South Bank Tea and The Scratch: Rain, Rain, Rain!

Well... this is what happened to me last week trying to do South Bank Tea...

I got pissed on (haha)! Rain and tea don't go together very well! 

Eventually the sun came out long enough for me to get a two-in-one tea participant outside the Tate Modern.

An amazing lady stopped with a little girl (who had the best suggestions when it came to my project). It turned out that my tea participant had just put up her painting exhibition at the Barbican (the lady not the little girl). We chatted about art and morals, and I tried to explain empathy to a seven year old; which as it turns out is a great way to see whether you truly understand something yourself! 

I did intend to try the 'I'm a 40 year old man' tactic - but my participant didn't need any encouragement in opening up and telling me a story. It was like she had a sixth sense for what I was doing and jumped right in. This lady even gave me an idea for a similar project that she has been thinking of herself, but not being a performer, said she would find it difficult. I now have her card, so you never know where that might lead. I love having tea with strangers - you never know who you are going to meet. 

I think that I definitely want to try and have more conversations with children as my project progresses - Holly (the girl) came up with things that I would never have thought of. I want to spend more time thinking about the potential role of children in this work... but right now have to skip ahead a bit and think about the scratch; so will have to revisit.

I tried to do Oxford Tea this weekend and went on my merry little way to find the Brother's in Yarn in Henly-on-Thames with the hope of having tea with them as part of their project.... the rain came down and stopped the tea and the Brother's in Yarn cancelled the rest of their tour anyway! So no luck this weekend :o(

After feeling a little panicky about this project recently, I have had to take a step back in order to be able to do the scratch. I have been trying to put what I have done so far into a 'show' as that is what I envisage the final show to end up being; this is what I understand the scratch to be for... but it seems to be causing me problems. What is it that is making me panic about the project?

I feel like I have tried to run ahead of myself by putting a 'show' together, it just hasn't happened for me - and now I am worried that the project isn't going to work at all. As Doug would put it "I need talking off a ledge" (which hasn't actually happened for a while)!

Anyway - backing away from the ledge - I have gone back and reread my original proposal that I gave for the diploma stage assessments. One sentence that I wrote really jumped out at me; "The process in creating Organic Theatre is as, if not more important than the final product".

I think that I have simply forgotten that process is the key here. I need to acknowledge where I am at with this project (which is not a bad place to be in as it is progressing) and keep moving forward. I have been trying to drastically change the shape of the work, and force it into something that it isn't yet.

I set up the project in such a way that each stage of the process would be performative in its own right. Each stage organically evolving into the next until it is at a stage where I am happy to put it into a more traditional 'stage show'; which, at this stage, I have to acknowledge, may end up not being the right format for the work. Naturally I am going to encounter problems if I force myself into doing something with the work that isn't right for it at this stage. 

I have decided to stick to one-to-ones for now. I am going to embed the scratch in the process, rather than producing something abstracted from the project specifically for it. I think that it will be interesting to try tea with people that I know and in less of a public setting. 

I also think that now is a good time to get some real feedback on the work that I have been doing to help me progress with the project... and stay back from that ledge!! :o)