes you a maker of theatre. The person who uses the term ‘theatremaker’ is a hybrid artist, a creative soul that can turn their hand to anything to get their show on.

I consider myself to be a theatremaker as I make theatre using my own resources. I come up with an idea, rehearse it, find a suitable platform, and then sell tickets however I can. I have no regular team, I’ve never used a set, sound or costume designer (yet), and I generally operate the lights myself. I write, produce, improvise, teach and choreograph. I’m also quite deft at finding cheap props online and can make trailers, posters and GIFs for publicity. Plus I know how to remove red wine from a costume (use white). I’m not rich and don’t come from money (can you tell?), and I don’t possess the urge to climb a career ladder either, nor become a prolific artist; and curiously I’ve never applied for public funding. I just make theatre. In a room. Any room. I theatricalise my idea and put it in front of an audience. For the most part, my ideas manifest on a live platform, sometimes online or like now, in my new book, 300 Thoughts for Theatremakers.

I’ve staged work in New York, Toronto, London and Tipton, and in 2018 I made an online interview series with Digital Theatre+ that’s streamed into schools around the world. I’ve directed art gallery films, commissioned an American playwright with an independent venue in London, and devised a new play with the same team over three years. Oh, and everyone’s always been paid.

Sounds professional, doesn’t it? Well, it is. So who am I? Well, I’m definitely not ‘Fringe’, as that’s a reductive term used by the misinformed to describe and supposedly locate artists who, at some point, must surely be aiming for the ‘Centre’ (be honest). Nor am I commercial. No. I am an independent theatremaker, and you won’t have heard of me because I don’t exist – at least not under the regular terminology of ‘director’, ‘producer’, ‘actor’ or ‘writer’, terms that don’t really represent my skill set any more, and so I rarely use them.

Bobby Kennedy Experience

Russell Lucas in his one-man show The Bobby Kennedy Experience (Photograph by Steve Ullathorne)

Theatremakers are like the ‘Where’s Wally?’ of the arts – we’re here, but you have to look really hard to find us. We’ll pop up at festivals (a lot), but you’ll rarely see us on the popular stages, as our transient nature could be performing cabaret or dance one week, then borrowing from the conventions of mime or puppetry the next; and that’s hard to categorise using the regular ways of classification. Maybe we’re indefinable?

So how did we manifest? By the continued slashing of budgets, changes of policies within funded theatres, and the ever-persistent commercial sector sucking up the air through the vacuum of nostalgia and film? It’s a theory.

How about our extended periods of unemployment as we wait for ‘heavy-pencilled’ jobs to turn into half a day’s work? (#actorslife) What about that devious myth that there are too many artists and not enough places for them to perform? Couple that with the cold hard truth of not enough affordable rehearsal spaces, outlandish financial demands on our already delicate reality – and how long was it going to be before we grabbed hold of the reins? Again.

In the same way that the actor-managers of the nineteenth century morphed into the director, the theatremaker is the next aggregation of the desires of the actor. And this seismic evolution/revolution was born from our exclusion from too many parties – for all those times we should have been the hosts, we were miscast as the caterers. And now that the theatremaker roams freely, they have discovered that the theatre itself needed them, before it too became a muted servant.

Theatremakers no longer spend days waiting for permission to cross the Rubicon to that utopian centre. No. We have walked off down the road and created our own trade, and us Jills and us Jacks of all the trades are fast becoming the majority.

Maybe one day, the birth of theatremakers – and their dirty ways – will be studied in schools, paving the way for more like us? Imagine the possibilities.

So, let it be known: the theatre is being reoccupied by its original tenant: The Maker of Theatre. And if you’re salivating right now, come join us off the radar. You can plough up the stalls, erase the interval and even tie some knots in the curtains if you wish, because it’s your trade too. But be warned: you’ll need to tear the tickets, serve the drinks, bring up the lights, and then go break everyone’s heart with your self-penned aria. Yes, it’s back to the old ways: make a show, sell your tickets, make some money, then make a new show.

Spread the word: the theatremaker is now the centre.

300 Thoughts for blog

This is an edited extract from 300 Thoughts for Theatremakers by Russell Lucas, out now. Save 20% on your copy when you order direct from the Nick Hern Books website here.

Russell Lucas is a UK-based artist specialising in writing, devising, producing, acting and directing. His work has been seen in London, Edinburgh, the West End, on tour and Off-Broadway.

He is also a qualified lecturer and has written and delivered workshops at leading venues and educational institutions across the UK and internationally. See more on his website.

Author photo: Steve Ullathorne