The Campaign Begins

Wow, what an up and down day this was.  I started the day in tears of despair and ended the day blowing out birthday candles and seeing the next stage of the vision for Othello.

The creative team met at Revolt this evening and had a look at the venue we are using for the Fringe Festival.  It was really nice to have the team all together for the first time with a single focus.  Julie was the busiest - taking lots of measurements.  I took the opportunity to talk with Hannah about a post show party for opening night, and to look at the venue options for going into full production next year.  That is still a bit of a pipe dream, but I am going to keep plugging away at it.

Julie then invited me back to her house and she had made a banana cake for me for a birthday cake.  It was soooo delicious.  She is an amazing cook and it was light and moist and very bananaey - yummo!  I snuck a second small piece, and she sent some home with me which my housemates promptly scoffed.

While I was at Julie's we had a chat about marketing.  We talked about a publicity strategy, possible images and merchandising.  It was really refreshing because I had lost my original vision for this, and she helped me find it again.  That's what friends are for!

Reinvigoration

I am all excited again.  I just had the best design meeting with Shane and Julie.  Julie really had some brilliant ideas, and pretty simple to achieve too.  I love this sense of the land and Australianess that I think we are developing.  Riverbeds, and ochre tones, and driftwood... and of course, my pet theme animal for this production, the crocodile.  What I also loved about this meeting was that both Julie and Shane kept the parameters of the showing in mind, and occassionally reminded me about them too.  I am so used to being the one reminding everyone, that it was refreshing to not have to do that.  I really do love working with professionals who approach their work from the same paradigm as me.  It is such a treat.  I guess that is what comes from training in the same environment, with the same lecturers, and amongst the same people.  It is almost like I can relax because I know we are speaking the same language.

The Pull Of The Tide

I had a bad night last night.  I don't know if I was just feeling bad about other things, or just tired, but I had a moment when I was thinking that maybe it was time to stop.  Cancel Othello, stop working as a creative artists, just go into my new admin job and become an office worker again, full stop.  It made so much sense.

Then this morning, the momentum of what I had started hooked me in.  I got excited and took another step forward.  I didn't even think.  Chris Cody came on board for Othello as sound designer and that led me to update the Facebook page, and the Pozible site, and keep going with casting.  It's like when you get caught in a rip and it drags you down.  You can fight it, but it is easier just to go with the flow.

Don't get me wrong, I am still very excited about Othello and have done a lot of problem solving with the fundraising campaign.  I think I am just jumpy about the new job - what it will be, and how it will impact my life.  I do expect good things though.  In fact, I am pretty convinced the rest of the year will be quite exciting. 

Now I should stop procrastinating.  I have a funding application due on Monday, and have to get started on Act 2 of Three Sisters.  To work!  To work!

Evolution

So today I have spent many hours transcribing Chekhov's 'Three Sisters' so that I can start working on my new adaptation.  This is alway the very painful bit, but it is also an essential part of the process.  By retyping the play, you get to look in minute detail at the structure and characters.  In many ways, this play is not what I thought it was from the versions I have seen staged.  The characters are magnificent and it is going to be so hard to bring it down to around 8 which would make it stageable in this day and age.  Large casts are so much more exciting, but who has the money to do that anymore?  Even 8 is extreme.  The largest you generally see these days is around 6.  The problem is, small cast work is so shallow.  It does not convey the complexities of human interaction.  You lose the shades of grey inevitable in life.  You get the story, but not other characters impact on it or how they are affected by it.

I am enjoying the fact that I am finding new things in this work.  Some characters are already so bright and full.  With Othello, I had already tried to reduce the cast by the time I typed it out.  This time I am being faithful to the original to begin.  I do have my concept, which I am using as a base, and I have found poetry to work in, but I want to take the full journey with the original characters.  I can't help feeling that some of the characters that don't blossom in Act 1 will become the main protagonists of my adaptation.  Natasha is an obvious one, but some of the men are mysterious and intriguing, and I may do the unthinkable and lose a sister in favour of someone else.  We won't know until I get there and I understand what is happening.  The journey is unfolding for me as if it were a completely new idea.  I am loving it! 

Get Your Motor Running!

So the train has left the station and there is no stopping it now!  Today I learnt how to create a Facebook page and set one up for Othello.  I am not sure if this is going to be particularly useful.  I am not entirely sure how it all works really.  I am hoping it is a good way to diseminate information, raise our profile, and keep momentum going on the fundraising campaign.  I guess we shall see.

I also set up a crowd funding site, which, for people interested in investing in the project is at  http://pozible.com/othellodeathpoll and is now live.  Check out the incentives and donate some money.  We will love you forever:) 

It has been kind of fun, and just a little bit frustrating.  The main frustration was not with pozible.  It was with PayPal.  I had to upgrade my account to accept payments and it was a bit unclear and I ended up in an annoying loop of screens trying to figure out what to do.  I still haven't figured out how to get it to accept AUD, so I have just set up pozible in USD.  I just have to live with the consequences.  It is a really great idea though, and I really hope it works.  It will take some of the financial burden off me.

It is kind of funny, because people have often referred to the creative 'fear' when presenting their work.  I think it is actually a lot scarier producing work.  The financial commitment and risk is huge, and you really do have to spend money to make money.  Then there is the problem of trying to get the right people to see the show to try and get it into full production in the future.  The stress!  I know that the trick is to sit back and enjoy the ride, but that is so much harder to do than it seems.