The Winner Takes It All…Chapter 2: Thank you for the plums.

Wow. 2 weeks. An entire British fortnight has passed since the Triliteral Festival began, and Daniel, Richard and I are just about ready to be rehabilitated into mainstream society. We’ve finally cleaned out Watson’s Warehouse (not a children’s play area in a pub but a geographically convenient safe haven where we rehearsed, built and stored a staggeringly diverse range of props and costume throughout the festival) which was in equal measures sad and cathartic. While it was sad to see our home away from home completely empty, it feels like now we can finally let go of Triliteral* and move on to other projects.

I meant to write this blog the day after my last one, but life somehow gets in the way. So, the following list of acknowledgements is way overdue, but hopefully better late than never. There wasn’t anywhere near enough room on our tiny Triliteral programmes to credit all the wonderful people who have worked so hard and contributed so much towards making the Festival the great success it was, and so, here it is- Halden Theatre’s official thank-you list.

• Paul Sellwood: For re-locating to Nottingham for five weeks and taking up the challenge of directing Thanks to his Sister, Selina and Daddy’s Bed, and doing a superb job.
• Sammi Searle: Also, for packing her bags and moving to Notts to direct After Life and The Price of Legs; both stunning shows. Also for her relentless help, support and calming influence throughout the festival weekend.
• Gareth Morgan: For providing endless guidance with our nine brand new scripts, and diligently communicating with our nine emerging playwrights.
• Cath Nichols: For writing the feel-good fantasy, The Price of Legs.
• Ryan Sullivan: For authoring the hilarious piece Selina.
• Yvonne Lake: Writer of the quirky comedy drama The Mason’s Apprentice.
• Roxanne Wells: For supplying the script for the magical family drama Land of the Lost and Found.
• Susi Wrenshaw: For writing Be Rain for Me, a harrowing but moving tale.
• Georgina Lock: For writing the witty and provoking drama Daddy’s Bed.
• Robin Acland: For supplying us with Thanks to his Sister, a delightfully cleverly-written play.
• Chris Tolley: Our youngest writer, who provided us with the Pythonesque comedy The Blazers.
• Nick Athanasiou: For writing After Life, a funny and moving family piece.**
• Leo Lanzoni: For acting in The Mason’s Apprentice, Land of the Lost and Found and The Blazers, even shaving off his beloved beard to do so!
• Jessica Chamberlain: For relocating to Nottingham in order to act in The Price of Legs, After Life and Be Rain for Me. Also learning a truly enormous amount of lines.
• Liz Smith: For perfecting a magnifique French accent in Thanks to his Sister, as well as acting in Selina and Daddy’s Bed.
• Kristy Guest: For being truly frightening in The Mason’s Apprentice and lost and found in Land of the Lost and Found.
• Rob Ferguson: For acting in FOUR shows (The Price of Legs, After Life, Be Rain for Me and Thanks to his Sister) and donating (practically) his spectacular vehicle to the cause.
• Scott Wilson-Besgrove: Whose plasticine-like face and endless energy made him David in Selina. Also, for coming closer than any other actor to full-on nudity.
• Becky Draper: For playing the child-like Molly and Land of the Lost and Found and Serena in The Mason’s Apprentice, a part written in especially for her!
• Tilly Mac: For enduring having to wear three different sets of ‘old people’ clothes! In The Price of Legs, Be Rain for Me and After Life.
• Sarah Lee: Who acted for the first time since childhood, and did a superb job taking on Selina, Daddy’s Bed and Thanks to his Sister.
• Nick Newman: For stepping in at the last minute to perform in The Mason’s Apprentice and The Blazers. Also for readily running out to buy things by my command.
• Sally Turton: Whose brilliant comedy talents brought The Price of Legs and Be Rain for Me to life, and also had a substantially less funny role in After Life.
• Tom Spencer: Who, despite having to swap parts several times, made the characters of Brian in Thanks to his Sister and Martin/Bondage Dad in Selina his own.
• Russell Tanham: A keen quantum-physicist who brilliantly played a know-it-all student in The Blazers and a horrifically hairy man in The Mason’s Apprentice.
• Leah Burrows: Small blonde firecracker who brought tonnes of laughs to Selina, Daddy’s Bed and Thanks to his Sister.
• Adam Spinos: Who generously allowed us to rehearse in his wondrous Nottingham Workshop (http://www.thenottinghamworkshop.com/) for Triliteral.
• The Grosvenor Staff: For lending us their function room for an obscene amount of time.
• Ashley and Matthew Watson: For kindly allowing us to effectively move into their glorious lace warehouse.
• The Broadway Staff: For allowing us to perform in their cinema, and helping our shows there to run smoothly.
• Central Inn Staff: For letting us perform in their great upstairs space and being very laid back and helpful.
• Andrew and all the staff at Lee Rosy’s: For- well, tolerating us.
• Nicola Monaghan, James K Walker and Ray Gosling: For helping to select our final nine scripts, way back in March.
• Fran Bonner and Left Lion magazine: for writing this glowing review of the festival- http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/id/3019
• Rob and Katrina Garton: My ever supportive parents, who not only bought full festival passes and saw all nine shows, but provided props, transport and accomodation for directors.
• Ewan Waters: Who bought a full festival pass and unwittingly got roped into being a full-on production assistant/stagehand.
• Our audience: For coming to see the shows and support Triliteral, I can’t thank you enough. It is heartwarming to see that so many people still care about good, scratch-made theatre.
• All the writers who submitted scripts: For showing an interest in our festival and handing over your work. Triliteral will be going ahead next year, so please submit again!
• Tim and Bobbie at Sharespace Offices Ltd: For all the printing (surprising amount!).
• Arts Council England: For giving us the funding, without which Triliteral would have just been a pipe dream.
• Everyone who donated props (particularly Christmas trees); Mr.Pilgrim Senior, Amanda Smith, Jean Doar to name but a few.
• Daniel Hallam, for coming up with the bloody idea in the first place.

…I think that’s everyone. Undoubtedly I’ll remember someone I forgot and write them in- if you are that person, I apologize. But for now, that’s everyone I can think of. That was a long, long, list. If you’ll excuse me, I think I need to lie down after that.

Richie G

*For this year, at least.

** We also thank all the writers for attending the festival, some travelling great distances to do so.

The Winner Takes It All…* Chapter 1.

Triliteral is all over. Can you believe it? All those months of me rambling and complaining about the rigours of the festival have finally reached their conclusion. It has already been a week since the first Triliteral show, The Price of Legs, made its debut at the Broadway Cinema, and it has taken this long for me to recuperate enough to write a celebrational blog!

Last weekend was altogether stunning. It was remarkable to see all the cast, production members and random well-wishers working together to make the Triliteral shows top-notch, and all nine came together beautifully. Admittedly there were one or two technical ‘hiccups’** on a couple of shows due to yours truly, but all were superbly acted and genuninely terrific pieces of theatre. It was also great to see so many people turn up to see the Festival and give it the buzz it needed- if Triliteral had made any more of an impact there would be a huge, smouldering crater where Hockley used to be.

It never really struck me until the festival itself just how ambitious our task was. No-one told me putting on nine different plays at the same time would be such a challenge! What with setting up spaces, stage lights, organizing box offices and prepping actors 3 times a day, we had our work cut out for us. But, by Jove, our dogged determination and general blind optimism saw us through. Still, we couldn’t have done it without the legions of people helping out, and everyone involved deserves a sound thump on the back. A long thank-you list is on its way.

It was also great that writers took such a shine to the Festival. Every single successful Triliteral candidate was there to see their play being performed, some coming from as far afield as Cumbria and Glasgow! I hope these nine literary masters enjoyed Halden Theatre’s interpretation of their work- so far nobody has tried to sue us, so I’m taking that as a good sign.

I found it thoroughly inspiring to work alongside so many talented and enthusiastic people over the weekend, and I can only hope that others liked it as much as I did. The boisterous after-after-party at chez Pilgrim was well-earned indeed.

For a producer, it seems, there is no greater joy than seeing a production come together flawlessly. I must admit to feeling a bit deflated now it’s all over…but hey, the Fringe isn’t too far away!

Richie G

*I felt the need for an Abba-related title due to the massive number of times Daniel and I listened to the Mamma Mia! soundtrack during the rehearsal period.

**Euphemism of the year.

Like the Hottest of Cakes.

‘Triliteral is like Christmas- we’re all very excited about it and whether we are ready or not, nothing can stop it from happening’- Richard Pilgrim, in his flat last week.

It’s crunch time for Triliteral. This is the week that festivities will finally begin and last-minute preparation is frantically taking place all over Notts. The shows will be ready, there’s no doubt about that- but there’s still work to be done. I don’t imagine any of us will be enjoying much sleep over the next week, but I can see the climax of all our hard work being downright spectacular!

Meanwhile, tickets for the Triliteral shows are flying off the figurative shelves. Two of the shows, ‘The Blazers’ and ‘The Mason’s Apprentice’ are already officially sold out, and a few of the others are getting close. If you haven’t booked tickets yet, it is recommended that you get on it: http://www.triliteral.co.uk to avoid crushing disappointment on the night. This really isn’t something you want to miss if you’re remotely interested in theatre, comedy or in fact any form of entertainment. We’re even moving up in the world, with a brief soundbite on East Midlands Today t’other day mentioning us! Perhaps the first Triliteral Festival will be the vast extravaganza we were hoping for after all.

And now, time for my regular rant on the weather. What’s going on eh? Since I’ve been working with Halden Theatre, Nottingham has resembled wintery Alaska, the plains of the Sahara desert, and yesterday, some sort of South American Rainforest. And this morning: rain. Lots and lots of rain, a real downpour that soaked me to the bone as I stood helplessly outside Watson’s Warehouse desperately trying to get through to Daniel’s mobile. In June!! I can only assume that the genius of Triliteral has brought about some sort of East Midlands-centric cataclysm, which has disrupted the balance of the elements. Oh well. As long as we have glorious sunshine next weekend I’ll be happy.

There is work to be done, so I must dash. Be good, dear readers, and remember to get those tickets booked! See you next weekend *excited squeal*!

Richie G

Triliteral Imminent!

The Triliteral Festival is drawing close. We have been rehearsing our 9 shows for 2 weeks now, and watching the plays take shape is beyond exciting. Of course, I’ve also been doing my fair share of trekking around Nottinghamshire, putting up posters and hunting props, but now I’m doing it in the searing sub-tropical heat rather than arctic blizzards. Which is nice. Although today it got a lot nippier all of a sudden.

This is all getting very real. It’s slowly dawning on me that six months of frenzied organization and hard work is finally reaching its culmination. This is confirmed by the fact that tickets are now officially on sale via our website, http://www.haldentheatre.co.uk/shop.html! This means you can take a look at our full performance programme for the 11th, 12th and 13th of June and book tickets to our shows. Tickets are individually priced at £4 (with a 50p online booking fee) but for you diehards out there who want to see more than one show (which you really, really should, being as this is a festival celebrating a collection of newly written plays) we have had the crafty idea of Festival passes. For £10 you can buy a pass which will get you into three shows of your choice- any day, any venue- or, for £25, you can get complete access to every single Triliteral show. That’s 9 hours of solid entertainment!! Sounds like a bargain to me.

The way the shows are coming together at the moment- with staging being figured out and actors learning their lines, perfecting their roles and being generally actor-y- I can say that all the months of preparation are definitely going to be worth it. I feel like a theatre machine at the moment- and while I have never been so phsyically unhealthy (lack of sleep and incredibly unhealthy diet due to repeatedly forgetting to take stuff out of the freezer and so being forced to eat fast food and ready meals), there is something mentally invigorating about being so busy and active. Every day is a little adventure, and a little more gets accomplished each day. And there’s always a new horde of traffic wardens in Hockley to be spotted.

To summarize: Triliteral= going to be ace.

Richie G

I like to ride the tramalot.

Competition!

The 11th, 12th and 13th of June 2010. This is Triliteral weekend. These have always been the dates on which we have planned to hold our beloved festival (decided way back in December- the bleak, frozen Nottingham of then seems far away from the sunny spring idyll of Nottingham today). Of course, we always assumed that nothing else would be going on to distract anyone from coming along on this sunny weekend and taking in a show or nine. But it turns out we have competition. As I strolled past the Theatre Royal the other day, what should I see but a series of brightly-coloured banners displaying the distinctive artwork of Mr. Terry Gilliam hanging over the front of the building. Yep, Spamalot is coming to town. A discovery that should have excited me* instead turned my insides to a lump of grit as I beheld the dates of this show. The 7th-12th of June.

So, prospective audience member, it seems you have a choice. When this fated weekend finally rolls around, sure- you could spend your Friday or Saturday night seeing this spectacular Tony-award winning musical which has wowed audiences from Chicago to Melbourne; you could be listening to several toe-tapping and hilarious songs such as ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’, ‘Knights Of The Round Table’ and ‘The Song That Goes Like This’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-fG8c-CMoU). You could indulge in this loving tribute to the beloved British film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which according to the Sunday Times ‘raises silliness to an art form’. Or, you could come and take in some newly-written Fringe theatre in the venues of Hockley. Not a hard choice, I’m sure. I’ll see you there.

Also, it appears our Saturday shows also clash with an obscure sporting event known as ‘The World Cup’. Someone called ‘England’ are playing someone called ‘U.S.A’. But I can’t imagine it will be that much of a threat to us.

Richie G

*Being a lifelong devotee of the Pythons, naturally.

Onward and upward.

Right. Time to explain another massive hiatus, I suppose.

It’s all been kicking off this past month. The chaos created  by final judging and casting has rendered me incapable of doing much blogging, mostly because I have very little idea of what’s going on myself. But the dust is beginning to settle, and I am proud to finally reveal our nine successful entrants, and the plays that we will definitely performing in June:

• The Blazers by Chris Tolley
• The Mason’s Apprentice by Yvonne Lake
• Purgatory by Roxanne Wells
• Daddy’s Bed by Georgina Lock
• Selina by Ryan Sullivan
• Thanks to his Sister by Robin Acland
• After Life by Nick Athanasiou
• Be Rain for Me by Susi Wrenshaw
• The Price of Legs by Cath Nichols

For a short synopsis of each show, check out the new page on our website: http://www.triliteral.co.uk/shows.html.

Massive congrats to everyone who was successful! I’d also like to thank everyone else who submitted a play to the festival; the standard of writing we have seen has been inspiringly high, and the judges’ final scores were incredibly close. If all goes to plan, Triliteral will be happening again next year, so why not try your luck again next time!

But what a wonderful and diverse range of plays we have to put on this year! We have comedies, romances, thrillers, a history (kind of) and only two plays that feature a murder! I can confidently say that there will be something for everyone during our production weekend.

We’ve also made a start on casting our glorious nine. Fortunately we’ve managed to avoid having nine separate ensembles, and have devised a cunning system whereby a team of four or five actors will perform three different shows, all under the guidance of the same director. This, we hope, will minimize anarchy. But I digress- a veritable swarm of very talented people descended on the Grosvenor pub on Wednesday and Thursday to audition. It was hectic to say the least (I’m glad everyone who auditioned was fairly patient) but we got through it a, and made a good deal of progress. We’re still working stuff out among us, but by this time next week we intend to have assembled three full casts.

I’m also pleased to say that the erudite  dramaturg Gareth Morgan, and mighty directors Paul Sellwood and Sammi Searle are all fully ensconced within the project, and handled auditions admirably. With the dramaturgical abilities of Mr. Morgan and the input of the play writers themselves, we hope to work the scripts into a fully stageable piece of theatre- this project is turning into the collaborative masterwork it was always meant to be!

On that note, I would like to issue a reply to Mr. Pilgrim’s recent blog entry, entitled ‘Bye Bye Baby’ (http://richardpilgrim.blogspot.com/2010/04/bye-bye-baby.html), in which he begrudges being left out of the loop now that he is working full-time ‘down’t pit’. Richard, if you haven’t been paying attention to my blog over the past months, is the man who has made Triliteral Festival possible up to this point – oh, sure, we’ve all had a hand in it, but without his wealth of experience, wisdom, good judgement and his endless list of connections, Triliteral would have undoubtably fallen flat on its face. Richard, we thank you deeply for the work you’ve done, and are sorry that you are having to take a back seat as the festival progressively moves away from the literary and towards the theatrical. There is, of course, an easy solution to all this- hand in your notice at that Godforsaken Northamptonshire salt mine and come and work on the Festival full time! It is awfully fun, even though I moan a lot.

Right, I think that’s me done. I hope you like waffles, because this has been a big one.

I promise to blog more often.

Richie G

The Calm Before the Storm…?

The relatively chillaxed month of March is drawing to an end, and soon Halden Theatre will explode in a flurry of activity (all Triliteral-related, naturally) ! We expect to have all the feedback from our almighty and all-knowing judges in a week’s time, and then it’s just a heartbeat until casting begins for our nine glossy new plays. Even typing the word ‘nine’ made my stomach do an involuntarysomersault. We’re a bit crazy to be dong this, aren’t we? Why didn’t anyone stop us?

While April is looking like a chaotic looming volcano, March was as sedate and serene as predicted (hence the lack of blog movements). Perhaps the busiest we have been was when Daniel and I took a trip down to Cheltenham- not for the horse-racing, but to meet up with the newest recruits to the Triliteral cause, my old university chums Mr. Tall Paul and Ms. Sammi Searle. These brave, enterprising (some would say, foolhardy) souls have agreed to do a spot of directing for the festival, lightening our workload massively. The day was spent in hard, intense discussion about the nature of Triliteral, broken up only slightly by hours and hours of drinking beer and general nattering (oh, and an ill-conceived wander through the rainy alleys of Cheltenham searching for a pub called the ‘Brewmaster’-totally worth it though). A fun and productive day, marred only by our train home- as it was the last day of the Cheltenham Festival, the rush was enormous and we were herded onto a train full of depressed gamblers. Also we had eaten too many co-op pork pies, and were feeling a bit vomity.

Speaking of hedonism, my birthday celebrations took place on Saturday!* This consisted of a banquet of royal proportions held at Daniel’s abode, complete with 12 courses, a great deal of wine, some obscene birthday cards (credit to Richard Pilgrim), a flourescent green T-shirt (more credit to Richard Pilgrim) and the best British ale known to mankind: http://hywelsbiglog.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/beer-review-robinsons-old-tom-strong-ale/.** Honestly, one of the best birthdays I have had so far and I would like to thank Daniel Hallam, Richard Pilgrim and Karielle Webster for making it such a treat. Not that I can remember much of it…needless to say, not much got done on Sunday.

But my birthday has passed, and these frivolities must end! Auditions are our top priority at the moment, and our casting call for the Triliteral plays is ongoing. Anyone wishing to audition should read the previous blog post, and then e-mail actors@haldentheatre.co.uk to confirm attendance. Yeah.

That’s it from me. I’ll be back in a week or so, when I will announce our judge’s decisions on which nine plays Halden will be producing this June, oh the excitement!

Keep it real,

Richie G

*That’s right, I’m advancing through my twenties alarmingly quickly. Twenty-two has arrived, and my spring years are behind me…

** Goodness, this fellow has used the same theme as me! However, he is the superior blogger in that he has figured out how to put pictures in.

Casting Call / Our Illustrious Judges

Well. March isn’t proving to be anywhere near as relaxing as I’d hoped. Turns out there is a long list of things that need sorting out, and it falls to HTC’s trusty producer (me) to make sure everything goes as planned (especially true at the moment, as Daniel informs me that his keyboard is refusing to co-operate. A likely story…). One of my producer-ly duties this week was to arrange auditions; as our judges painstakingly scrutinize our shortlisted scripts, we need to start thinking about casting the plays once the winners are decided. To this end, I am proud to announce…

The Triliteral Stageplay Festival Casting Call!!! *loud fanfare*

We’re looking to recruit between ten and fifteen actors altogether, and we need people of all ages, genders and creeds. If you fancy showing us your acting talent, our preliminary auditions are being held on the 7th and 8th of April*, at 11AM at the Grosvenor Pub, on Mansfield Road. This won’t be a massively formal affair, and there is no need to prepare anything- casting could well be a long process, and these sessions are just for us to get an idea of people’s acting styles. If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail actors@haldentheatre.co.uk– and if you just want to let us know you’re coming, that’s fine too! Daniel and I will be spending tomorrow putting posters up around Nottingham about this (what joy) so keep an eye out for them.

In other news, I feel that it is about time we announced our team of judges. After all, it’s only fair to let our submittees know who is going through their stageplay with a critical eye and an unforgiving red pen at this very moment. So, here they are:

• Ray Gosling: Local Broadcaster and veteran documentary-maker.
• Nicola Monaghan: Nottinghamshire Novelist, author of The Killing Jar.
• Gareth Morgan: Pioneering dramaturg, and self-made man.
• James K Walker: Literary Editor of Left Lion, and merciless podcast interviewer.

Wow! Those are some pretty impressive names right there. Using our ingeniously devised scoring system, these folks are going to be giving us their wisdom and letting us know which plays we should be putting on. The future of Triliteral is in their hands…

Stay sexy,

Richie G

*There is no need to attend both dates, one or the other is fine.

Submission Time Over!

That’s it! It’s over. The end. Fin. Yesterday the submission period for Triliteral finally closed, and we are no longer accepting scripts. Thanks to everyone who submitted, and good luck! We spent yesterday shortlisting our healthy stack of fresh, hot-off-the-printer stageplays down to a more manageable number, and they are now ready to be sent off to the judges (to be revealed soon!) for final selection. We’ll be in touch with successful entrants within a month.

Shortlisting was surprisingly painless. Richard, Daniel and I seem to trust each other’s judgement enough that we were able to get through the pile pretty quickly! We even had time for a delicious Sunday roast cooked by our gracious host, Richard Pilgrim*. Effectively, this means that Daniel and I can relax a little bit now- of course, there are always bits and bobs to do, but it’s nice to not have ‘if-no-one-submits-it-will-surely-ruin-us’ stress any more. The superb quality of a lot of our scripts is also massively reassuring!

More good news- Arts Council England have granted us funding! Their letter came the other day, much to our relief. Their contribition will making it immeasurably easier to mount Triliteral, and we’re incredibly grateful to these clever, prudent people. All in all, February has been a successful month for Halden Theatre. Let’s hope things only get better.

Richie G

*Spare a thought for this poor man, who has returned to full-time employment and as such spent this glorious March day slaving away in an office. He will be sorely missed…

Crisis Averted!

My word, it’s been a long time. There are two principal reasons for not updating ye olde blog for so long; firstly, I’ll be frank here; I am a bone-idle, procrastinating waster who wishes he was still back at university where he could get away with it. It’s amazing that I’ve written as much of this blog as I have. And secondly- well, there hasn’t been an awful lot to write about…

All any of us at Halden Theatre have really been doing in the last couple of weeks is eagerly monitoring the submissions inbox, watching as the stream of beautiful new plays trickles in. Until today. Today we narrowly avoided a disaster of apocalyptic proportions, which very nearly put both myself and Daniel into cardiac arrest. Here is the tale.

This morning at about 4:30 AM I received a phonecall from a couple of rowdy, drunken individuals of my acquaintance (who shall remain nameless*). I hung up almost instantly, put my phone to silent and went back to sleep. When I got up I neglected to put it back to normal- and when I glanced at it around 3PM, I saw that I has 4 missed calls from Daniel (our esteemed Artistic Director), along with an ominous text message, which read something like, ‘Slight crisis, my computer is ****ed, ergo we may have lost all submissions and not be able to recover new ones’.  A ‘slight’ crisis, you say?

I was over in a flash with my dusty, trusty laptop to attempt to salvage this appalling situation. Turns out that Daniel was being a little dramatic (his prerogative, one might say), and that while his computer, which was storing all our submissions to date, had more or less given up the ghost, said submissions were backed up online. Still, this hiccup had scared the daylights out of me, and after downloading the backed up files I immediately saved them to my laptop, then my memory stick. A team of monks are currently transcribing them on parchment to be stored in a chest in my attic.

So, MASSIVE sigh of relief. I’ve been made temporary guardian and steward of the submissions until Daniel’s computer is fixed, so all current and subsequent stageplays are mercifully safe.

On a totally different note, the deadline for Triliteral submissions is 12 noon on February 28th- so, If you fancy the chance to have your work performed by professionals at a public venue, you’d better get cracking! Just over a week to go- what are you waiting for??

* Elizabeth Louise O’Brien and Samantha Claire Searle, both of London.