Hi Everyone.
Listening to Einaudi's Island Album with my tea. Its slightly later than usual - 6am and the cats were scratching on the bedroom door wanting their breakfast.
Yesterday was the first full day back at Arc HQ at the Malthouse Studios and it was great to be with my core team properly again. The world is finally emerging from the period of festivities and rest. The emails are coming in again, the phone ringing and plans being made for new projects.
I went over to the Broadway Theatre yesterday morning to catch up with Chris, the Creative Producer to talk about the possibilities of how we (Arc) can work even more closely with the theatre going forward. The theatre felt empty and silent, apart from the few people taking down the Christmas tree and tidying the foyer for the next season and the occasional laugh and voice raised.
I can't quite put my finger on what it is that struck me, only to say I guess its the saturated absence of what was there only five days before. In the emptiness I could feel the foyer heaving with excited Christmassy audiences. Children, wands in hands anticipating the delight of the show.
When we talk about a theatre going dark maybe this is what it really means. A theatre is like a lighthouse - its beam lighting the small world around it and inviting anyone who cares to enter that world of imagination and possibility.
Of course the theatre isn't dark literally, there are people busy working on the new season, and there will be excitement again soon I know! Funnily enough I didn't feel at all melancholic, but moved quickly to thoughts of the future and the possibilities of what we could do in working more closely.
I stopped my musings when Chris came along and offered me a coffee. He apologised for not knowing how to make my customary cappuchino. I laughed and wondered just how many I had drunk during the past five weeks when the theatre felt like my home! (In the region of 100 at a guess!)
It was really good to talk to Chris and do a little bit of imagining about how we could make things work together there and contribute to making the theatre somewhere that people really want to go. More theatre, more musicals, music gigs, training, workshops, youth theatres and much more including a thriving bar. Vitality and life!
Today's title is an indication of how my yearly cycle goes and the familiar place that I find myself today as it was always to be this January.
I came across the Disney Strategy some years ago and I use it faithfully to guide me through the changing seasons of running and sustaining a theatre company, coming up with ideas and pitching for new projects and contracts and then creating, making and delivering them.
Disney created a way of working with his teams that worked very successfully for him as his business and creative output has proved again and again. Its quite simple and obvious when you know about it.
In generating new creative ideas he would take his team into the "Dreamer" room in which anything goes. Its a light and airy playroom, full of toys, soft sofas, lovely food and fun. Any ideas are accepted and many generated by everyone. The only rule is that none can be rejected. Then after some time the team has come up several hundred wonderful creative ideas, stories, images. Its a fabulous individual and collaborative process!
At this point they get taken to the 'Realist' room, which is an ordered working space with laptops, Pritt sticks. flow charts, mind maps, spreadsheets. In this room the team gets to work filtering every idea through the 'realist' lens. At this point only those ideas that have a reasonable possibility of being realised make it through.
Armed with maybe 15 ideas they then move to the basement of the building. There they find themselves in a dark, pokey, uncomfortable room. This isn't a very nice place to be, you just want to get out! But its the 'Critic' room. And in here everyone must roll up their sleeves and interrogate hard every one of the 15 ideas or stories. They pick holes in them. They see them in their nakedness, they rubbish them and come up with all the reasons why they will be turkeys. And then when they are ready they leave the critic space with maybe 5 ideas that have endured! And there's the rub - at this point they all go back into the Dreamer room and once again use their creative thinking to explore these five ideas and develop them. Usually by the time this second visit is done they have one or two compelling and wonderful projects that they then make happen!
All really helpful stuff for generating ideas!
That's me for today!
Listening to Einaudi's Island Album with my tea. Its slightly later than usual - 6am and the cats were scratching on the bedroom door wanting their breakfast.
Yesterday was the first full day back at Arc HQ at the Malthouse Studios and it was great to be with my core team properly again. The world is finally emerging from the period of festivities and rest. The emails are coming in again, the phone ringing and plans being made for new projects.
I went over to the Broadway Theatre yesterday morning to catch up with Chris, the Creative Producer to talk about the possibilities of how we (Arc) can work even more closely with the theatre going forward. The theatre felt empty and silent, apart from the few people taking down the Christmas tree and tidying the foyer for the next season and the occasional laugh and voice raised.
I can't quite put my finger on what it is that struck me, only to say I guess its the saturated absence of what was there only five days before. In the emptiness I could feel the foyer heaving with excited Christmassy audiences. Children, wands in hands anticipating the delight of the show.
When we talk about a theatre going dark maybe this is what it really means. A theatre is like a lighthouse - its beam lighting the small world around it and inviting anyone who cares to enter that world of imagination and possibility.
Of course the theatre isn't dark literally, there are people busy working on the new season, and there will be excitement again soon I know! Funnily enough I didn't feel at all melancholic, but moved quickly to thoughts of the future and the possibilities of what we could do in working more closely.
I stopped my musings when Chris came along and offered me a coffee. He apologised for not knowing how to make my customary cappuchino. I laughed and wondered just how many I had drunk during the past five weeks when the theatre felt like my home! (In the region of 100 at a guess!)
It was really good to talk to Chris and do a little bit of imagining about how we could make things work together there and contribute to making the theatre somewhere that people really want to go. More theatre, more musicals, music gigs, training, workshops, youth theatres and much more including a thriving bar. Vitality and life!
Today's title is an indication of how my yearly cycle goes and the familiar place that I find myself today as it was always to be this January.
I came across the Disney Strategy some years ago and I use it faithfully to guide me through the changing seasons of running and sustaining a theatre company, coming up with ideas and pitching for new projects and contracts and then creating, making and delivering them.
Disney created a way of working with his teams that worked very successfully for him as his business and creative output has proved again and again. Its quite simple and obvious when you know about it.
In generating new creative ideas he would take his team into the "Dreamer" room in which anything goes. Its a light and airy playroom, full of toys, soft sofas, lovely food and fun. Any ideas are accepted and many generated by everyone. The only rule is that none can be rejected. Then after some time the team has come up several hundred wonderful creative ideas, stories, images. Its a fabulous individual and collaborative process!
At this point they get taken to the 'Realist' room, which is an ordered working space with laptops, Pritt sticks. flow charts, mind maps, spreadsheets. In this room the team gets to work filtering every idea through the 'realist' lens. At this point only those ideas that have a reasonable possibility of being realised make it through.
Armed with maybe 15 ideas they then move to the basement of the building. There they find themselves in a dark, pokey, uncomfortable room. This isn't a very nice place to be, you just want to get out! But its the 'Critic' room. And in here everyone must roll up their sleeves and interrogate hard every one of the 15 ideas or stories. They pick holes in them. They see them in their nakedness, they rubbish them and come up with all the reasons why they will be turkeys. And then when they are ready they leave the critic space with maybe 5 ideas that have endured! And there's the rub - at this point they all go back into the Dreamer room and once again use their creative thinking to explore these five ideas and develop them. Usually by the time this second visit is done they have one or two compelling and wonderful projects that they then make happen!
All really helpful stuff for generating ideas!
That's me for today!
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