The Business of Show Business

Whilst some argue that a business approach to theatre can detract from the artistic outcome, without it the industry could not survive. Without it the great work that is produced would be a hopeless pipe-dream. The implications of finance and business affect every aspect of a theatrical production, and as our company moves further into a professional environment this becomes increasingly important. As students we ignored this; we regarded the term ‘commercial’ as a negative one. It’s far more romantic to see oneself as a struggling artist, working for nothing, making theatre because you have something to say, something that has to be said at any cost. The reality is something different. When you rely on the commercial success of your project to fund your next meal suddenly everything becomes different.

Over the last year, I have heard a number of people argue the case that ‘no-one is making any money here’. This statement is made referring to a theatrical enterprise, a theatre or company that holds the potential to be something great, something financially viable, something that in the right hands could become a sustainable commercial venture. But this statement, ‘no one is making any money’, is made and it is spoken with a sense of pride. The tone of voice offers the sense that the individual feels they are truly an artist; that the lack of income for their project somehow represents a sense of honesty and morality that cannot be found in the commercial theatre. Perhaps even the idea that commercial theatre is something to be frowned upon, that the practical business logistics that keep the industry running are somehow a negative force. It seems as if some have forgotten the aspect of business in show-business. I feel small companies should be making money, or at least covering their costs. It is rare that the justification for losing money on a project is viable. Occasionally someone will talk of a project that can never be financially viable, where the nature of the project, where its artistic principles are so strong that it cannot fit into a commercially compatible format. These projects will no doubt rely on subsidy, on support from funding; they are unable to exist commercially. In my opinion, this is totally acceptable but rare. From where I sit, too often work is produced that exists through funding, from the support of an external body that, if successful, could exist without it. If the project has the potential to be viable, it should be. The idea that without the support of external bodies, projects cannot exist is applied too widely across the industry. If the show has the capacity to exist but does not succeed through a lack of commercial success, then the project has failed. As companies should we expect for someone else to be subsidising our trade? To play devil’s advocate, should the tax payers be paying for something that they don’t want to see?

Having produced dozens of shows for Belt Up Theatre, a company that relies on a sense of intimacy between the audience and the show, people often question how we can achieve this artistically without sacrificing the financial side. The answer is, with great difficulty. However, all these difficulties aside, we have succeeded in avoiding the dilution of our artistic principles with business practicality. The difficulties we have faced over the last year and a half have challenged the very existence of the company. Now, just into our second year as a professional company, we face the most difficult challenge of all and it has nothing to do with sustaining artistic morals, but facing what all commercial entities must face.

This run in London has confronted us with the reality of the risk that we take in producing commercial theatre. And the risk, unfortunately, is a financial one. When a production relies entirely on sales, the capital raised for the project hangs by a thread and, at the end of the day, it is the public that makes the call. If the show is a success, the money is returned safely, if not, then you are left facing the deficit. The reality of the financial risk you take when producing a show is distant and unrealistic at best, the figures exist in a spreadsheet fiction where the implications of loss cannot be factored. To consider the outcome of such a loss isn’t constructive and, at worst, is potentially destructive. When this risk exists only in figures placed in a spreadsheet in formulas that treat it no differently to any mathematical equation it is something intangible, something that bears no resemblance to reality. And the reality only forms when the figures on the spreadsheet no longer represent a hypothetical profit or loss but represent a genuine, actual loss.

For a company that relies entirely on the financial and commercial success of every single project, the reality of actual loss holds potentially devastating consequences. The position of the producer within this enterprise is to closely observe and monitor the finance of such a project. The reality of the deficit that can grow is one that can appear long before the run closes. As daily sales reports demand higher rates of sales in the oncoming performances, the spreadsheet’s required capacity percentages begin to soar steadily. First through the feasible, then into the unrealistic and eventually the impossible. The public, the taxpayers, have spoken. Finally the theoretical is made real and for a young company, and its young producer, this loss is difficult both financially and emotionally. It makes you question the cost of what you’re doing. It brings the true risk into perspective. And it makes you think, ‘wouldn’t it be great to be subsidised.’

Jethro Compton - Co-Artisitc Director and Producer

Belt Up in The Stage

Earlier this week Dominic and Jethro were featured in the Dear John advice column in The Stage.

Asked for advice on how to adapt an epic story onto the small stage:


DOMINIC J ALLEN
You can't underestimate an audience's ability to suspend their disbelief. It's the theatre-makers most useful tool in reducing the scale of a play; you can have a multi-million pound set and a cast of hundreds but if you don't have a compelling drama that encompasses those epic themes, then you haven't got a play anyway. Once you've satisfied the play's basic requirements, anything extra is probably superfluous. Even when you can't do that there are still ways around it.

In Lorca is Dead, for instance, there are many plays within plays and because the audience are willing to suspend their disbelief, you can get around the vast number of characters through meta-theatricality and getting the audience to play parts. One could argue it undermines the themes and storyline; in fact I would say that it merely changes the way the audience connect with them. Once an audience becomes involved that directly with a storyline, they may miss the occasional subtle bit of plot but they will then have a vested interest in the outcomes for the characters on stage.

Establishing 'the rules' early on in the play helps in getting the audience to come along on the journey. In Lorca is Dead, anybody can play Lorca – but he needed to be clearly identified. A complete costume change was out of the question, so we boiled it down to a simple red scarf. The scarf is set up as a symbol for Lorca as soon as he gets mentioned, and that's all that's required. If the principles are established early on, the audience's collective imagination will do the rest of the work as you go along.

Ultimately, reducing the scale of a show but keeping its power comes down to making logical choices. The simplest solution is often the best. When you can't do something the way you'd like, find a way you can and make it work to the same effect. In Lorca is Dead we wanted Lorca to be everyone's main connection to the play without casting someone as Lorca; the most logical, simplest solution was to get everyone to play him. The result is that when he finally dies, the tragedy hits home especially hard for the audience members who are sitting saying to their friend: “That's me up there...”

JETHRO COMPTON

Epic stories are something that link all of our shows; we’re a company with storytelling right at our heart. I’d always loved the imagery of the Hunchback swinging from the towers of Notre Dame. Obviously that’s something that’s not going to transfer to a small stage very easily. For me ‘Quasimodo’ is more about the story surrounding the four characters, and it’s simple enough.

Rather than tackling the politics and Parisian architecture that are so important in Hugo’s novel, I’ve concentrated on the characters right at the centre of it. I’ve told only a small part of the story, the part that I found most interesting. To try and present every inch of the novel onstage or even just to try and cover all the themes would be disastrous. The themes that ‘Quasimodo’ takes from the novel are ones that relate and transfer most easily to a modern audience. The show is what’s left once the epic story of the novel has been and stripped back to its core. ‘Quasimodo’ presents the themes of ‘Notre Dame de Paris’, it presents its essence and hopefully captures the power of Hugo’s story. It’s the story of a boy in love with a girl, and the girl doesn’t love him back. I think that’s something everyone can relate to.

So if you’re working from a source text, something epic, I guess it’s important to find something at its heart that is more practical, more accessible and use that as your starting point. Don’t get weighed down by the size of the whole thing, just start with something small and manageable, the epic story will always be there in essence.

Critic's Comments so Far

We're hitting the half way mark on our time in London this month.

A few positive comments from the critics so far:

LORCA IS DEAD

Nominated for OFFIES Off West End Award for Best New Play

‘beautifully constructed’ The Guardian

‘fast paced and engrossing’ **** whatsonstage.com

‘real poetry and true emotion’ British Theatre Guide

QUASIMODO

Time Out London Critic’s Choice

‘A clever, claustrophobic hour of psychological horror’ **** Time Out London

‘an intense reworking of Victor Hugo's story’ British Theatre Guide

ATRIUM

Time Out London Critic’s Choice

The Big Bright Lights

We’re down in the big smoke of London town, making ourselves at home at Southwark Playhouse. We’re entering night three of the run, the official press night two of three. Reviews should be coming out soon so watch this space.

The Study, home to Breton and the Surrealists and also to Malcolm Kinnear and his fantasies, is looking bigger, better and more beautiful than ever before. We’ll post some decent photos soon.

Quasimodo has found his new hide away in the Playhouse Vaults, located in the Court of Miracles in the dark, cold dripping railway arches beneath London Bridge.

So far we've a had a few lovely audiences and audience members alike, including one man who finally fulfilled Malcolm's desire to share the stage with a gentleman wearing nothing but a grin.

We’ll provide you with more stories as the month progresses.

www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
www.beltuptheatre.com

Thoughts from Antonin Artaud 1

I am sick of this mediocrity, this half hearted fumbling, this flirting with scandal all dressed up in decadence.
This dilly dallying, a ballet, dancing.
This is not seizing art, creating art.
They are holding art in white kid gloves, tickling it with cotton wool. We must mould it with our workman’s hands – it is ours to mould.
Why should we quietly disrupt others? We must split things apart, tear it asunder in order to recreate – render this bourgeois dancing obsolete.

Here, on this bus, imitating the cries of the public’s babies, we feel naughty.

An hour later I woke to find them whispering inks across paper, cooing as one colour mixes with another, dropping wax in to water and looking, starry eyed, at what came out.

I am not one for this art therapy.

I am not one for seeing magic in imitating the play of children.

The play of children is magical – but we are not children.

This, here in the living room, is our club. Here is where us few elite sit and create and discuss, casting arbitrary values and assumptions on works and ideas. We assume we know and that others don’t. This is our clique.

The clique is void. Null.

As a clique we cannot change a thing, we cannot render any alteration to any genuine bourgeoisie – like this, we can only perpetuate it. We must grasp art with both hands and fly it like the flags of the revolution.

If one only speaks of war, no war will ever come. If one merely plans for change, then no change shall ever come to effect. If we sit and quietly deride others, then art is as strong as a foam sword in the middle of a gun fight.

Art is live, it can only be realised in the visceral reaction through the eyes of the viewer. We can only measure the meaning of our art through the change in heartbeats, the rush of blood, the dilation of pupils or the pricking of tears. We can only work towards an end product. Sitting quietly in our armchairs and thinking, alone in our basements making – this is not art. The art exists with the viewer, not the maker.

We must make and we must show and it must be bold and real. What we make and show to people, this is our revolution. Our art must be the flags, the guns, the terrifying reality of change. We must pick up pace and gain a momentum.

There is no momentum in sitting cooing at hardening wax or whispering at inks dry.

This is only how we wait for the death of our fallow ideas.

Southward Bound

We’re deep into rehearsals now for our collaboration with the Young Actor’s Company for this year’s Takeover Festival at the York Theatre Royal. Elsewhere is becoming very exciting and will be truly unique theatrical experience taking place at York Explore (York Central Library). Tickets can be bought from www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk so make sure you get yours!

Whilst not in rehearsal for Elsewhere though, we’re deep in preparations for our second run at the Southwark Playhouse from the 9th to the 27th of November. We’re taking three of our Edinburgh shows – Lorca is Dead, Atrium and Quasimodo – down south as part of the ‘Belt Up Season’. We worked out that over Edinburgh around 2250 people saw these shows and contributed to these performances to make each of them entirely unique. It’s always lovely to reminisce on our highlights whether these be mad things that audiences do or bizarre things that occur to make a performance truly different. We’ve put together a little list of some our favourite moments from this shows over their runs at Edinburgh.

So (in no particular order):

1. The Parisian Powercut
One of the difficulties of working outside of normal theatre spaces is that sometimes the technical equipment can be quite temperamental. One performance of Lorca is Dead saw Breton’s apartment plunged into darkness for a good ten minutes. Luckily we all knew where the torches for ‘Dreamscape’ (our blindfolded sensory show) were kept so an improvised lighting design quickly came about. Bizarrely this occurred just as the story moved to being in New York so there were lots of references to the New York Blackout being knocked about. When the story moved back to Spain the lights miraculously came back on. We’re not sure if the audience knew whether this was all intentional or not but behind the scenes there were a lot of panicking technicians trying to fix the problem.

2. The Stripper
In Atrium there is a section where an audience member is invited to come and perform a strip tease. One performance had a good sport in the audience. Well done him!

3. Breton’s Wives
The final performance of Lorca at the Fringe inevitably had a little bit of playing around in it. There’s one moment where Breton pulls back a curtain and on this performance this included several members of the Belt Up company playing a collection of his many ex wives who all gave him a slap. As far as the audience was concerned, this could have happened every show but for them it was entirely exclusive.

4. Kissing Quasimodo
We pride ourselves on the fact that the audience can get up close and personal with our characters. One audience member was so involved that as she left she gave Quasimodo a little kiss. Bless her.

5. A Genuine Thankyou
Lorca was full of fun and opportunities for the audience to mess about. One audience member that stands out though approached one of the characters as she left and said that her father had been a Minister in the government that General Franco had overthrown. She said we had captured the era and story beautifully and that she was very much moved by the piece. That was one of the moments that made us feel proud of what we were doing; a genuinely heart warming response. There were a lot of tears from the audience at the end of each show and we are eternally grateful to all of those that opened up to this story.

6. Over egg-cited
Apologies for that pun, it felt urgent. There’s a moment in Atrium where an audience member is encouraged to do something with a raw egg (a specific task as well, not just ‘something’). One performance saw an audience member panic, get over excited or just simply go a bit odd and she flung it at the floor. Bizarre. Funny, but bizarre.

7. Naughty audience member forgets the lack of a fourth wall
A lot of people grieve the loss of audience good behaviour in modern theatre and we’ve had our fair share of talkers, sweet rustlers and vomiters (she at least tried to be subtle and contained it all in her hand and wiped it under her seat). One woman didn’t really like Lorca (which is fine, it doesn’t have to be every cup of tea) but she made the mistake of being quite vocal about this so much so that she disturbed the rest of the audience who had been tutting and shushing at her throughout. However, she’d forgotten that Lorca doesn’t have a fourth wall and she was in a room full of highly strung, egotistical Surrealists. Hopefully having Salvador Dali roar at her that she was a worthless human being (this speech is in the play anyway but in all other performances was about the masses in general, on this performance Dali had a prime example to direct it at) and had no right to have such genius shared with her. Hopefully she’ll be more respectful in the future and remember when there is or isn’t a fourth wall to hide behind.

8. Egg on his face
Another Atrium one. Same egg moment. Audience member decided to eat raw egg. Literally just bit into it. If you bite into a raw egg it explodes. What an odd thing to do.

9. Dialect coach
Throughout Lorca, audience members are asked to volunteer to take the title role and act in scenes having their lines fed to them by the other members of the cast. On two occasions the doppelganger (two different ones) of Federico Garcia Lorca was in the audience so naturally they were invited up. Strangely both turned out to be Spanish leading to a bit of embarrassment when their beautiful accents tripped out words like ‘Granada’, ‘Vega’, ‘Cadaques’ with perfect (and beautiful) pronunciation making the English cast quickly try and emulate the correct pronunciation.

10. The one and only
The final one is a very special one and another Lorca moment. Unfortunately it’s one we can’t say much about as it would spoil bits of the play. If anyone has seen Lorca then you will know that very near the end an offer is made to the audience. This has only ever been accepted once and by a very brave individual who we are very thankful to. It was a very special and magical moment. Well done him!


They’re just a selection of our many favourite moments from these shows. The run at Southwark means entirely new audience members who will no doubt throw some more surprises at us – this is what makes these shows so exciting to perform in. No doubt we’ll post another highlights thing after the run.

In the meantime, you can come and offer your own contributions to these shows by joining the audiences – get your tickets at www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk

Look forward to seeing you there!

Belt Up

It's that time of year again (October to be precise)

Somehow it has become October again. There is of course a rational explanation for it being October again (earth rotating round the sun etc) but it's still surprising.

It's well over a month since the mammoth month that was August and we've just about recovered from our 9 shows at the Fringe. We managed to ease the recovery by doing another show, Macbeth, in the main house of the York Theatre Royal last week. This went incredibly well with packed houses for all three performances
The dust has barely settled on Macbeth and we're heading towards our second show of the month, Elsewhere, a collaboration with the York Theatre Royal's Young Actor's Company for the 2010 Takeover Festival. This will be a site specific piece set in York Explore (York Library) and wil be a bit similar to the piece we did for NSDF earlier this year.

The reason why it feels such a shock that it's October again is because we're back preparing for a run at the Southwark Playhouse this November. It barely feels a year since we were last there with The Tartuffe and The Trial. This time we're taking three shows that some of you may have seen as part of our Edinburgh Programme; Lorca is Dead, Atrium and Quasimodo. For Lorca and Atrium we'll be converting their main space into a cosy study with Quasimodo taking place in their spooky back vaults.

That's just a quick update, there'll be a few more posts coming that talk about the shows in a bit more detail but for now that's where we're at - it's October again and it's getting cold... so we're going underground. We'll be spending a lot of the next year or so underground it seems, that's a little hint at some potential projects coming soon...

James Wilkes x