The Product of a Year's Process

I'm coming to the end of my year studying an MA in Theatre Directing at East 15 Acting School. It's been an interesting year and I've been on a huge journey. I applied for the course because I felt like I needed to top up my toolbox for my work in Community Theatre and because I was frustrated with the low production standards in a lot of the work that I was seeing, and creating.

When I was studying for my BA in Community Arts we would talk a lot about the tension between process and product but I found I had got to a place, where I was constantly disappointed with the product. It was this discontentment that had led me to apply for the course, aiming to come out the other end better-equipped for work in the community sector and striving to raise the bar on the "product" of the projects I would work on.

So, I have spent a year in class with 25 emerging directors learning about Contemporary British Theatre, Comedy and Farce, Music Theatre and techniques for directing and was given the incredible opportunity to undertake an independent module assisting Matthew Dunster on his production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. Somewhere along the way I decided to allow myself to consider aiming to work as a director in the professional industry. It didn't ever quite sit comfortably with me, and I was never entirely sure why - was it a lack of belief in myself and my abilities? Or was it something else?

Somewhere during the rehearsals for The Dream it struck me why I felt so uneasy about working in the professional industry. I realised that for the actors this is work and so in their professionalism they leave their lives outside the rehearsal room door. In a community setting the actors are under no such obligation, they bring their lives and all that is going on in their world into the rehearsal room with them and we experience the collision of people's lives with the shared task of making a play or exploring a story together which creates a huge chaotic mess from which something beautiful emerges. The beauty we find in the community rehearsal room is a very different kind of beauty from that which emerges in the professional rehearsal room. The theatre we create in the community sector is raw and oftentimes with rough edges, but the theatre is not the only product that we create here. So perhaps all these years I have been asking the wrong question, perhaps instead of asking process or product, the question should be what is the product?

In the community rehearsal room there is more than one product. We are not just focussed on creating a clear telling of the story for our audience, but also on the impact that exploring that story (and exploring it together as a group) has on those who are telling it. It is the combination of both of these products and the huge chaotic mess I mention above that I get most excited about.

"Drama engages both the head and the heart. Learning through drama relies on the active involvement of our mind, body, feelings and spirit. In the realm of imagined experience, we take on roles of other characters and experience different situations, so that our understanding of ourselves, of others and of the world we live in grows. Drama provides an opportunity to address moral dilemmas, to express our feelings, to be creative and to explore new ideas and ways of being. Drama demands interaction between people - it is a social process."

Sara Clifford and Anna Herrmann

"Making a Leap: Theatre of Empowerment" (1999)

And so, as I come to the end of my year of study, I find I have come full circle and have arrived back on the path of Community Theatre, but this time around I know it is the path I am actively choosing and I know more clearly why I want to take it. I seek to make community theatre that gives equal weighting to both products, believing that creating a piece of theatre that's of a high standard will be a more empowering experience for all involved.