Creating a theatre company

 

That any theater company comes together at all, ever, is a miracle. (Mulcahy, 2002)

 

Working with a group of people can be challenging as each individual can have a different personality and different perspectives. However, if you are able to overcome any disagreements and difficulties, the results can be very rewarding. In her book, Building the Successful Theater Company, Lisa Mulcahy suggests that:

 Passion. Blind faith. Talent. Naivetѐ. Focus. A burning desire to say something important […] are some of the [things required] by those brave individuals who enter the incredibly challenging field of professional theater.  (2002)

For me, the key to success is to have a positive approach to challenging situations and a common goal; the success of the company. When my classmates and I formed our theatre company, we didn’t know what to expect. The only thing we knew was that we were all willing to do our best for our company. After having a long conversation we all agreed about our individual roles and set the day of our first meeting.

 

 

The role I took on was that of the director. It was my own preference as I wanted to try something new and exciting. It wasn’t easy and so much research had to be done but I knew from the start that I had one goal; to create and direct a piece that would not just entertain but it would provide food for thought. This is because I deeply believe in the transformative power of theatre which is able to educate us and shape who we are! Indeed, in his speech at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s Dinner on Stage event, Howard Shalwitz referred to seven reasons why theatre is so beneficial for us. Some of the things Shalwitz talked about were how “theatre brings people together”, how “both the making of theatre and attending of theatre contribute to education and literacy” and more importantly how “it influences the way we think and feel about our own lives and encourages us to take a hard look at ourselves, our values, and our behavior” (Shalwitz, 2011). 

 

Tom Bowetell also gave an inspirational talk about theatre and the ways it can affect us at a Tedx Stormont event:

(Tedx Talks, 2013)

 

I was overwhelmed with happiness when I discussed about this thought of mine to the group and found out that everyone shared the same thoughts and desires! After this beautiful discovery there was only one thing left to do: find the theme of our play.

 

The vision

In our very first meeting we all concluded that we wanted to base our play on a well-known fairy tale in which we would add a modern twist on it. We held the belief that this would help us to attract a bigger audience who would be intrigued to watch a classic and familiar fairy tale from a 21^st century perspective. We also came up with the idea of the play to be set in a forest, with the forest representing our main character’s mind. Having these in mind we came up with the name of our Company; Twisted Ivy Productions. The word ‘Twisted’ was a reflection of our idea of adding a modern, and kind of dark, twist to classic fairy tales. The word ‘Ivy’ was representative of the struggles that our characters undergo throughout our play as ivy is able to climb and wrap itself around trees and other plants, ending up harming them.

 

Mission statement

Our mission statement was written in a way that would represent both the themes and ideas of our first performance but also the themes explored in future projects. We also tried our best to make it short, intriguing and to the point. Our mission statement can be seen above:

We are Twisted Ivy Productions, a theatre company run by an all-female team. Although we are a female run company we are not exclusive to an all female cast, we invite male actors into our performances. We have a bold approach to giving classic ideas a dark, alternative twist to evoke thought on important matters.

As a company of devising artists, our work progresses through discussion, improvisation and writing. By combining movement, fun, comedy and everyday objects, we give sensitive issues a new edge.

 

 

First ideas for a play

In the beginning a great number of ideas were discussed and many fairy tales were mentioned. Some examples of the things we thought and experiment with are:

• The tale of Rapunzel – Revolving around body image and the typical representation of the princesses as young, white, blond and thin.

 

• The tale of Beauty and the Beast – Revolving around the isolation and manipulation of Belle by the ‘beast’ as well as the story suggesting the possibility of rape.

 

• The tale of Snow White – Revolving around the issue of social anxiety with the Snow White finding sanctuary deep in the forest. The seven dwarfs would be portrayed as imaginary friends than real people.

 

• The character of Pinocchio – Being the narrator of the story and, due to the fact of being a puppet, represent the manipulation and misinformation posed by the (social) media.

 

However these ideas were not satisfactory enough as we thought that some of the themes of the tales have been explored by many practitioners while some others were too sensitive and needed to be handled with extra precaution.

 

Every Rose…: The tale of Cinderella

After months of exploring and experimenting with different ideas we were so excited to end up basing our play on the tale of Cinderella. After doing some research we discovered that there are, in fact, many versions of the fairy tale such as Charles Perrault’s Cendrillon and the Brothers Grimm’s Aschenputtel. We decided to use Perrault’s version of the fairy tale, as it was the one that the Brothers Grimm draw inspiration from in the first place, and then add a modern and dark twist in it.

Being the director I was the one to carefully study and analyse the original story. After a number of readings, I developed my own interpretation and vision of the playwright’s intentions, making sure at the same time that my goals were in accordance with the overall goals of our theatre company too. The reason why I wanted to work around classic fairy tales is because I always believed the morals that can be found in them, such as to be kind and thoughtful, to be brave and think out of the box and to be clever and not to trust strangers, are valuable lessons for children. However, there are some other elements in fairy tales that don’t quite fit with the beliefs and values shared by the people of the 21^st century. Indeed, the film critic, Terrence Rafferty, argues that:

the social realities on which the original fairy tales depend are almost incomprehensibly alien to 21st-century sensibilities; they reek of feudalism. And the lessons they’re supposed to teach our young don’t have much force these days. (2012)

For me, these “lessons” that Rafferty refers to are more than simply irrelevant of the times. I believe them to be dangerous as fairy tales also have the tendency to teach children false concepts of gender roles, love as well the notions of good versus evil. For this reason, I suggested to the group a new approach of the tale of Cinderella and a different representation of its characters. Consequently, in our show Cinderella undergoes through a journey of discovery to finally find herself to be strong and independent. The fairy godmother in our story is not the “outside” help that makes her wish of attending the ball come true. Instead, she is Cinderella herself and more specifically the “voice of reason” inside her head. The voice is there to remind Cinderella, in her darkest moments, to be the better version of herself. Similarly to Cinderella, the ugly sisters are not shown as utterly evil. Growing up with a mother that never showed them kindness or affection, they are unable to show kindness to Cinderella themselves. Moreover, the sisters are unaware of the devastating impact that their insults have on Cinderella, so they keep verbally abuse her until Cinderella snaps.

Essentially, the play does not focus on the conquest of finding love and getting married. It does not portray the prince as the hero that saves Cinderella from her cruel family by marrying her and inviting her to stay in the palace. In fact, the Prince does not meet Cinderella in the play at all! The play rather involves around verbal abuse and its effects, courage, reason, kindness and the importance of family.

 

Finally, we have a show!

The title of our play, Every Rose…, has a special meaning to our show. Even though, we left the title open to interpretation, for the company, the rest of the sentence ends like that: …has its thorns. In other words, the word ‘Rose’ is a symbol of all three characters of the show, Cinderella and her two stepsisters. Similarly to the rose the girls have two sides, a good and a bad. Cinderella is capable of harming others, and she proves it in her dream, but in reality she chooses not to. The ugly sisters are able to love others but they don’t exactly know how. It is at the end of the play that all three find out that they can help each other and that only together as a familly will overcome every problem.

After our teacher’s, Dom, suggestion of incorporating different movie genres in our show, our writer, Kay, and I worked together in order to create a coherent structure. After researching all the different genres, we came up with the following structure of the play:

• Shadow Puppet Theatre – It is used in the show because shadow puppetry was a famous, and in some countries still is, method of storytelling. Therefore, I believed that this would be a nice introduction to our story and would create an interesting juxtaposition between the old fashioned representation of the tale and the modern and alternative twist that follows.

 

• Film Noir, Western, Horror, Silent Movie, Telenovela – Since the main body of the story takes places in Cinderella’s dream we decided to use these five genres and create five different little scenes. As in dreams, the sisters found themselves in weird places and situations that they cannot explain.

 

• Dialogues – The purpose of the dialogues between the Fairy Godmother and Cinderella is to indicate that in this comical, dreamlike, world there is something bad that is happening. Cinderella’s decision to kill the sisters in her dream, represents her thoughts of physically harming them in real life. The voice of the Fairy Godmother reminds her that this is not the solution to her problem.

 

• Monologues – Cinderella’s monologues take place in the beginning of every scene. They are used to create a smooth and “magical” transition from one scene to another.

 

• The fairy godmother scene – As in fairy tales, our show has a happy ending. The Fairy Godmother appears on stage after Cinderella has “killed” her sisters to help her understand her actions and to remind her who she really is.

 

• Puppet Shadow Theatre – The play comes to an end with the same way it started.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final performance

Every Rose… was performed for the very first time on the 18^th May, at the stage of the LPAC. Even though we had to do some last minute changes to the costumes and to some aspects of the performance, everything went amazingly well. Everyone did an amazing job and tried their best on the day. Kay wrote an amazing script. The costume, the set and the sound and lighting worked incredibly well together. Our stage manager, Heather did a great job with running the show smoothly. The three actresses gave 100% of themselves and I was happy to see that all our hard work, in the rehearsals, has paid off. Their characterization was also incredible and I was glad that the exercises, warm-ups and games we did helped them to develop their characters in such a great depth. The people who watched the show were crying with laughter throughout the show and had, only, good things to say.

 

If I had to do this performance again, they wouldn’t be many things I would change. I was very pleased with the results and I feel lucky to have given the change to work with such an amazing group!

 

Works Cited

Mulcahy, L. (2002) Building The Successful Theatre Company. New York: Allworth Press. 

Rafferty, T. (2012) The Better to Entertain You With, My Dear: ‘Mirror Mirror,’ ‘Grimm’ and Hollywood Love for Fairy Tales. New York: The New York Times. Available from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/movies/mirror-mirror-grimm-and-hollywood-love-for-fairy-tales.html?_r=0 [accessed 3 May 2016].

Shalwitz, H. (2011) 7 Reasons Why Theatre Makes Our Lives Better. Washington, DC: theatreWashington. Available from http://theatrewashington.org/content/7-reasons-why-theatre-makes-our-lives-better [accessed 25 April 2016].

Tedx Talks (2013) Can Theatre Actually Change Anything?: Tom Bowtell at TEDxStormont. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4cSdM2Q0YY&index=1&list=LLHy_mvyUoI8QlB5ijz1Hh5g [accessed 25 April 2016].

 

 

From Greek fables to Japanese myths, tales and storytelling has been an inseparable part of human history. Throughout the years, tales have been used both for entertaining and educational purposes. In addition to this, they have also been the source of inspiration for a great number of artists. A tale, and specifically Charles Perrault’s Cinderella, also known as The Little Glass Slipper, has inspired our show too!

From our very first group meeting, we all knew that we wanted to devise a piece of work which would be based on a tale. Indeed, many well-know fairy tales were mentioned such as Rapunzel, The Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and, of course, Cinderella. Our decision to focus on popular fairy tales and then add a twist on them was based on the fact that we believed it to be a great selling point for our final show that would attract a bigger audience. For me there was another reason! I always believed the morals that can be found in classic fairy tales, such as to be kind and thoughtful, to be brave and think out of the box and to be clever and not to trust strangers, are valuable lessons for children. However, there are some other elements in fairy tales that don’t quite fit with the beliefs and values shared by the people of the 21^st century. Indeed, the film critic, Terrence Rafferty, argues that:

the social realities on which the original fairy tales depend are almost incomprehensibly alien to 21st-century sensibilities; they reek of feudalism. And the lessons they’re supposed to teach our young don’t have much force these days. (2012)

For me, these “lessons” that Rafferty refers to are more than simply irrelevant of the times. I believe them to be dangerous as fairy tales also have the tendency to teach children false concepts of gender roles, love as well the notions of good versus evil. For this reason, I suggested to the group a new approach of the tale of Cinderella and a different representation of its characters. Consequently, in our show Cinderella undergoes through a journey of discovery to finally find herself to be strong and independent. The fairy godmother in our story is not the “outside” help that makes her wish of attending the ball come true. Instead, she is Cinderella herself and more specifically the “voice of reason” inside her head. The voice is there to remind Cinderella, in her darkest moments, to be the better version of herself. Similarly to Cinderella, the ugly sisters are not shown as utterly evil. Growing up with a mother that never showed them kindness or affection, they are unable to show kindness to Cinderella themselves. Moreover, unaware of the devastating impact that their insults have on Cinderella, the sisters keep verbally abuse her until she snaps.

Essentially, the play does not focus on the conquest of finding love and getting married. It does not portray the prince as the hero that saves Cinderella from her cruel family by marrying her and inviting her to stay in the palace. In fact, the Prince does not meet Cinderella in the play at all! The play rather involves around verbal abuse and its effects, courage, reason, kindness and the importance of family.

 

Works Cited

Rafferty, T. (2012) The Better to Entertain You With, My Dear: ‘Mirror Mirror,’ ‘Grimm’ and Hollywood Love for Fairy Tales. New York: The New York Times. Available from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/movies/mirror-mirror-grimm-and-hollywood-love-for-fairy-tales.html?_r=0 [accessed 3 May 2016].

I knew that I wanted to become an actress since I remember myself. From the age of five I would spend hours upon hours in front of a mirror pretending to be a thousand different versions of myself such as a nurse, a teacher, a singer, and even a pirate! My love for acting and theatre only grew stronger and I soon found myself studying Drama in the University of Lincoln. Here, I confirmed my love for the arts and I discovered that acting is not the only way to express yourself. In fact, there are various roles one can take when creating a piece of work such as stage manager, writer, costume, set designer, director and much more! Therefore, I challenged myself with taking on a role that I’ve never tried before and thus I became the director for the theatre company my friends and I created for our very final module in the university. It wasn’t easy and so much research had to be done but I knew from the start that I had one goal; to create and direct a piece that would not just entertain but it would provide food for thought. This is because I deeply believe in the transformative power of theatre which is able to educate us and shape who we are! Indeed, in his speech at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s Dinner on Stage event, Howard Shalwitz referred to seven reasons why theatre is so beneficial for us. Some of the things Shalwitz talked about were how “theatre brings people together”, how “both the making of theatre and attending of theatre contribute to education and literacy” and more importantly how “it influences the way we think and feel about our own lives and encourages us to take a hard look at ourselves, our values, and our behavior” (Shalwitz, 2011).  

Tom Bowetell also gave an inspirational talk about theatre and the ways it can affect us at a Tedx Stormont event:

(Tedx Talks, 2013)

 

It was a pleasant surprise that everyone in our theatre company shared the same thoughts and desires of creating something with meaning and so the beautiful journey of creating a piece of work from scratch soon it began!

 

Works Cited

Shalwitz, H. (2011) 7 Reasons Why Theatre Makes Our Lives Better. Washington, DC: theatreWashington. Available from http://theatrewashington.org/content/7-reasons-why-theatre-makes-our-lives-better [accessed 25 April 2016].

Tedx Talks (2013) Can Theatre Actually Change Anything?: Tom Bowtell at TEDxStormont. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4cSdM2Q0YY&index=1&list=LLHy_mvyUoI8QlB5ijz1Hh5g [accessed 25 April 2016].