Our Productions

As a company, we have been inspired by a lot of things. Pretty much every performance we have seen this year has sparked a discussion and ultimately influenced something within the rehearsal room. Whether this is the layout of our stage space, or the addition of a narrative, or how to make bike wheels, as a grassroots theatre company we are taking inspiration from anything we can!

Every so often one of these ideas leads us to ask ourselves whether or not we are copying. In order to combat these questions I came up with a nifty little answer. Sampling. I first came across sampling at the beginning of my second year at university when I was reading Post production: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World by Nicholas Bourriaud. Bourriaud’s key thesis is based around the idea that there is no longer any such thing as an original idea. This got my brain whirring and a couple of weeks later I came across a TED talk by music producer Mark Ronson, all about sampling and of course although Ronson is talking about the music industry and I’m talking about the theatre industry, parallels can still be drawn.

Sampling is where a musician takes a line, lyric or riff of one song and places it in there own, in an entirely difference context. Ronson suggests that sampling in the music industry can be traced back to the advent of sampling machines in the 1980s but in the theatre the idea of sampling can be traced back even further to the time of Shakespeare and his contemporaries who regularly adapted stories from their own times to suit their means, right the way up to Tom Stoppard who effectively ‘sampled’ two of Shakespeare’s characters for his play Rosencrantz and Guildestern are Dead (1967).

 

So, as we proudly twirl our glow sticks in the style of Police Cops in Space and set out our auditorium in a fashion rather similar to Third Angel’s Partus I remind everyone that we’re not  copying, we’re merely sampling.

 

E.H.

 

 

Another video for you if the topic of sampling tickles your fancy.

 

Works cited.

 

Bourriaud, N (2005) Post production: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World. Berlin: Sternberg Press.

Parkinson, N., Hunt, Z. and Roe, T. (2018) Police Cops in Space [live performance]. Performed by The Pretend Men. Lincoln: Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, 22 February.

Stoppard, T. (1967) Rosencrantz and Guildestern are dead. New York: Grove Press.

Third Angel (2017) Partus [live performance]. Performed by Third Angel. Lincoln: Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, 18 October.

TED. (2014) How sampling transformed music | Mark Ronson

. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3TF-hI7zKc [accessed 18 Sept 2016]

vlogbrothers. (2108) 5 Songs You’ve Never Heard That You’ve Heard 1000 Times

. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNH7qzyuT4M [accessed 12 Jan 2018]

 

 

There are hundreds of ways to direct theatre. It is an art form everybody has a different view of. Katie Mitchell describes it as ‘micromanagement’ stating that ‘Directing means you have to be on top of at least 10 amazingly complex tools – the use of sound, of light, of design, of costume… whatever’ (2016). It is this sense of micromanagement which I have felt throughout my first few weeks as director of Sherbet Lemon theatre. As a group we decided very early on that we would follow a model similar to the Lincoln Drill Hall,where each and every person knows exactly whats going on in all areas of the performance and production. Of course, initially this came with a small amount of teething problems but now that everyone has settled into their roles the whole process is running smoothly.

In my mind a director is a facilitator for creativity who allows performers the freedom to create characters of their own within the world of the show. Although we are not doing a naturalistic piece my role as director has largely revolved around giving the cast the space and time to create. I often set research tasks, asking cast members to bring in as much research on a certain topic as possible so we can go through it as a group and pick out what sparks creative interest within us. I then often divide the room into two with Lauren our choreographer taking one side for a rather more physical rehearsal whilst I work on the speech.

By far the greatest challenge I face as a director is making sure that everyone’s opinion is listened to.In the world of Sherbet Lemon theatre, compromise is key although ultimately the buck stops with me. As an extremely large company it is important to me that everyone’s opinions are listened to and that company members feel that their ideas have been valued. I ensure this by making sure that each suggestion is at least discussed. I feel that we’re already making good headway with the performance and I’m increasingly excited to see the final product!

 

E.H.

 

Works Cited.

Trueman, M. (2016). Katie Mitchell: ‘I was uncomfortable coming back to work in the UK’. The Stage. [online] Available at: https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/interviews/2016/katie-mitchell-i-was-uncomfortable-coming-back-to-work-in-the-uk/ [Accessed 1 Mar. 2018].