Participants:
Lisa Hammond, Cherylee Houston, Angela Clerkin, Jean St Clare
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
• As a writer I would love to write a play in the future with a disabled character
• But I need a dialogue with disabled people to find out about the content
• Has found interest in people’s (disabled) difficulties but MORE interested in what we have in common
• More interested in what’s going on in the mind
• What about dis/abled bodied people are the same trials / tribulations/ thoughts
• Would an Open Space for writers on this subject interest you as a writer
• YES
• Open Space to explore the language
• To explore disabled people’s opinions / lives
• Challenged by the concept
• Never written a disabled character
• What would that challenge be?
• Is it casting not writing?
• Might not be the thing that you want to focus on as a writer
• But aware that it could be fear – getting it wrong
• Don’t want to get it wrong
• Realise that it’s a challenge that interests me
• Need to know that I’m included as an able-bodied person to come along
• As an able-bodied writer I’d have to be prepared to get it wrong – safe place needed to do so.
• I need my awareness and responsibilities to make other writer’s aware of theirs.
• There could be many strands to this idea of using Open Space to explore this – directors / producers
• Is it the writer’s responsibility to concentrate on that strand? Pass the buck back to the casting director – they then in turn pass the buck back to the writer. The disabled actor doesn’t get seen.
• Write normal scripts, but make one of the characters have a disability in the blurb of the character
• Writer’s can get feedback of showing too much of a breakdown of actual community
Two Solutions
• Cast disabled people in roles non disability specific
• The specific. The disability not being the central storyline, but access info / specifics in the script needed if the character has got a disability.
• If I write a disabled / Deaf character and that story is not played out, then I will be asked why they are there.
• Casting like before disability and after – different casting needs
• Disabled people represented not played out “their real disabled life” the difficulty of it
• Scripts that aren’t focused on disability
• If people don’t have the experience then how are they expected to get it right?
• Lack of information for people who don’t have experience of disability
• Information source
• Speaking to people to get their individual stories and taking credit for it
• Interested in a collaboration
• The first “story” isn’t the best “story”
• TV, film and theatre
• It will be a gift to come to an Open Space on this
• Contact Writer’s Guild, word of mouth, ongoing thing…
• Not only disabled actors some “normal” disabled people with stories and lives
• Could I call a session and ask about people’s first dates?
• Getting it wrong
• What is the question
• Challenging subject
• Different ways of working and approaching and are allowed to get it wrong
• Venue – Jerwood – posher venue attract all
• Be in touch about a “Name” for the Open Space
• Learning from “the old days”
Showing posts with label disability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label disability. Show all posts
Friday, 5 February 2010
Thursday, 4 February 2010
079 Youth Theatre – how to get them involved
Convener: Martin McLean
Participants: Rebecca Hall, Amy Ip + 3 more.
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
• Rebecca talked about Colchester’s youth project. Has several age groups. Setting up youth group can be challenging – set up a new group in Clacton but it failed through lack of numbers.
• One man talked about working with young people in Newham. Have a lot of interest there. Talked about one occasion when the drama leader actually went out on the streets to find young people and bring them along to the group.
• Martin talked about the challenges of running a youth project for Deafinitely Theatre. Tough because of targets set by the funders although there are enough young deaf people in London interested in drama to set up a group.
• Amy talked about working with a youth theatre group in Islington. Can be a challenge to keep young people coming to the group but she found that using discipline helps! She marketed at very specific groups such as the Chinese community through their newsletters.
• A woman who worked for a company based in Liverpool talked about her experiences of setting up youth groups for Deaf and disabled young people. She is currently producing a guidebook for drama workshop leaders working with disabled groups.
Participants: Rebecca Hall, Amy Ip + 3 more.
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
• Rebecca talked about Colchester’s youth project. Has several age groups. Setting up youth group can be challenging – set up a new group in Clacton but it failed through lack of numbers.
• One man talked about working with young people in Newham. Have a lot of interest there. Talked about one occasion when the drama leader actually went out on the streets to find young people and bring them along to the group.
• Martin talked about the challenges of running a youth project for Deafinitely Theatre. Tough because of targets set by the funders although there are enough young deaf people in London interested in drama to set up a group.
• Amy talked about working with a youth theatre group in Islington. Can be a challenge to keep young people coming to the group but she found that using discipline helps! She marketed at very specific groups such as the Chinese community through their newsletters.
• A woman who worked for a company based in Liverpool talked about her experiences of setting up youth groups for Deaf and disabled young people. She is currently producing a guidebook for drama workshop leaders working with disabled groups.
071 Access – How Do We Get Better?
Convener: Nick Sweeting
Participants: Various – please add name if you were there
Deepa Shastri, Nadine Ishani, Helen Pringle, Becci Haines
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
- Attitude is all important
- Be inclusive – include “targeted’ groups in planning
- Look at what’s been done before inc research
- ACE funded buildings have obligations
- Opportunity of 2012 Paralympics – inc people with other languages – or general Olympics too but with Access
- Keep customers in mind
- Who do we influence?
- Theatres only open access at specific times and with specific companies
- A long ‘nagging’ journey
- Colour schemes…..affect everyone
- Internet – feedback forums
- Accessible print – RNIB Website – guideline – good example = New Wolsey
- Print matching audience
- Inc Marketing department in access discussions
- Mktg to Deaf audiences – awareness of signing and captions
- Access for immersive performances/1 to 1 performances – include Deaf and disabled people in the rehearsal/development process
- Signing/description for impro shows
ACTION
Not all the onus should be on Companies like Graeae and deafinitely Theatre –
non Deaf and disabled led companies need to get involved.
Nick and Improbable to enquire how to take things forward…..meet 2012 team – Steve Mannix?
Participants: Various – please add name if you were there
Deepa Shastri, Nadine Ishani, Helen Pringle, Becci Haines
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
- Attitude is all important
- Be inclusive – include “targeted’ groups in planning
- Look at what’s been done before inc research
- ACE funded buildings have obligations
- Opportunity of 2012 Paralympics – inc people with other languages – or general Olympics too but with Access
- Keep customers in mind
- Who do we influence?
- Theatres only open access at specific times and with specific companies
- A long ‘nagging’ journey
- Colour schemes…..affect everyone
- Internet – feedback forums
- Accessible print – RNIB Website – guideline – good example = New Wolsey
- Print matching audience
- Inc Marketing department in access discussions
- Mktg to Deaf audiences – awareness of signing and captions
- Access for immersive performances/1 to 1 performances – include Deaf and disabled people in the rehearsal/development process
- Signing/description for impro shows
ACTION
Not all the onus should be on Companies like Graeae and deafinitely Theatre –
non Deaf and disabled led companies need to get involved.
Nick and Improbable to enquire how to take things forward…..meet 2012 team – Steve Mannix?
056 Why is Edinburgh not impossible?
Convener: Laura Eades
Participants: Amanda Kellelen and Jennifer Lunn
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
Amanda: difficulties of taking a show with disabled people to Edinburgh.
The dream of a disabled performer doing a totally mainstream one-person show in a really established venue in Edinburgh is one I hope to see come to fruition.
Talk to East to Edinburgh and develop idea with them.
Talk to Lawrence somebody who did a really well-known show in a wheelchair about which venues are accessible and he may also have contacts.
Jennifer: Had a really good experience taking Borderline to Underbelly, got lots of amazing reviews which has really helped.
Advice: Do Pleasance or Underbelly or don’t bother (gulp!)
Spend £1200 either on flyering (James Seabright), if you want audience, or on a PR team if you want reviews
You need a video showcase
You can get into these venues, we were small fry and we got in
036 How does Deaf and Disabled theatre attract a mainstream audience?
Convener: Martin McLean
Participants: Susanna, Shawn, Kerry, Tim, Amanda, Jean, Emily, Kempson, Sharan Kean, Garry Housman (Theatre Venture), Lisa Hammond, Ali Tomkinson
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
• [We need to] speak in the language of the media.
• Consider how to interest the press?
• What language should we use to talk to the media?
• As a disabled person, I get angry how I’m described – the physical is described first. If, at the end of a critique, serious consideration/criticism is made – then I am very pleased.
• Language has changed from phrases formerly used: deaf and dumb, deaf mute, a world of silence. Now, a capital D is used for the word Deaf.
• [When talking to the press] it’s silly not to say wheelchair user but how to do it so that it’s not twisted?
• Infiltrate from the inside…
• However much you try to write the killer press release, you’re stuck with whether or not the press will turn up. As soon as you say ‘disabled’ the press are off.
• What if we don’t tell them [the press/audience] in advance?
• Producers are starting to think of creative ways to attract particular audiences.
• Why is disabled art hampered? Don’t perpetuate difficulties by producing bad work.
• We’re all about accessibility but not all work can be accessible.
• If it’s good work – then it is. Why keep saying it is?
• Some work needs experimentation – it needs time. Do we need to decide when experimentation ends?
• With Counting the Ways, a research and development project, attempting to achieve inclusion almost damaged its ability to communicate.
• [With one production] with a cast of 2 (?), in terms of modes of communication, there was signing, audio description and speech – the resulting work was only partially successful.
• Sometimes watching signing can be a fixation [for hearing audiences?]
• Nonetheless, if the work is good enough audiences’ attention will stay with the work itself. [It was noted when considering a French language film] With Un Prophet, English speaking audiences will still go to see it because of its quality, despite the use of captions.
• How do we meet the brief of making amazing theatre?
• Investment in a piece so that it has the time to develop into being as good a piece as it can be.
• Using audio description, signing and so on are artistic considerations that need to be addressed creatively (money is not always the issue).
• Is the attempt to communicate – to speak – getting in the way of making theatre?
• Working with Graeae [it was noted from experience] could be frustrating when working with a number of specialist support assistants in the same small space as [one’s] fellow actors.
• One research panel asked [of a theatre maker when assessing their experience of making work]: did you have a remit to prove yourself or be more accessible?
• Q:
With regard to casting, is the same rigour applied in disabled contexts as it is in the mainstream?
• A:
It’s such a new area – people are so afraid of saying the wrong thing.
• There was a situation in one play when a deaf actor was cast who wasn’t up to the job (which she subsequently acknowledged and the role was recast with a more skilled hearing actor).
• There is a dilemma though: if deaf actors aren’t cast then how well they develop and improve, but where are the jobs?
• We [performer’s experience] can be stuck just with disability theatre – you end up caught within the same small circuit.
• With street-theatre, you can attract audiences with work on its own merit – the response is immediate.
• Whatever you say about Cast-offs, it did attract a mainstream audience.
• However, it was in the wrong way. The remit was to produce a spoof documentary but due to the poor quality of the writing etc, the result was just a piece [lacking in irony] that resembled a Channel 5 thing.
• Queer as Folk showed mainstream audiences aspects of gay life that challenged [perceptions]. Cast-offs didn’t meet expectation. It shot itself in the foot. From the start it marginalised its subject.
• Question:
How do we help to develop the quality of our product?
• Responses:
(A programming specialist’s view] Book only quality – people of quality.
• Commission work
• [Martin asked] Why do hearing audiences attend work with Deaf / disabled / and or a particular focus? [Conversely] Why do they not attend? [He is] looking for ideas.
• If you need a mainstream audience, can you cater for a deaf audience too?
• Signed songs / signing as gestural language in dance theatre can be an appealing feature of the work for mainstream audiences [as well as disabled audiences], though not necessarily – depending upon taste.
• In Israel, Nalagat produced a piece – Not by bread alone with twelve (?) disabled actors. The work, always intended for a mainstream audience, has played to good houses for two years (the work will be coming to Britain this year).
Participants: Susanna, Shawn, Kerry, Tim, Amanda, Jean, Emily, Kempson, Sharan Kean, Garry Housman (Theatre Venture), Lisa Hammond, Ali Tomkinson
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
• [We need to] speak in the language of the media.
• Consider how to interest the press?
• What language should we use to talk to the media?
• As a disabled person, I get angry how I’m described – the physical is described first. If, at the end of a critique, serious consideration/criticism is made – then I am very pleased.
• Language has changed from phrases formerly used: deaf and dumb, deaf mute, a world of silence. Now, a capital D is used for the word Deaf.
• [When talking to the press] it’s silly not to say wheelchair user but how to do it so that it’s not twisted?
• Infiltrate from the inside…
• However much you try to write the killer press release, you’re stuck with whether or not the press will turn up. As soon as you say ‘disabled’ the press are off.
• What if we don’t tell them [the press/audience] in advance?
• Producers are starting to think of creative ways to attract particular audiences.
• Why is disabled art hampered? Don’t perpetuate difficulties by producing bad work.
• We’re all about accessibility but not all work can be accessible.
• If it’s good work – then it is. Why keep saying it is?
• Some work needs experimentation – it needs time. Do we need to decide when experimentation ends?
• With Counting the Ways, a research and development project, attempting to achieve inclusion almost damaged its ability to communicate.
• [With one production] with a cast of 2 (?), in terms of modes of communication, there was signing, audio description and speech – the resulting work was only partially successful.
• Sometimes watching signing can be a fixation [for hearing audiences?]
• Nonetheless, if the work is good enough audiences’ attention will stay with the work itself. [It was noted when considering a French language film] With Un Prophet, English speaking audiences will still go to see it because of its quality, despite the use of captions.
• How do we meet the brief of making amazing theatre?
• Investment in a piece so that it has the time to develop into being as good a piece as it can be.
• Using audio description, signing and so on are artistic considerations that need to be addressed creatively (money is not always the issue).
• Is the attempt to communicate – to speak – getting in the way of making theatre?
• Working with Graeae [it was noted from experience] could be frustrating when working with a number of specialist support assistants in the same small space as [one’s] fellow actors.
• One research panel asked [of a theatre maker when assessing their experience of making work]: did you have a remit to prove yourself or be more accessible?
• Q:
With regard to casting, is the same rigour applied in disabled contexts as it is in the mainstream?
• A:
It’s such a new area – people are so afraid of saying the wrong thing.
• There was a situation in one play when a deaf actor was cast who wasn’t up to the job (which she subsequently acknowledged and the role was recast with a more skilled hearing actor).
• There is a dilemma though: if deaf actors aren’t cast then how well they develop and improve, but where are the jobs?
• We [performer’s experience] can be stuck just with disability theatre – you end up caught within the same small circuit.
• With street-theatre, you can attract audiences with work on its own merit – the response is immediate.
• Whatever you say about Cast-offs, it did attract a mainstream audience.
• However, it was in the wrong way. The remit was to produce a spoof documentary but due to the poor quality of the writing etc, the result was just a piece [lacking in irony] that resembled a Channel 5 thing.
• Queer as Folk showed mainstream audiences aspects of gay life that challenged [perceptions]. Cast-offs didn’t meet expectation. It shot itself in the foot. From the start it marginalised its subject.
• Question:
How do we help to develop the quality of our product?
• Responses:
(A programming specialist’s view] Book only quality – people of quality.
• Commission work
• [Martin asked] Why do hearing audiences attend work with Deaf / disabled / and or a particular focus? [Conversely] Why do they not attend? [He is] looking for ideas.
• If you need a mainstream audience, can you cater for a deaf audience too?
• Signed songs / signing as gestural language in dance theatre can be an appealing feature of the work for mainstream audiences [as well as disabled audiences], though not necessarily – depending upon taste.
• In Israel, Nalagat produced a piece – Not by bread alone with twelve (?) disabled actors. The work, always intended for a mainstream audience, has played to good houses for two years (the work will be coming to Britain this year).
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
011 What is culturally diverse about Theatre?
Convener: Anouk Mishti
Participants: Including actors, writers, curators etc…
Annie Fitzmaurice(Coal Theatre Co); Anouk Mishti (Arts Intuition): Lynette Moran (Mouth to Mouth); Lee Simpson(Improbable; Bindiya Solanki; Jean StClair; Ilana Winterstein
No name changes as no responses received from those that attended below:
Emma (Shakyisles Theatre; Rebecca (Mercury Theatre; Meenakshi; Amy; Amanda; Alicia; Gege; Elinor; Gehane; Kate & Jan – surnames? =signers
Thanks to Bindiya for taking the draft notes of the session.
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
• Identity and culture; is colour diverse or is it the experience, the story, what the person brings to the role? Just because there is an Asian/Black/Chinese person on stage does not necessarily mean that the show is diverse. It is also the experience that the person brings with them that attributes to the diversity.
• The UK is quite ‘accent-ish’. If you speak with a RP accent, it denotes that you are better educated than someone with e.g. a ‘Bristol-ian’ accent.
• Is colour-blind casting is a joke? It’s better in theatre than TV/Film.
• Why do I get called up by casting directors who are looking a half Scottish/half Arabian girl, do a fantastic audition, and then hear that I don't look half Scottish/half Arabian enough?!
• There's not a lot of diversity in Ireland. It doesn't address the political climate. Programming is not very culturally diverse.
• Who cares about cultural diversity? Is it only people who are culturally diverse?
• “There are two separate things being said here, one is to do with being cast regardless of ones own ethnicity rather than specifically, and the other that someone said that it’s not enough to see non-white faces in a cast – but wanted to see culturally specific roles, so that’s two quite different issues....”
• It's important to be included to properly
• How do you bring cultural diversity into casting? Where are all the disabled people?
• Coronation St asked me to audition for a character that is deaf. So when I got the brief, I read it through and it said “Deaf women who can speak well." This I thought isn't being diverse!
• Graeae Theatre Co put on a production of Sarah Kane’s Blasted and it was amazing! The casting was very diverse, but it didn't matter as it was the story that came through i.e. you didn't notice that the character was in a wheelchair.
• Is there not enough writing out there for disabled people? Is that why we don't see many on stage?
• The RSC and the National do have quite diverse casting and they are mainstream theatre companies.
• The Arts Council are arbiters of what is culturally diverse; they decide what is ‘culturally diverse’. Cultural diversity, when trying to get funding, is all about ticking the right boxes. How do you encourage work that is about culture in mainstream theatre?
• Disabled performers fail to fall into the diverse box. For Arts Council, diversity is other cultures/nationalities, not the disabled. The Arts Council is very interested in ‘ethnic’ women’s theatre.
• Diversity is a fashion. Disabled people need to be in fashion to get funding!
• Is our culture/diversity invisible or visible?
• Theatre is more diverse than TV/film. What can we celebrate from/about cultural diversity?
• Is there cultural diversity in culturally specific projects?
• The cultural diversity in Ireland is now being represented in the new writing that's emerging. Not everyone in Ireland is now white, Irish and Catholic.
• Cultural diversity is a reflection of society.
• With theatre, it is possible to engage people on a deeper level. You can have a white sibling with a black sibling, without there being a story to connect their races. Theatre audiences will accept this as a convention. Theatre deals with reality in depth; it's out & out self-interest to embrace and enthusiastically follow this. When people watch theatre, they can engage more intensely.
• In drama school, is it a fact that it is more difficult to train someone who disabled therefore there are less disabled performers out there with the skills to take on professional productions?
• Theatre and the arts are a small section of society. But we still need to be the advocates of cultural diversity…
• The idea of "Consensus reality" was highlighted in relation to theatre's ability to communicate on a deeper level of reality than film and television tend to, as cited above. For more info on this reference, please see Lee’s articulation that further illuminates the term:
D & D final notes (12.2.2010)
Anouk Mishti
Participants: Including actors, writers, curators etc…
Annie Fitzmaurice(Coal Theatre Co); Anouk Mishti (Arts Intuition): Lynette Moran (Mouth to Mouth); Lee Simpson(Improbable; Bindiya Solanki; Jean StClair; Ilana Winterstein
No name changes as no responses received from those that attended below:
Emma (Shakyisles Theatre; Rebecca (Mercury Theatre; Meenakshi; Amy; Amanda; Alicia; Gege; Elinor; Gehane; Kate & Jan – surnames? =signers
Thanks to Bindiya for taking the draft notes of the session.
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
• Identity and culture; is colour diverse or is it the experience, the story, what the person brings to the role? Just because there is an Asian/Black/Chinese person on stage does not necessarily mean that the show is diverse. It is also the experience that the person brings with them that attributes to the diversity.
• The UK is quite ‘accent-ish’. If you speak with a RP accent, it denotes that you are better educated than someone with e.g. a ‘Bristol-ian’ accent.
• Is colour-blind casting is a joke? It’s better in theatre than TV/Film.
• Why do I get called up by casting directors who are looking a half Scottish/half Arabian girl, do a fantastic audition, and then hear that I don't look half Scottish/half Arabian enough?!
• There's not a lot of diversity in Ireland. It doesn't address the political climate. Programming is not very culturally diverse.
• Who cares about cultural diversity? Is it only people who are culturally diverse?
• “There are two separate things being said here, one is to do with being cast regardless of ones own ethnicity rather than specifically, and the other that someone said that it’s not enough to see non-white faces in a cast – but wanted to see culturally specific roles, so that’s two quite different issues....”
• It's important to be included to properly
• How do you bring cultural diversity into casting? Where are all the disabled people?
• Coronation St asked me to audition for a character that is deaf. So when I got the brief, I read it through and it said “Deaf women who can speak well." This I thought isn't being diverse!
• Graeae Theatre Co put on a production of Sarah Kane’s Blasted and it was amazing! The casting was very diverse, but it didn't matter as it was the story that came through i.e. you didn't notice that the character was in a wheelchair.
• Is there not enough writing out there for disabled people? Is that why we don't see many on stage?
• The RSC and the National do have quite diverse casting and they are mainstream theatre companies.
• The Arts Council are arbiters of what is culturally diverse; they decide what is ‘culturally diverse’. Cultural diversity, when trying to get funding, is all about ticking the right boxes. How do you encourage work that is about culture in mainstream theatre?
• Disabled performers fail to fall into the diverse box. For Arts Council, diversity is other cultures/nationalities, not the disabled. The Arts Council is very interested in ‘ethnic’ women’s theatre.
• Diversity is a fashion. Disabled people need to be in fashion to get funding!
• Is our culture/diversity invisible or visible?
• Theatre is more diverse than TV/film. What can we celebrate from/about cultural diversity?
• Is there cultural diversity in culturally specific projects?
• The cultural diversity in Ireland is now being represented in the new writing that's emerging. Not everyone in Ireland is now white, Irish and Catholic.
• Cultural diversity is a reflection of society.
• With theatre, it is possible to engage people on a deeper level. You can have a white sibling with a black sibling, without there being a story to connect their races. Theatre audiences will accept this as a convention. Theatre deals with reality in depth; it's out & out self-interest to embrace and enthusiastically follow this. When people watch theatre, they can engage more intensely.
• In drama school, is it a fact that it is more difficult to train someone who disabled therefore there are less disabled performers out there with the skills to take on professional productions?
• Theatre and the arts are a small section of society. But we still need to be the advocates of cultural diversity…
• The idea of "Consensus reality" was highlighted in relation to theatre's ability to communicate on a deeper level of reality than film and television tend to, as cited above. For more info on this reference, please see Lee’s articulation that further illuminates the term:
Lee encountered the term "consensus reality" through Process Oriented Psychology - it simply means the things that we all generally accept as reality. The things we see with our eyes and hear with our ears and touch with our fingers that are real.
Underneath consensus reality are other levels; dreaming, imaginative, essence etc. Consensus reality is usually dominant but when we are in certain states these deeper levels of reality can seem more real, one of those occasions being in theatre (sometimes). Because of this, the consensus reality differences between two actors (colour of skin, body shape, means of moving around etc.) which might mean it is difficult to imagine them cast as relations or lovers or friends in a movie, can in theatre be superseded by their connection to each other and to the audience on a dreaming/imaginative level, thereby making it seem natural and right that they are in those roles. In this way theatre is not only showing examples of diversity or telling us that diversity is a good thing. It is itself modelling deep diversity by relating to people, and giving the audience the opportunity to relate to people on levels other than that of consensus reality; something which in life most of us rarely get the chance to do with people who are, on a consensus reality level, different from us.
D & D final notes (12.2.2010)
Anouk Mishti
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