The recording for the 18th century French drama A Journey Around My Room has been completed. Bringing a landscape to life in a studio is an extraordinary experience…
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It’s been a frustrating year for theatre and all those who work in the sector. Having written a couple of plays in the last year, I had hoped that I may be able to stage one of them towards the end of 2021. This was my thinking as 2020 drew to a close.
Read MoreA Journey Around My Tenement will again be online from tomorrow and be available to view until Sunday 7th March. If you missed it the first time around, now’s the time to catch-up on three different occupants living up one Glasgow stairwell. Written by Jill Korn, Lorenzo Novani and Kenny Burnham.
“terrific - great script - acting wonderful - great fringe show”
“It’s excellent. Recommend watching it.”
“All 3 different from each other to keep me ‘stuck to my screen’.”
“Script was great. Acting was something else! Filming spot on.”
Tickets are a simple donation (as little as £1 - EB constraint), and available here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-journey-around-my-tenement-tickets-142399409467
Read MoreA few years ago, I wrote a play that never saw the light of day. It was… not intentional, utterly frustrating and entirely enlightening. As I tend to write with a theme in mind, I conduct a considerable amount of research which often is more enjoyable than it sounds. However, it is always a job to ensure any research does not extrude from the narrative. The analogy of a double decker bus works best: top deck travels the story; inside travels the message. On this occasion, it didn't work: the play upon reflection didn't seem to hang.
Read MoreDuring lockdown I was reading all about the Bauhaus. It struck me that the school which opened its doors on 1st April 1919 (a mere 5 months after the Great War) lived a day-to-day existence not entirely out of keeping with how our lives are today. I dwelt on the school’s less well-known formative years between 1919 and 1923. It is the first time I have considered writing something that was not at least in part fiction and I am aware, should I go on to write this, that there is a duty to maintain the integrity of the characters from that period including Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger and Johannes Itten…
Read MoreDuring March, Jill Korn, Lorenzo Novani and I started working on an idea tangentially based on a theme we’d developed before as Stark Theatre. The outcome is A Journey Around My Tenement, a theatrical online experience featuring 3 adapted for screen monologues by 3 different occupants living up one close.
Read MoreDramaturgy - a word no sooner said than immediately seems to slip our grasp. And yet it is a word that seems strangely familiar too. It should be, for it is a concept we are intuitively aware. It is the difference between a good story told well, and well, just a story. We are all familiar with the non-linear narrative which is an example of temporal dramaturgy: the telling of the drama is re-ordered for the optimal effect of tension. That there is dramaturgy – the curation of effect; a mode of looking.
Read MoreSpace and place play an important role in dramaturgy. Location is defined as comprising both place and space. Space (enactment) is taken to mean the physical actuality; place (an ordering system) refers to the methods and ideas by which individuals understand and employ that space.
Read MoreAs an outcome of my MLitt in Playwriting and Dramaturgy, I developed and later directed a play to assess the relationship between a powerful global community and a buffeted local community arising from the economic financial crisis of 2008/9. Hollow was written from the perspective of employee-as-playwright. The piece was performed on 8th-10th October at Govanhill Baths as part of their autumn programme dedicated to new and rare productions.
Read MoreJust watched an interesting documentary on playwright James Graham. It is perhaps the first time that I’ve watched or listened to a programme on a playwright and realised that I seem to approach a subject in much the same way as the interviewee (albeit Graham does it whole lot more successfully!). After the recent run of 'They’ll Get You Now You’re Gone' at TouchBase, I was asked by a member of the audience why I had not solely focused on the story of the two older women. The answer: I’ve always been interested in that point of intersection between two worlds. Neither side think their actions harmful nor disrespectful; just engaging in some greater good. One side is not necessarily better than the other, just different.
Read MoreWell tonight’s performance of They’ll Get You Now You’re Gone was absolutely the best. A full house and great performances.
I’m exhausted but it was worth it. For an hour I’m in the projection room cueing up the lights, the sound and the visuals. All around me are ‘cheat sheets’ telling me what to do at any particular moment in time. I’m not an expert at this so I try to keep my full attention on what needs cueing next. Thing is ...it’s hard to do when the actors are doing such a bloody great job!
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