All over bar the shouting...

I can't claim for a single second that this was my idea, but here is a wordle of BYT's main aims and its imagined future. (Thank you Marcus Romer, thank you Chris Hammond.)  Now that the world is shaped differently, and the future is shifting and always tantalisingly out of reach,  and whilst there are still things to attend to make it all happen, it seemed pertinent to share our wordle here too. What's interesting about this wordle are the five main words that jump out - youth work young people theatre.  I have been trying for some time to pin down our USP and perhaps that covers it?  That is what we do - youth work young people theatre. 

Of course, that isn't all we do - as the wordle demonstrates... we're ambitious about technology, about engaging young people wherever they are and about extending our practice to include young people excluded from participation. We feel incredibly fortunate to have our amazing space - and are looking to develop it beyond ourselves as a hub of excellence for youth theatres in general.  As a designated youth space, one thing we can do is encourage young people to get involved, have their say, and make their own work - and we can prioritise that here.  We can say that the work of young people is central to what we do because it is.  I extend an invite to any young person who wants to make theatre to come to us and talk to us about it... this is the place for you to do precisely that. Any young emerging young artist needs to look us up and get in touch.  The space at BYT needs you... 

But that isn't all we do.  We are also about the bigger picture: opening up possibilities for young people to really grab hold of, to shake things up, try them on for size, shape the world, change it - think long and hard about what is possible.   We say - at the youth theatre - you can imagine yourself differently - you can imagine the world differently.  

My mother used to have a habit of using a phrase all wrong - of making her own world and superimposing it on the real one.  Many of her sayings are far too rude and sweary to record here but she often used to say things that were uniquely her own. If for example, you said that food was hot she would say, "You sit with your backside in the oven, and you'd be hot too."  Another favourite, in response to my saying, "I really wish I had...." was "Poo in one hand and wish in the other and see which gets fullest first."  (Obviously she didn't say backside and she didn't say poo!)  These sayings and half sayings have served me very well over the years. She is a pragmatic down to earth person, believing that your feet should be on the ground, and that there is a world of difference between need and want.  

Young people need a space to become themselves.  Young people need to find a way of responding to and exploring the world.  Young people need somewhere safe, somewhere to express themselves, to be creative - young people need a gateway into the cultural possibilities that the arts and theatre in particular can offer.  They have that here at BYT in pragmatic, down to earth ways.  

I have spent all day with another of my mother's idioms floating around my head.  This week has been particularly exhausting and the whole team have been striving to ensure that the youth theatre has the future we hope for - we strive every week for this, of course, but this week has been especially pressing.   As we sent off a particularly important application, I kept thinking, "Well, it's all over bar the shouting..."

The way my mother used to use this, I always felt that the worst had passed - that we'd given it our best shot and that we'd done all we could - not that we'd win necessarily but that it was finished with.  And that's how I feel now.   Who knows whether we'll get exactly what we want?  Who knows if the future we imagined is the future that will come - but there will be a future, of one kind or another - that is certain and in that sense, it really is all over bar the shouting - as sure as eggs is eggs the future will come. 

Because it matters - Trade and Serendipty

Happy New Year.  Okay.  It's not the new year, and it may not be all that happy for some folk.  But I am a born optimist.  (This annoys me.)    I've worked as hard as I have ever worked over the holiday period, and I'm still surrounded by disparate thoughts and random jottings that seem to be relevant and things that somehow need to be included in that which shall not be named.  You all know what I'm talking about. I can't go anywhere, see anyone, read anything without thinking "Ah, that!"  For instance, Anthony Howard, who died recently apparently said that the chief job of the newspaper editor was to nurture new talent.  (Today programme, Radio Four, 5/012011).  Much like the chief job of the Artistic Director of the Burnley Youth Theatre, I thought.  My chief role anyway is to nurture young talent. It's sometimes easy to forget that when you're knee deep in paperwork that your cat is using as an improvised luge. Anthony Howard also refused to believe that journalism was a profession.  It was, according to him, a trade.  I like that.  A trade.  I suddenly felt, hearing that, like I'm not some terrible interloper in the world - I can, legitimately, be my father's daughter.  A tradeswoman.  And I know what Anthony Howard is inferring, too.  Seeing the arts and cultural sector as a trade does, at the very least, make us re-engage with with two things...

1) Trade acknowledges a specialism - a knowing of something and a learning process that got us to that level of knowing

and

2) That we don't know everything.  That there are other tradespeople out there, who make up a rich ecology of arts, culture and the real world, people who know other things better than we do.

And to take the analogy to its conclusion - we will have to actually begin trading with others to enable what we do to work. A plumber might have the most amazing bathroom suite in the world plumbed in exquisitely, but if he doesn't bother with a lovely woodworked or some sort surround, it won't look great - in fact, it might look a bit unsightly.

So, here I am doing that which cannot be named (well obviously not right at this minute) when I get this bright idea.  I might not use it, I think, but you know I'm a bit of a magpie, so even if I don't use it it will still come in useful at some other point.  I send out a general call to a number of folk, ex participants to summarise what the youth theatre has meant to them. Well - this is where the serendipity bit comes in.  Because what I was expecting was, of course, to say how marvellous the youth theatre was and  how brilliant a time was had - and what I got was a moving and profound affirmation of the work of the youth theatre over the last 40 years and a reason, as if I'd needed one, to carry on.  Because it matters.

Take Kris, for example:

"Burnley Youth Theatre literally shaped my life. Every single person has artistic flair within them and for me BYT manifested and nurtured my inner artistic,creative self. Not only did BYT teach me all about Acting but also the value of respect and compassion for other people"

Take Rhiannon:

"My time at Burnley Youth Theatre made a massive impact upon my life. It gave me an appreciation of Burnley, as well as the impetus to think of life beyond my town, and the skills to pursue that life. Most of my closest friends were made there, and some of the best experiences of my life were either at, or in connection with, BYT. I am profoundly grateful for the opportunities that came because of my connection with the organisation-many of which were utterly outside the realm of the Arts- as well as for the people I met, worked alongside and explored life's possibilities with. Without a doubt, I would be a very different person were it not for my time at BYT."

Take Daniel:

"Without the Youth Theatre I would not have had the confidence to get me where I am today. The Youth theatre gives confidence and brings out passion, not only for the arts but for essential life skills needed to conquer life changing events. Now as a highly successful financial adviser I have a lot to thank Burnley Youth Theatre for."

Take Anna:

"I cannot thank BYT enough for the opportunities it provided for me: the exciting workshops and plays; the creative and social outlet in an encouraging environment; the chance to meet people from other backgrounds; the experience of going on tour; and my first directing opportunity. BYT allowed me to meet some of my closest friends, but it also gave me access to theatrical resources and workshops that were not available in school. I think it is largely thanks to the opportunities given by BYT that I was granted a place to study theatre directing at Birkbeck College this year." 

And on.  And on.  There were dozens like this.  People in their 20s and 30s and 40s who testified and time and again how profound the youth theatre experience was for them; how in big and small ways it has shaped their lives.  Taken them places they never expected to go.  Given them enduring friendships.  Offered them skills to work inside the cultural sector, and outside of it.  So it's not an idle or whimsical thought about the impact we have. It's a fact.  I knew it, of course.  But it was serendipitous to be reminded quite so profoundly at this point in time.

Collaboration - a tribute to Alan Daiches.

This is not what I am supposed to be doing.  I am supposed to be swimming laps in the pool.  Or cycling to nowhere.  Or running up a hill.  But my legs won't collaborate and my heart isn't quite in it. All the different bits are working on separate projects.

After a Twitter conversation yesterday I started to think about collaboration.  It's an interesting word defined as,

"The art of working jointly together."

This doesn't sound dangerous - does it?  And yet we are often torn about working in cahoots with others, sharing our ideas (in case someone steals them), and developing projects together in case someone runs off with what little funding there is.  Well, think bigger.

As Ken Robinson says, it isn't just a matter of talking within organisations but talking across them.  As he points out, this is vital for our survival.  Collaboration is all there is if we want to meet the future. For too long everything has been packed in boxes and kept apart. Keeping things internal and tight means only one thing - the law of entropy.  And we all know what happens with that. Boom! (And not in a good way.)

Two stories about collaboration:-

1.  I was once slapped across the face by a fellow poet for allegedly 'stealing' an idea.  I really hadn't.  We'd had a conversation and I wrote something based on that conversation.  As she struck my face I can recall the distinct clatter as my (very trendy) glasses scuttled across the road.  I was so shocked, I picked them up, got in the car and went home.  We never really worked together again. This is a shame because that partnership was the funniest and best time I have ever had in my life.  I have never laughed more, never felt more excited, determined or scared. Our work as poets, as history will testify, was better together than it was apart. And yet, it was hard to square the circle of both of our ambitions and hopes, and hard to separate who had thought up what once the collaboration began. And difficult if we wrote something apart and succeeded where the other might have failed.  We were also younger, and more driven and that can get in the way too. It did.

2. Alan Daiches, friend of the youth theatre, driver of projects and totally committed to the cause spent many, many unpaid hours working for the better good. He was, of course, like us all, not perfect - but he was a very big part of the reason that the youth theatre was built, and a very big part of the funding bids that went into that process as well as sitting on committees and representing the youth theatre at events.  He also had a lot of experience writing applications for other projects so that the arts team within the youth theatre could get on with delivering the day to day work with the young people.  He exemplified what collaboration means in practice.  The studio theatre is named for him along with a quote of his,

"We can achieve anything, as long as you don't mind who gets the credit."

This is a maxim that sits at the heart of partnership working.  Some years on from his death, the current crop of young people we have, have no idea of him or of the hours he put in to making the building a reality - which is exactly the way he would have liked it.  I like to think that the collaboration continues silently in all the joint operations that take place between the young people and that studio through the creation of shows, through workshops and through a myriad other uses that take place day after day - big and small.  They all count.

Right.  Now for breakfast.

Mandy :)

Christmas? What Christmas? Meaningful Occupation? And Hovis...

Bah Humbug!

Okay, I am not a bad-tempered person by nature, but there do appear to be a quite a few deadlines stacking up against us as we hurtle towards the festive period, and even more just after it and it's making me a bit irritated because I'm  tired.  I know this is circumstance, and I can hardly complain but it does give you a sinking feeling when you'd rather be dancing round your handbag somewhere.   Although anybody who knows me would obviously realise that :-

a) I don't have a handbag
b) I don't do as much dancing as I should.

So, a bit of a grumble to begin with.  Apologies.  I am minded to slap myself around the face with a wet kipper at this point.  I do actually have work.  I do actually have a job - at this precise point in time.  So no complaints on that score. In the past I have felt that I have made my own bed therefore I must lie in it - but the shifting sands, if that's not mixing the metaphors too much, make things more and more difficult to control - like someone else is making the bed or worse that I'm making the bed and then someone is coming along and messing it up.  It also occurs to me that there is battle between being reactive and being proactive all the time, and both get bloodied in the battle for supremacy. But it is about so much more than a job or merely work - it is about what Bauman calls "meaningful occupation."   The push to make meaning is what makes us human and I really feel that's what I (and maybe a few other people) need to keep sight of.

It has also become apparent to me as the austerity times have started to loom and bite that the world won't end.  It will be different, certainly, but it won't end.  It may be deeply unpleasant for a time, but it won't end.  It will certainly be a very unfamiliar landscape but it will still need navigating.

"One thing which even the most seasoned and discerning masters of the art of choice do not and cannot choose, is the society to be born into - and so we are all in travel, whether we like it or not. " Zygmunt Bauman

There will still be choice within this new landscape.  I don't know what that will look like, but it will be there and it may not be smiling like a benign aunt.

 A number of really exciting things are stepping out of the gloom though :-

1) People are talking excitedly about creative projects.  About making art.
2) People are talking about collaboration.  Genuinely creating work together.


I'm a realist and a pragmatist.  We need money - of course we do.  We have a lovely building to pay for and staff.  We rely on it.  But then we all rely on lots of other things too.  We rely on funders.  We rely on workers. We rely on the generosity of parents and friends.  We rely on the young people.  We rely on the drive to make art and to make it better and the best it can be.  We rely on creativity.

And as Hovis says in, "I rely on you" - lots of things rely on lots of things. Not absolutely appropriate, or a perfect fit to summarise the post, but worth it if only to remind the world of the great man, of what we've missed since he died, and anyway, I don't really need an excuse to share his work. As he says, I rely on you.  We do.








So, from Hovis and from me... Happy seasonal times.

All Quiet on the Western Front...or not?

Strange switch of pace this week - the frenticism of the show over and done with and the relative calm of moving ever onwards towards the Christmas break.

At the youth theatre, we are very conscious that we have to keep moving - that things change.   The weeping and wailing of the departing cast is barely quiet and we are, to coin a phrase, 'so over it!'  - as good as the show was, and it was very good, it is always a case of next!  It's evaluated, it's mulled over and we bask in its glory but we don't - and nor can we afford to - stand still.  As my mother always says, it's best to present a moving target - that way, it's always much more difficult to be hit!

Today has been a another day of building up new potential collaborations, associations and partnerships.  This is something that we have been making a concerted effort to do over many weeks.  The impending cuts will hit us all but we know that we will be stronger if we work together.  Today I have had a long meeting with Abdul Salek, from Dhamak, talking about hopes and ambitions.  There are many exciting possibilities there and I am sure we have begun a journey to creating something special. Karen has been talking to the youth work team at Marsden Heights in preparation for a TIE project in the new year, funded by the PCT.  She got to eat curry in school with Mash and Jenny, whilst I had to make do with a butty from the local shop.  Something not right there.  I demand a recount.

The elephant in this post is the National Portfolio funding application. It's there.  I'm not ignoring it, but it is ever present breathing like a sleeping giant.  Yesterday - yes Sunday - saw me thinking about how that might be. We have a strong programme of activity planned and are confident that if we are able to fulfil these plans we will deliver a really good offer for young people across East Lancashire.  There is no doubt that National Portfolio funding would make life a whole lot easier for us.

Yesterday also saw me reading The Selfish Giant too, in anticipation of an adapted version for a cast of 20-25 children.   Oh boy!  I wonder if it's normal to do that kind of thing of a Sunday morning? Then, it's not a normal job and things have to be done.  I am looking forward to doing something creative, I must say - a bit of lightness in the weight of paperwork. Karen is preparing for the devised show  - What if?  An original piece. Both shows culminating in the run up to Easter. And as usual, many other things are happening - there's a constant juggling.  I'm not complaining.  Rather that than twiddling fingers waiting for something to turn up.  

Nothing stands still.  It cannot and it does not. We are moving with it.

Two Performances down, quite a few to go...

"My Grandfather told me there were two kinds of people.  Those who do all the work and those who take the credit.  He told me to try to be in the first group.  There was much less competition."

I was lucky enough to sit in on the first playing of A Christmas Carol this morning, and was really impressed with the professionalism of an amazing cast.  It's brilliant to see the whole thing come together and for everyone to really just gel - proves it's all worth it.  It's a dark, intense version with laugh out loud moments, and it's definitely worth a look see if you haven't got your tickets yet. There are one or two tickets left for Saturday's shows - 11th December, 2:30 and 7:30.  Friday is virtually sold out.

What was really notable was the ensemble nature of the cast, a lovely feeling of all dependent on each other, and a real sense that if - Heaven forbid - anything did go wrong, then it would be covered by someone else. The most amazing thing was that everyone worked really hard to develop this - no-one dropping the pace or letting anyone down at any point.  It's rare than you can say that about a cast, and the whole thing is credit to the team - Pip, Janet, Karen, Terri, the costume ladies and the tech team and, of course, the cast.

The young people are also taking critical roles in stage management and make-up - applying foundation one minute, acting the next.  Yes - it's about the arts, and its value - yes it is about having the most professional piece that's possible, but what a thrill that such a group of young people can be so flexible, and so determined to make the show happen.

But then what would you expect?  Youth theatre is a training ground - it gives young people the building blocks that set them on the way to becoming young actors.  We take that very seriously.  But it is also about enabling young people in their journey to becoming rounded people.  Things impress me outside of the art of it.  Someone didn't get in the cast, for example, someone really talented.  Did he despair and take his bat home?  No - he volunteered to do the sound.  And that's where you know that you're doing something right.  That you're making a place where young people pull together and want to be part of it, even if they can't be the star.

That's how it is here.  This morning the caretaker rang in sick.   No problem, everyone got stuck in, sweeping up as the audience were being ushered in!  This morning a matron couldn't make it?  No problem, others stepped in to make up the numbers.  That is the way it is here.  And that is why the work we do is about the arts, yes, but also about so much more than the arts.

So, here's to the rest of the week - and more of the same.  A cast confident of itself, and a support staff who step up to the plate and make it all work.  Well done everyone!  Brilliant work!

First Post - A Christmas Carol directed by Philip J Hindle - Public Performances 10th and 11th December, 2010

Well, it's been a challenging week this week stuck as we are in the frozen north and struck down as we have been by flu and other such germs.  But are we defeated?  Of course not.

The last days of preparation for the show are taking place, ready for next week.

The show - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and directed by Philip J Hindle is exceptionally good - given the strong cast who are taking to the stage, and the attention to detail that inevitably comes with Philip's eye.   I know he's battled through snow and illness this week but he's managed nonetheless to absolutely step his cast through to a great delivery, that will knock the audience's socks off.  Well done sir, you are a gentleman (and an occasional, momentary pain!)

Haven't got your tickets yet?  Why not? It is - as we used to say - bazzing!  There are a couple of tickets still available for Friday 10th (@ 7:30 pm) and a few for the two shows on Saturday 11th (2:30 pm and 7:30pm.)  I am incredibly proud of the work everyone has put into the show even when it has been tough, the professionalism of the cast is unquestionable - a big well done.

It's also time to say thank you to all the amazing volunteers who work so hard behind the scenes to get us to the stage we're at today - the costume ladies led by Linda Hargreves, the technical team led by Perry Macro with a bit of help from Oliver Daley, stage management by Terri Feaney, and a very big thank you to Janet Dand who has worked tirelessly throughout the whole process supporting Pip.  I really appreciate all that you have done for us.  The whole team does.

There are a lot of unsung heroes in the work we do, giving up their time for nothing. For example,  Kath Pillier is working every day as a matron for us during the shows run, as well Betty and Mike Davies.  They make what we do possible.

We value the arts, of course we do, and we value what the arts - in the right hands - can do for and with young people but without the unseen legions who do the non-glamorous stuff, it would be next to impossible.   There's idle chat about the Big Society - and here it is - in Burnley.  It makes me proud to be part of it.  

A good team effort too - ploughing on with the huge of volume of other work while making sure everything is in place for a great show.

So, it would be a shame not to see it, wouldn't it?  Given all of that build up?

Mandy Precious, Artistic Director BYT