Birmingham Rep Foundry, Improv Wolves shows and a new musical improv group
I’m a Birmingham Rep Theatre Foundry Artist!
Foundry is the Rep’s artist development programme, it started in April and continues for the rest of the year leading up to a 12 week co-creation project in a community setting. It’s been fascinating and pretty full on and is already giving me a lot to think about in terms of my practice, why I do what I do and how I could develop things. It’s wonderful to have a bit of validation from an organisation like the Rep and encouragement that what I do is interesting and of value. My fellow foundry artists are a massively talented and supportive bunch and the guests we’ve had in to work with us have all been superb. Can’t wait for more!
Improv Wolves have had quite a few shows recently. Here’s a lesson in things working out but not quite in the way I expected… Improv Wolves did a show for Birmingham Comedy Festival last year. A woman who was running sessions about group facilitation for DWP saw that advertised and wanted to bring her students. The timings didn’t work out so instead she booked us to do a workshop and mini show for her before our evening gig. She lives in Deddington in Oxfordshire and booked me to do a workshop and the Improv Wolves to do a show there recently as well as a second workshop for her DWP project which all went very well. The interesting thing is that had we not done the gig for Birmingham Comedy Fest she would never heard of us and those 4 other bookings wouldn’t have happened.
Talking of improv comedy, here’s the debut of a new group I’m part of. The video and sound here is pretty appalling but you might find the group interesting…
Music wise I had a good time on the mini tour I did recently and I saw The Staves perform as they happened to be playing a show at a record store on a day I wasn’t gigging. I’m trying to get some nice opening slots/tour supports at the moment, but pretty much everyone is saying how hard it is to get people out to shows and there’s not much risk taking happening. I’m playing less music shows than I’m used to, which is some ways makes me feel uncomfortable but on the other hand all the shows I have played in the last year or so have been a lot of fun and given me an interesting perspective on my stuff. A few times mid set I’ve found myself thinking “this song is really good.” I never thought that way very much when I was playing shows all the time, it’s almost as if being a little less familiar with my songs has allowed me to see them in a different way.