Open Works is a festival that will offer an intimate and collaborative behind-the-scenes look at making theatre that Sheffield has never seen before.
I sat down with Deborah Dickinson, Creative Development Director at Sheffield Theatres, who told me all about their rich and unique programme that just started this week.
As far as I’m aware, Open Works is a brand new festival this year. So I wanted to ask, what was the idea that led you to come up with this programme?
We thought it would be really interesting for audiences to see the way plays start with an idea or a concept, and then are developed through to performance.
We wanted the Festival to be experimental, an opportunity to take risks and be really bold with the programming, as well as showcasing the work of local artists across South Yorkshire.
So, we’ve got a couple of Scratch evenings and a Scratch afternoon where people can see performances at the very start of their development journey. And then we’ve got Rehearsed Readings when a play script has been written and audiences hear the script read out loud. We’ve got Works In Progress, where the theatre-maker or artist has probably got a written or devising script and is figuring out how they want it to look, feel and sound, and then we have Final Performances which are fully fledged productions. So we’re presenting all the stages of how a production gets made.
Why do you think watching performances that are works in their raw, first stages of performance will be interesting and important for audiences to see?
Most people go to the theatre and see a polished final performance, and maybe don’t understand all the work and all the development that is required to get to that point.
It’s like watching a gymnast. You look at their performance in a competition and it all looks really easy, but as spectators we don’t realise all the hours and hours of practice that they’ve put in to make that performance look easy. Theatre’s the same, and sometimes it may take years to develop a piece of work before it is ready to get to the stage.
Audiences might not realise that when a playwright writes a script, they’ll do one draft and then another – I’ve seen scripts which are titled draft 18A. With a Rehearsed Reading, you’re getting a really stripped back script, so you can hear the story. And does that story work? Because unless you’ve got a really good story, then you’re not going to have a successful production.
What we’re doing with this festival is peeling back the layers of performance and seeing how it starts from a basic script up all the way to a final performance when you add in sounds, lights, set and a company of actors.
Do you think there’s a chance that audiences will be able to see these performances when they’re eventually finished?
It would be absolutely brilliant if everything in the early stages of development went on to become a performance. After the scratch, we’ve got questionnaires and Q&A sessions to ask audiences ‘what do you think?’.
It’s likely some people may get feedback and think ‘this idea isn’t working like this, so we’ll maybe go and do something different’. Or when they hear their script out loud they’ll go, ‘I can see what I need to do now to get it to the next level’.
It’s an opportunity for writers to hear their script read by professional actors and have it directed by a professional director, with an audience responding to it, to enable them to develop it.
How did you decide who should be involved within the programme?
Because Sheffield Theatres is a group of 4 venues – The Crucible, The Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse, The Lyceum, and The Montgomery – and some of the independent venues in this city no longer exist, we felt it was really important to showcase the work of local artists and companies from Sheffield and South Yorkshire.
We programmed work from our associate companies that had pieces ready to be performed as Works in Progress of full performances – which is Forced Entertainment with ‘Cold Sweat’, which is a brilliant performance, and its UK premiere. Roots Mbili have got a Work In Progress of an African panto they’re trying out, and Stand & Be Counted are doing their ‘Soap Box Spotlight’.
Then, other companies whose work we are excited about are ‘Woodhill’ by Lung, and also the homegrown ‘How Could I Forget?’, which is a beautiful musical by Joe Carnall Jnr about a relationship between a boy and his grandfather who’s living with dementia. We wanted to finish with that because it’s a Sheffield story by a Sheffield musician and it sold out really, really quickly because it’s such a great piece.
Then we did call outs across South Yorkshire for the other pieces in the Festival.
I know you said that it’s really hard to give recommendations, but could you even tell us some based on topics touched on in the programme that might connect with students or people of that age group?
There’s a horror called ‘The Hunger’, which has just been to Edinburgh, about 2 people living alone on their farm in the Yorkshire dales, and their home has become their only refuge. It’s a kitchen sink meets post-apocalyptic horror sorry, so that one’s very good.
‘Big Strong Man’ has four northern lads who have the task of fixing men’s mental health in one night, and the audience are very much involved.
Also, ‘Blame it on the Pop’ is a Rehearsed Reading and new play, set between 2009 and the present day, about female friendship, relationships, the fallout of growing up in the noughties.
I think it would be brilliant for young people to come and see the Scratch Nights because you see 20 minutes of one performance, and then there’s a short break, and then you see 20 minutes of another, and another – so you get 4 really different kinds of performances in one night.
Also, there are plays that involve really beautiful story-telling like ‘Ìlóyá…The Journey Begins’, which is an one-man show that involves music, drumming, and episodes of their life from Lagos, Nigeria.
So we’ve got one-person shows and then we’ve got ‘For Worms’ with a cast of six, and a community choir of 35. So you go from a story told by one performer to something on a much more epic scale with a bigger cast.
Can you tell me about the different conversations you’re holding with various directors and casting members?
We’ve got an In-Conversation with Elin Schofield and Aisha Khan. Aisha is a writer and director who adapted ‘A Christmas Carol’ last year, which Elin directed, so that conversation will be very much about adaptations.
And then we’ve got David Byrne who’s a really charismatic leader and doing extraordinary new work at the Royal Court [Theatre London]. I would say, he’s unique in the bravery and boldness of the plays that he puts on, so he’s going to inspire people by what he’s doing.
What are your hopes for the future of this festival?
Open Works will be an annual festival, and our ambition is to get lots of new audiences in and start bigger conversations about theatre within the region.
I hope audiences leave feeling connected with the local artists and companies who are working really hard to tell stories in this area. It might be that they are stimulated or inspired, or it changes their way of thinking.
I love the idea of stripping it down to the rawness of what theatre really is and reminding audiences of that, I think that’s really interesting.
Yes, I think we sometimes forget that theatre is fundamentally about storytelling and connecting, and watching a live experience all together.
When the lights go down, there will be a wonderful feeling of anticipation about what is about to happen – what story am I going to hear and how am I going to feel? And you never quite know what you’re going to get.
We hope we’ve got something in the programme for everybody. I think the best thing is for people to have a look on the website and think about what might pique their fancy.
And people can experiment.
Exactly. They can experiment.
Ticket prices are quite accessible, so the Rehearsed Readings, Scratches and Works In Progress are £8. The performances are £15. And workshops are £5, apart from the BBC writers one which is free.
We’ll learn lots this year about timings, prices and new audiences we’ve attracted so that next year’s will be even better.
Open Works runs from September 28 until October 10.
