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Unsurprisingly we’ve had to cancel our plans to create a new production with Dundee Rep this February. The intention had been to create a big show ready for when theatres can be open later in the year... 1/10
We’d have employed over 20 people for 6 weeks and implemented stringent safety and testing procedures. The show would even have made an asset of physical distancing rules. But we all agreed - it is too soon and too difficult to be in a rehearsal room. 2/10
Once again there is nothing ahead except plans. But plans for what? The plans we have increasingly seem built on sand: a production in Italy in March, a small-scale tour of Scotland in May, a residency in Japan in autumn, a revival in Spring 2022. 3/10
Theatres have nominal plans for this year. Spring cancellations mean autumn programming is busy, but it might never happen. The ‘industry’ is talking about spring ‘22 like, this time last year, it spoke about spring ‘21. ‘By then things will be getting back to normal’. But… 4/10
The change feels profound not only because distancing will become ingrained in society (Why did we ever go SO CLOSE to each other, or sit NEXT TO people when you can CATCH THINGS from them?). Enemies of art are capitalising. Is it the demise or evolution of live performance? 5/10
Let’s be optimistic. Each time things fall apart we think again but differently, a process that keeps repeating itself, leading us towards clearer thinking about how and when we can perform in ‘physically-distanced’ theatres. But that’s the ‘model’ we know. Is it a good one? 6/10
We’re talking to more people from more areas of the ‘industry’ and outside it than ever before. Sharing our thinking, listening to theirs. It’d be great to have that exchange with more people. Only by doing this can we prepare for what the future holds and form new visions. 7/10
Can a theatre company, committed so far to creating live art, evolve without abandoning live art, at least in the short term? A return to ‘full’ theatres operating ‘normally’ increasingly seems YEARS away. 8/10
Yet there IS an appetite. Ticket sales for some shows later in the year have been good! People WANT to go. So perhaps planning for an eventual return to ‘normal’ IS necessary, if only to discover a different, until now untrodden path. 9/10
Or is more revolutionary, ideological thinking required NOW? Who does that thinking? Can we do it collectively, or does real vision and change emerge from independent, maverick practice and thought? 10/10
