Forest Fringe: Future of Accessible Theatre

Recently I went to the Forest Fringe where they made performances accessible for deaf people. It was a great day. There was interpreters there. There was artists willing to have interpreters in their performances. This is the attitude that theatre makers/directors should be having. A willing attitude and to allow accessibility happening. It gets me excited but it is still a long journey in the future and it will take time for it to happen...

It started off with a discussion about accessibility in theatre. There was two groups, one for the audiences and one for artists. I joined the "artists" side as it is something I feel strongly about. I raised my hand up to say something but we ran out of time in the end sadly so I spoke to Andy about what I wanted to say. I wanted to raise the point about the word "deaf". When people talk about deaf, they tend to generalise "deaf" and assume it means someone who can't hear anything at all and signs. This is not the case. I am profoundly deaf with a cochlear implant and I prefer oral over sign language. I've only been learning sign language for 3 years now but I prefer to speak. There was talks about "problems" with deaf people when really the only way to "solve" the "problem" is by communicating with the deaf person via email or text. They will tell them about their preferred communication methods. Interpreter or no interpreter? It is up to them and if they don't need it, they don't need it.

There was two shows that really stood out for me, "I wish I was Lonely" and "Hoke's Bluff". They were fantastic productions. "I wish I was Lonely" was a show that involved using phones. At the start, we had to write down our phone numbers on a card, give it to the performers and sit anywhere in the audience. Once everyone sat down, the cards got passed around with someone's number on it. We had to text one another saying why we needed our phone. I got someone number who I've been working for that week so therefore it was a bit funny. I had awful signal in that room so my text couldn't be sent through and I couldn't receive their text until later. Sadly. The performance made me think about phones in general. I admit I usually spend my time with my phone in my hand checking facebook or twitter occasionally. One of the performance said that you should go out without your phone in your hand and take in everything around you. Get on the bus and look out of the window, admiring the scenery. So far have I done it? Not yet but I will... Only problem is that the interpreter can be difficult to see. It's to do with the positioning and sometimes the actors can go in front of it but that's just a minor problem. Apart from that, fantastic performance. Possibly the best performance I've seen this year.

The other performance I saw was Hoke's Bluff. This was filled with energy at the start. Cheesy songs, a mascot dancing in the middle of the stage, someone with a tray filled with popcorn, a referee. This made me feel like I'm in an American Football game. High energy. But this play focuses on the couple, one was a cheerleader and one was a football player. It was great. The football player was called Tyler and what I love about it is that they used the audience and refer to a member as "Tyler". It was something different and hilarious. It was like the audience were actors and characters. Great. I love their use of the interpreters. They've integrated the signing into the performance. They didn't make Yvonne Strain in a corner just standing and signing away. They got her to be a part of the performance. They got her dressing up as a coach and reacting to what was happening on the stage. They showed a great example of using interpreters in a performance. They balanced the tragic side to the story and the energy side of the story. There wasn't a slow transition between them, it was face paced. It was fantastic. I was dancing along with the cheesy songs and sympathised  with the characters on the stage. It was fabulous. GO WILDCATS!

Forest Fringe is the start of something new. I cannot believe it existed for 7 years and I wasn't aware of this. I have subscribed to their newsletter and hope to see future productions with them. Fantastic day. Met a lot of wonderful theatre makers and artists. They were the loveliest bunch of people I have ever met and I hope there will be more people like them. It is still a long hurdle. A long wait. But it will be worth it. 

My week with Deaf and Hearing Ensemble...

This week, I have been in Edinburgh working with Jennifer Bates's up and coming theatre company called "Deaf and Hearing Ensemble". It was good fun and it had it's up and downs. I've spoken to many people this week and increased my confidence in networking. I just wish I had my business cards printed out then. I arrived on the Sunday the 18th, meeting the cast of "Deaf and Hearing Ensemble". I couldn't ask for the most welcoming bunch I've ever met. They made me feel like I'm a part of their crew.


I was nervous about working with them. They are experienced in the theatre world and had a wealth of knowledge. I talked to them and they were talking about their experiences and what they did previously made me want to achieve my dream so badly. They were working with a lot of people, had great relationships with directors, performed on stage multiple times and most importantly, they were talented. This talented bunch were Sophie Stone, Jacob Casselden, David Sands, Nadia Nadarajah, Brian Ferguson and Lucy Ellinson. They were my inspiration.


We did several activities throughout the week and even though I wasn't performing, I wasn't afraid to contribute my ideas to the piece that they were doing on the Wednesday night/Friday night. My favourite task of this week was being given 20 minutes to go and find a location, 3 minutes away from the rehearsal space. We were given 20 minutes to write down about that location that we were in. I chose mine to be at the bottom of the stairs and loved it. I wanted to run down the stairs in the building to see how far I would get. When I got there, I had no signal on my phone and I felt lonely. In a good way. There was a fire exit next to me so I felt safe and heard noises upstairs which sounded like ghosts singing. I felt like I was scared. Scared of what might happen to me. Which is a weird combination, a combination of safeness and creepiness. When I went to see the others, they all had an interesting choice of location. Sophie was at a grassy area near the Edinburgh Castle, Jacob was in an isolated land surrounded by rubbish and David was at the opposite side of the Castle with coaches blocking his view. It was different. I have done this task before and it was weird to see the differences in what Deaf Youth Theatre did before and what they did with the task. I felt that I've used my creativity well in this activity and I felt proud of myself to be able to showcase my thoughts and feelings. They used the idea of the stairs and the haunting feeling into their piece on Friday. Love it.


Another activity which was new to me and I've enjoyed was the "breathing" task. Lorna Penney lead this workshop which was odd for me because she worked with my dad before when he was a lecturer at Ayr College. Small world. She got us to go back to back with a partner (my partner was Sophie) and told us to basically breathe. We had to learn about our breathing and ourselves whilst learning about the partner's breathing. It was odd for me as I only met Sophie the night before for the first time and we have to do something that is quite intimate and close. We were then told to lie into each other shoulders and breathe once again. Afterwards we had to move around and communicate with each other by using our breath. We would breath quickly, slowly, quietly, loudly. In any shape or form. We were communicating. I felt like we were in trouble and did something awful but we had each other. We had elements of love, trust and support with each other. It was a great way of getting to know one another without using English or Sign Language to communicate. It was surreal and quite nice. Probably the most weirdest thing I've ever done but I thoroughly enjoyed it.


As I mentioned, they did two performances and I was heavily involved in one of them which was for "The Bloody Great Border Ballad Project". I had to check on Youtube the right order for this title. It is a pretty long one right? We saw the performance on Monday night. Basically, it's a bunch of poems about this girl who was born on the border between England and Scotland on the day of the Scottish Independence. The first poem starts off with the girl's birth so she's a baby. The next artist adds on a verse when she's 5 years old. Then the next artist adds on a verse when she's 10 years old. Get it? Yep, I didn't either. It's one of these projects where you had to be there to understand what the fuck is going on. I watched the performance without understanding what was going on but we spent all day on Tuesday the 20th trying to understand what was going on in the girl's life. It was just fascinating.You can check out the verses on Youtube. Just search "The Bloody Great Border Ballad Project" and there it is. Simple eh? I wish the title was... Here is the video of the Deaf and Hearing Ensemble performing verse 17!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D84V3YtOMJY
Check it out!


This blog is probably the most hardest blog I've ever typed up. It's really hard to condense my time in Edinburgh so this blog is dedicated to Deaf and Hearing Ensemble. Jennifer Bates, thank you for the experience. It made me think about my future and made me think about my own decisions. It certainly opened my mind a bit. In the next blog, I will be talking about my time at the Forest Fringe.

Deaf and Hearing Ensemble do have a twitter so check them out! @Ensemble_DH

Over the next year, there is going to be changes in my life. It's going to be a toughie and a risk but I am willing to make rash decisions. Watch this space...

My Experiences as a Bad Guy...

Recently, I have finished performing at the "The Birthday of the Infanta" at Eastwood Park Theatre in Glasgow. I've been up early, travelling to Glasgow, working there from 10 till 5 and staying over there for a few days. It has been a tiring time but a rewarding experience. We started rehearsing for this piece last year with the performance supposed to happen in October. It got cancelled due to other commitments and the fact that some of the actors was really busy during that time. I portrayed a character of Don Pedro. I was Don Pedro last year and this year aswell.


Don Pedro is one of the most difficult characters I have ever portrayed. He is a villain in the story and his controlling nature made it difficult to play this character. For the first two weeks of the rehearsals, I used a stick that used to be a mop but was used as his own staff. Using this has helped me so much as it gave me an idea of how would he be holding the staff and how would use it. The stick is his power. The stick helps him to control people in a way he expected to do so. He didn't care for anyone, he only cared for himself. He wanted to be able to run the palace in a way that it should be run. He believed that the king was an awful king and he doesn't take things too seriously. Don Pedro didn't care for the Infanta aswell. The Infanta (spanish word for princess) was the daughter of the King but after the death of the Queen he decided to give her up. Don Pedro was the one who raised her. He wanted to be able to be the one who controls the palace so morphing her into someone who is quite reserved and easily controlled is something Don Pedro is happy about. He can do as he pleases. But she found someone called Carlos who she loves and is happy again. He was furious. He had a scar on his face and his back. Don Pedro thought that it wasn't a good look and the fact the Infanta loves him means he could be the future king. He didn't want that and decided he must go therefore is responsible for the death of Carlos.


He was a horrible person. I had to disconnect my emotions at the end and not cry for the Infanta and Carlos because of emotions involved in that scene. I almost got into tears on Saturday when I saw Claire (the Infanta) coming on stage, almost in tears. I managed to ignore the feelings and carried on with the scene without crying. Even though he was a horrible character, I had a lot of fun playing him. There is something compelling about playing an evil character. You get to do things you wouldn't normally do in real life. I get to stamp my stick in frustration, I get to give judgmental looks, I get to control people. I'm not like that at all but being able to do this is so much fun. It wasn't easy but once you ease yourself in it, it was great fun.


My favourite moment in the rehearsals was when myself, Connor and Adam (who played Carlos) went to a room with Jane (our choreographer) and Daniel (works at Solar Bear and is an actor) to do some work on our character. Jane brought in a bag filled with grass, sticks, soil, bugs from the forest and dumped it on a bunch of newspapers for us to play about with. It was very helpful for Adam to work on as his character lived in the forest since he was a baby. I sat down and created several pieces based on the characters of the play. I created the King with a wilted leaf, representing his heartbreak, I created the Infanta using soil to make her dress and several petals shaped like a heart all over the dress itself, I created Don Pedro using soil to made a torso and several sticks in place to represent several hands, controlling the palace as he is a puppeteer. I also created the palace and what would it look like. There was a lot of long grass so I placed them together and made a roof out of them along with soil placed in front of them, with grass on top of them. It looked a bit dark, representing what it looked like under Don Pedro power. It looked like there was life sucked out of it. Happiness didn't exist. There was more judgement, discrimination and prejudice occurring. There was a certain sadness to it. Daniel brought in masks for us to try out and get ourselves into character with. We got ourselves into mask and improvised a scene. We can do it with interaction or no interaction at all. It was great fun. I've managed to pick out a couple of things from it which made Don Pedro who he is now. He is a perfectionist and obsessed with things being clean and precised. His posture suggested that he looks down on people, his tall stance made him seem superior. His judgmental nature came across in that scene when he meets Carlos and his disgust at him showed. This workshop really helped me a lot. It helped me with the understanding of the story and the character of Don Pedro. It helped me develop him future and make him a well rounded person. An evil person.


Performing Don Pedro in front of the audience was the hardest thing I've ever done. I knew the audience wouldn't like him and I was nervous about it. I didn't want to play him as a panto villain. I wanted him to be a subtle villain. I wanted him to bring an atmosphere to the stage, a negative atmosphere. I think I've achieved this after hearing the audience feedback. The feedback was great as they said they hated my character, how evil I was, how they wanted to punch me and how surprised they were that I was a lovely person in real life (this is ironic considering they are really negative things but it's positive to me). I was pleased with the reaction. I am happy they reacted like that. It was exactly how I wanted it to be.


This has been one of my highlights of 2013. The Birthday of the Infanta is amazing. I don't care if I come across as bias but it honestly is. I loved every minute of it. This won't be the last time you'll see Don Pedro though...