72 members
23 members
33 members
13 members
77 members
It's 2.20pm Saturday and I'm logged into the livecast for The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning. The audio from the preshow is feeding through, while the onscreen message reminds me that the performance starts at 2.30. The audio feed creates a real tension. 'This is all rather exciting' comments a guy called Rory in the livechat box. I am incredibly nervous - as nervous as on press night for the show on…
ContinuePosted on April 21, 2012 at 15:00 — 9 Comments
One of the big questions we have been exploring at National Theatre Wales – and always a hot topic of discussion on this network – is how NTW can help support and inspire theatre writers. Over the past few months we’ve been having an in-depth discussion with BBC Writersroom to see what we can do together to address these issues, and today I’m delighted to let everyone know that, in partnership with BBC Cymru Wales and Writersroom, we are launching a very significant new award for…
ContinuePosted on March 12, 2012 at 15:00 — 4 Comments
On Tuesday evening I sneaked out of the back of tech rehearsal for A Provincial Life and called Abdul who was in Aberystwyth. "The choir are still singing, just popped out to answer, will call you back" he whispered into the phone. For anyone who experienced NTW's 11th show, Outdoors, you will know exactly where Abdul was. For those of you who missed this often touching, sometimes frustrating, always intriguing piece of art, well, too late - because the reason I was calling was to say…
ContinuePosted on March 1, 2012 at 19:00
As you probably know, NTW is a pretty small organisation doing some pretty big work. To help us stay organised and plan for the future, we're recruiting a new role - Director of Administration and Development. The job does what it says on the can - and it's a senior role working alongside me and Lucy. We're really excited about recruiting this new role. Do take a look yourself or pass the info on to anyone who looks like a good candidate. Here's the info:
Director of…
ContinuePosted on February 2, 2012 at 14:00
A very happy new year indeed to everyone who is part of the National Theatre Wales community. It's been an extraordinary year for all of us - from the scale and spirit of that Sunday night at a roundabout in Port Talbot when 12,000 people turned up to see the heartstopping final moments of The Passion, to the storming of Edinburgh by Welsh Theatre companies including both our national theatres, the great Welsh talent behind Muscle, and many new and smaller companies proudly strutting their…
ContinuePosted on December 31, 2011 at 20:57
My job at National Theatre Wales is to build a community of theatre makers and theatre goers who together can create performances that change the way we look at the world. That's what great theatre does, sometimes for a moment and sometimes for a lifetime. And that's what we want to do here in Wales.
I've been a theatre director since my early twenties. The first ever show I directed (excluding embarrassing bossing around of family members and friends) was Trevor Griffith's extraordinary play 'Comedians' when I was a student. I felt that it was a play that talked about a world I understood. I loved it's punky energy as well as its real life relevance. During the interval we ran bingo games for the audience and I also realised that theatre feels best when great writing and performance combine with an audience who are alive and kicking!
I went on to work back in my hometown of Liverpool during the 80s, and I feel that there were many reflections of Wales (where I was born but only lived for a few years) in that time of desolating poverty and creative anger on Merseyside. Then I escaped to New York for a year, to train properly as a theatre director, and ended up staying for almost a decade in a city that stole my heart! I worked with some extraordinary performers and companies there and New York is the place that shaped me as a theatre director.
But it was when I arrived at Contact Theatre in Manchester in 1999 that all the bits of my life came together into an epic adventure - recreating a theatre for a young urban audience, working with artists from all over the world and, it sometimes felt, reinventing theatre on a daily basis.
In Wales, I want to apply the lessons I've learned in Liverpool, New York and Manchester in a whole new environment. I hope that the people I meet here online and throughout Wales will share ideas with me, argue with me, inspire me and challenge me, and that together we will create a new national theatre that is like nothing anyone has seen before!
I'm on twitter @john_ntw
Carys Eleri said… Can't wait for spring. Spring glamour plans looking so good. Hugs :)xx
Thank you John. I'm so pleased to have discovered this community, as living in London has often made me feel so remote from welsh roots and connections. It's great to see such lively creativity being used which I hope I can contribute to, both as an Actress and writer . Here's to a good year ahead for all
sam phillips said… Oh yeah! That sounds like a LOT of fun! Thanks! :)
Good letter about Freedom Theatre John, thanks!
I thought people might be interested in this poem I've drafted for Jacob....Apologies if this isn't the right place to post it.
F.X .
A poem for Jacob Gough 31st July 2011.
Midnight chimes. Moist air carries the clangs
and the rattle-roar of the dark train that mends
the track between here and your old home, Aber.
No stranger to small hours, you work on
after rehearsals to make effects, cue sound
and light and programme visions.
At The Barmouth Assembly we asked,
What’s left after the summer tides?
And stormed the ice cream parlour
with music, words and war games
from Play Station conscripts. Barmouth’s band
of back bedroom snipers fire at screens of empty towns.
Now, manager of Freedom Theatre in Jenin,
your Call of Duty at 3.30 a.m. is to witness
the humiliation of your technician,
to squat in broken glass and become hostage
with young children whilst arrests are made.
Real IDF commandos with real guns,
pledged to uphold the impossible
‘Purity of Arms’ code to, “maintain
humanity even in combat.”
Earlier, on a level patch of Welsh hillside,
I reeled through a martial form: slow, elegant,
designed only to deflect unarmed attack.
The energy ball I held was an imagined globe
one hand on Wales, the other on Palestine.
Special ops were the hand-over of sky-
screaming swifts to soft fluttering bats.
Whilst turning the tides of Tai Chi
I focused on your impeccable sense
of timing, sharp ability to read cues
and hope this keeps you safe as gun
muzzles bore and silence.
Kit Lambert said…
Sarah Jones said… Hi John,
Peri and I are in Cardiff on Wed morning if you have any time for a cup of tea and a chat? No worries if not. Let us know if your over this way or we'll try you again next time we are in the big smoke, Sarah
Sarah Jones said… Hi John,
How you doing? Am back from my travels with the Strangers project and was hoping maybe we could meet sometime soon? Am actually in Cardiff tomorrow but am thinking that is too short notice... I could come in to Cardiff on the 2nd of March or if you are over this way doing anything for Passion then let us know or if you fancy a visit to one of our youth theatre sessions Peri could always hold the fort while we chat. Anyway let me know what you think. Hope all is great with you all at NTW, Sarah
Miranda Ballin said… Hi John
just wanted to say thanks so much for the work yesterday - we love having you with us and it as a great way to start the year. I was impressed with the groups reflections on the play it really spoke of its power. I went online to check out Soul Exchange and I am even more gutted not to be coming as i know Kully from years ago when I did a show with Red Ladder - just heard her talking with Tom Payne but couldn't see/find her in the members list. I know how busy you are but please send her my love if she remembers me. Feel free to pass on my contact details as I would love to get in touch with her - though I know she will be very busy at this time. I was so excited when i heard that you had worked with her at Contact. Still there is always Rome... Thanks again John and of course to Hannah Miranda x
Sarah Jones said… Hi John, hope everything is continuing to go well with NTW. Really excited for the upcoming Port Talbot show as that is a key area on our doorstep that we really should do more in and I live in the local authority so be exciting to bring an audience. We have lots going on with MUTM in the next few years and finally a semblance of core funding for the next 3 years so a little more time to breathe rather than write funding applications and hope to deliver the projects afterwards. Really excited about your plans for emerging artists and as a theatre that creates work with and for young audiences and who recruits lots of emerging talent I think it might be good to talk more about this. We have a couple of exciting projects you might like to know more about and we would like to pick your brains on.Am away working on Strangers after Christmas untill early Jan but would love to come say hi in Feb if you have anytime? Hope you are going to get a decent break over Christmas, you must be shattered but thanks for helping to make Wales a really exciting place to make theatre, Sarah Jones Artistic Director MUTM
andrew Golightly said… © 2012 Created by National Theatre Wales.
