It’s been a long time since I’ve put anything up on this site, mea culpa. The closing down of Dramaworks and the last weeks of trading as much as I can were all consuming. Out of the window has been anything resembling a novel, though I am part way through a number and will return to them when I can. And poetry too, though I still intend to create a downloadable book of these. Instead everything has been about the leaving of Dramaworks, an enterprise that I invented back in the 1990s and which has now been bought out by Digital Theatre.
There is an ache in my chest over this loss. I have lived and breathed it for so long, starting simply with running workshops and youth theatres until I decided it was worth writing resources as well. When I started teaching I had been surprised by how little there was in the way of books which were helpful to drama teachers. Plenty of books about theatre and practitioners, but all theoretical. Almost nothing that was hands on advice about how to translate those theories into practice. I started with the father of realistic/naturalistic theatre: Stanislavski. So successful was this immediately that I realised I’d found my metier. I went on to Brecht and Artaud before tackling slightly more fringe figures. Then I decided to create practical approaches to set texts. One teacher said shortly after I’d decided enough is enough – I’d written about twenty or more of these – that please could I write about her chosen set text [which I hadn’t already covered] because ‘without my suggestions and guidance though the whole text’ she didn’t feel capable of teaching it. There have been so many of these encouraging and heart-warming comments. I ‘m so grateful for them all.
I realise how lucky I have been. The experience has given me confidence and a whole raft of knowledge. How many people can say that they’ve made their own career and enjoyed every minute of it? And the workshops took me all over the UK, to places I’d never been. My first black labrador, Daisy, and I travelled everywhere together. If she wasn’t allowed in a cubbyhole in the school I was visiting, she would be parked in a shady corner of the grounds with the boot open. She never tried to escape. The plus side for us both were the walks and explorations of new places. And being together.
It is good that Digital Theatre will keep my legacy alive. Not so good that there are schools who have not joined because of the cost of DT. I wanted so much to make my resources available to all.