Hi all and good morning!
Back in the office yesterday for my first full day since my Polish escapade. Touching base with the team, exchanging news and developments, work experience girls and spreadsheets just about sums up most of it. And the first day of the next leg of the Mullered tour. There are so many projects at different stages of development that my mind is full to the brim, but its great.
One of our most exciting projects is exploring the feasibility of upgrading our two studios at the Malthouse into a 150 seater studio theatre. We are meeting consultants this week to look at speching it out. This idea has been on the radar for a couple of years now, and I originally envisaged it as a way to support the development of the offer at the Broadway Theatre by creating an alternative small, intimate and flexible space to complement the larger more traditional one. I hope we will be able to work closely with the theatre to develop this relationship.
Since we moved to the our studios in 2008 we have created a small studio performance space many times for our shows and managed with some creativity to fit in up to a hundred audience members. Its always been a bit make-shift but has an energy of raw excitement and vitality. Indeed spending time in a number of theatres in Poland just like this has encouraged my sense that this next step for us at the Malthouse allows a non civic, soulful and earthy multi-purpose performance space that can be used by a wide range of artists both professional and amateur. It has the potential to be in the ilk of other such London spaces as the Chocolate Factory, not least as this area is one of the only London Boroughs set to grow over the next ten years. Its long been the ambition to develop the creative industries quarter here on Abbey road, and with the vision for the Malthouse and Granary (next door) and the new residential development on the site I believe a transformation is on the horizon. Talking to colleagues in the Children's Services directorate of the council suggests that this might well appeal to schools too. They will be helping us to build the vision going forward.
I am also in discussions at the moment with a number of people about programming for the coming year which will also now include a short residency by our newly found namesake friends at Teatr Arka in Poland on their way back from the Edinburgh Festival in August.
Yesterday was also blessed with a lovely sunny lunch with my friend director Tim Major. We have been meeting and exchanging emails over the past few months, largely to share practice and to imagine new ways of working. Our lunch lasted over 2 hours, it was always going to! And as is the beauty of synchronicity as we talked we realised once again what a small world the theatre is. I was sharing some of the learning I got from my Polish odyssey and he said that he too had performed in Poland many years ago. Indeed it transpires that he has worked extensively with one of my fellow actors from Triple Action Theatre, Paul Stebbings who I haven't seen for many years but who now makes theatre very successfully in Munich. After the end of TAT Paul went on to set up his own company TNT and directed Tim in number of shows for them.
That wasn't all, I talked more about my time with TAT in the US, and in particular the time we spent with Steppenwolf and Remains Theatres which it turns out Tim also knows well. I shared with him the excitement of being part of a group of twenty somethings making theatre in the eighties, and laughed a lot about how many of our group went on to great careers in theatre and film and I came to Barking! (which I love of course!)
The work we did back then was experimental, daring and curious about life. Steppenwolf continues today to produce some extraordinary work. Purple Heart by Bruce Norris is one such example - I saw the Gate production last month recently at Notting Hill and dedicated my blog 74 to talking about it.
Out of that stable came John Malkovich, William L Petersen (of CSI Miami fame), Donny Moffitt, Glen Close, Laurie Metcalf, Gary Sinise, Amy Morton,Gary Cole. It was a heady time, and we all cut our teeth together. I'm out of touch with most of them now, and probably wouldn't even get past their managers, but I did meet up with Donny a couple of years ago when he was working with Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic, and Amy when she starred in August Osage County by Tracy Letts at the National. Our paths have taken us in very different directions but I know that our roots remain deeply embedded in the same soil.
Its always nice to catch up with them on screen though - and to remember just how good they all are!
Funny these little moments of connection. I read much of Carl Jung's writing in my twenties, and have always been fascinated by his theories of synchronicity and archetypes. I dip into them from time to time still to refresh my mind.Its a joy to know that around an unexpected corner or during a chance conversation one might just happen on a moment of apparent coincidence that once again reveals the underlying connectivity of us all. You just have to look out for them!
I plan to do so today too - I'll let you know how I get on!
Have a good one.
Back in the office yesterday for my first full day since my Polish escapade. Touching base with the team, exchanging news and developments, work experience girls and spreadsheets just about sums up most of it. And the first day of the next leg of the Mullered tour. There are so many projects at different stages of development that my mind is full to the brim, but its great.
One of our most exciting projects is exploring the feasibility of upgrading our two studios at the Malthouse into a 150 seater studio theatre. We are meeting consultants this week to look at speching it out. This idea has been on the radar for a couple of years now, and I originally envisaged it as a way to support the development of the offer at the Broadway Theatre by creating an alternative small, intimate and flexible space to complement the larger more traditional one. I hope we will be able to work closely with the theatre to develop this relationship.
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| Menier Chocolate Factory |
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| Studio one at the Malthouse |
Yesterday was also blessed with a lovely sunny lunch with my friend director Tim Major. We have been meeting and exchanging emails over the past few months, largely to share practice and to imagine new ways of working. Our lunch lasted over 2 hours, it was always going to! And as is the beauty of synchronicity as we talked we realised once again what a small world the theatre is. I was sharing some of the learning I got from my Polish odyssey and he said that he too had performed in Poland many years ago. Indeed it transpires that he has worked extensively with one of my fellow actors from Triple Action Theatre, Paul Stebbings who I haven't seen for many years but who now makes theatre very successfully in Munich. After the end of TAT Paul went on to set up his own company TNT and directed Tim in number of shows for them.
Out of that stable came John Malkovich, William L Petersen (of CSI Miami fame), Donny Moffitt, Glen Close, Laurie Metcalf, Gary Sinise, Amy Morton,Gary Cole. It was a heady time, and we all cut our teeth together. I'm out of touch with most of them now, and probably wouldn't even get past their managers, but I did meet up with Donny a couple of years ago when he was working with Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic, and Amy when she starred in August Osage County by Tracy Letts at the National. Our paths have taken us in very different directions but I know that our roots remain deeply embedded in the same soil.
Its always nice to catch up with them on screen though - and to remember just how good they all are!
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| Carl Jung |
I plan to do so today too - I'll let you know how I get on!
Have a good one.
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