I was invited to Montpellier university in the middle of May 2022 to speak at a conference on participatory theatre and community plays. In preparation I wrote these notes
 
FROM COLWAY TO CLAQUE
In the past few months, I have been focussed on writing my book on community plays, it’s a cathartic experience I always knew it would be a process that throws up as many questions for me as answers. It’s come at a time too when I have been exploring methods to collaborate and devise with communities at a deeper level and to give people greater collective investment in the process. My approach since Ann Jellicoe wrote her Community Plays and How to Put Them On has changed radically and are still evolving so I can but give you a snapshot of where I am.  Each successive project is informed by the lessons of the previous ones, so things are always evolving. So, if you are looking for a method there really isn’t one to be had.  I’m not the same person I was yesterday and after today I hope and expect to have new perspective because of all of you. Listening is a great part of working with communities on developing a play. I’m an improviser and listening in improvisation is regarded as a willingness to change. That should be true of life and that’s what I’ll be doing. They say an expert is someone who's made more mistakes in their field of work than most, which is encouraging it means I might be a genius. I took off the directorships of Colway Theatre Trust in December 1985 so I think I should start with saying just a little about Ann.
 
Ann Jellicoe is universally recognised as the founder of the contemporary community play. The term was first coined in 1979 to describe The Reckoning, a play Ann had just finished directing for her home community, Lyme Regis. Ann was a relative newcomer to Lyme Regis she arrived after more than a decade in London in the 1950’s and 60’s. She had come to fame as the first woman to have a play produced in the main bill at the Royal Court Theatre, the first woman to direct a play at the Royal Court, the first woman literary manager of the English Stage Company. The Sport of My Mad Mother, her first play had a profound impact on British Theatre and paved the way for other women playwrights Her next play The Knack, became a Broadway hit and a film version won the Palme d’Or. She was among the group of leading playwrights of her generation, but by 1976 family was taking a priority she was feeling disenchanted; it seemed to her the same audiences were trotting from theatre to theatre, whilst theatre didn’t seem that important in most other people’s lives.
 
Less than a year after moving to Dorset she got the idea of writing a play for the school her children were attending. She wanted to base the play on the town’s history so enticed a few local people to help with the research. The story required a lot of adult parts, so decided to involve the parents, which prompted her to write the play with some one hundred characters. performance workshops began drawing in more townspeople she instinctively didn’t want to turn anyone away, so the project became fully inclusive. No-one imagined it would eventually involve hundreds of people.
 
She persuaded her professional friends to form a small production team, barely paying them their expenses. Exeter University drama department provided a stage management team and lighting equipment for free. The project was affectively growing spontaneously, a response to one decision influencing the next. She worked around setbacks as they occurred or turned them to her advantage.  For example, it became obvious that the school stage couldn’t hold the now 90 strong cast, so she reshaped the staging to seat a third of the audience on back of the stage and building stages around the perimeter of the hall leaving an empty space in the centre to accommodate the audience. This established principle of promenade theatre. Decisions emerged as much out of the pressure of natural forces than by design. It was described in one press article in its simplest term as a play for, by and about the people of the community, although the prepositions ‘for’ ‘by’ and ‘about’ can be challenged, but it paved the way for an increasingly democratic approach.
 
The Reckoning was intended to be a one-off but when Ann realised that she had in fact created a new theatre form, at which point she established the Colway Theatre Trust to develop the form. Between 1980 and 1985 Ann directed three plays and mentored and produced four others   The projects began to display recurring features, and her method became more defined.  It wasn’t too long before professionals who had been working on Colway play projects began to do their own. I was one of them. Having seen Ann’s third community play I persuaded her to take me on as her assistant director for her fourth.  By 1985 I was working on my second independent play when Ann called to tell me that the Regional Arts Council was cutting her regular grant by half, and despite a strong public campaign she had lost the battle and was now going to resign in protest. but not before taking on her most ambitious project to date, David Edgar had written Entertaining Strangers for Dorchester. Ann was asking me if I would co-direct it with her and then take over the helm of Colway Theatre. Following her resignation Ann wrote Community Plays and How to Put Them On describing her discovery and journey into community plays. At the end of the preface, she wrote
 
“This book seeks to provide a model: you can imitate its practice or create your own… At its simplest the process boils down to credibility: can you deliver and convince others that you can? To discovering how to involve people in creating a work of art, and where to draw the line between the needs of the community and the needs of art.”
 
This is a recognition by Ann that she was only at the beginning of an evolving process but it’s also an invitation to the next generation to develop it further. What was distinctive about Ann’s approach was the idea that you don’t have to compromise on art because you are working with a community and it’s thanks to Ann that where she ended was a starting point for us. In the 37 years since, the world has changed, and the work has evolved radically as I think she would have wished
 
No-one can do Community Plays like Ann, so while she invites us to imitate her if we like, none of us can.  The kind of the director or writer as an individual practitioner is a big factor in defining what a community play is, equal to the unique qualities and circumstances of the specific community they are working with. Their values fundamentally define the nature of the project’s process. Because community plays are personal and specific it makes it very hard to define generally what a community process is or how democratic they are. I can only talk about community play that are particular to me it might be useful to briefly identify some of the influences. My father was in the Air Force so we were constantly moving every two years This may contribute to the conflict I have toward envying people with roots, who grew up in the community they were born and my contentment with solitude. Basically, I love the idea of community, but I don’t want to live in one.
 
I retain a deep scepticism about the education system. I believe passionately that we are all born with tremendous natural capacities but lose touch with many of them as we spend more time in the world. Ironically, the major reason this happens is education. The result is that too many people never connect with their true talents and therefor don’t know what they’re capable of achieving. I see the community as a vehicle for self-recognition, and personal growth and undoing some of the damage done.  
 
School at least gave the barest handful of certificates paradoxically to train as a teacher at the Frobel Institute. Froebel believed that a young children learn best in settings that provides a stimulating and prepared environment where they can explore and learn from their own experiences and perspectives. It was at Froebel I was for the first time in the presence of a great teacher Sybil Levy. It wasn’t so much what she taught, but how. I know now that she manipulated our environment and dropped things in front of us like traps for us to discover. I realised to truly grow and find yourself you needed skilled guidance. Whilst there is discomfort, and criticism around the notion of a professional hierarchy, in a community play I believe good leadership paradoxically can help safeguard greater demonocracy and its our job to facilitate that.
 
I got a teaching job in Sunderland close to where Dorothy Heathcote was teaching a full-time Advanced Diploma course at the University of Newcastle. She was developing revolutionary dramatic inquiry approaches to teaching and learning, using irole-play, as a teaching tool. Basically, giving children simulated life experiences to motivate enquiry. I used it in my own teaching, eventually getting a job as an educational drama advisor teaching teachers to use drama in this way. It’s essential tool now in getting for getting large groups to role play in sessions we call drama searches. They help us collectively ‘find the play’ or inspire the writer.
 
I got a lucky grounding in improvisation working with Roddy Maude Roxby during late 1970’s and running a course with Keith Johnstone when I first took the helm of Colway. Improvisation has been transformative for me in developing an improvisational mindset in teaching, directing, writing and in life. I now have an improvisation community around me, some of whom who have been working with me for over twelve years, we are now regularly performing fully improvised ‘plays in the moment’.
 
So, these influences have an important personal bearing on my approach.
 
A community plays generally start either by my responding to an invitation or by identifying a community. I get to know a community through running a pilot project that also allows me to conduct a study that ascertains whether a play is both suitable and feasible. The projects go under the banner of empty gallery, the same principles of a play apply but the final product is converting an empty shop or other space into community devised exhibition, interactive installation, or immersive performance environment. The projects all involve group collaboration.
 
The most valuable characteristic of community plays is that most of our work involves people working with groups. I believe groups consist of however many individuals there are in the room plus one, and that one is the group mind. If we can be aware of the group mind, then the characteristics of the group is especially stimulating – it consists of many voices. If an individual were to speak as groups speak, we would think them crazy. Groups can simultaneously take you to different places and engage in a whole host of contradictory activities. Consequently, it disobeys rules, contradicts itself, is restless, delivers the unexpected, is spontaneous, takes you places you wouldn’t normally go – these are qualities you need to be creative. This is not a metaphor for individual creativity - groups have the characteristics of groups and individuals have the characteristics of individuals. A group throws you into being collectively creative in ways you can’t achieve individually. Groups are far less patient than individuals, which is a virtue in developmental terms. Groups are, more impulsive than individuals . 
 
I find individuals are more of a problem than groups. I am genuinely more comfortable working with a group than I am with an individual. I deal with casts of 120 quite happily and can feel sometimes uneasy with a solo actor. Individuals are too emotional; you spend years trying to get them over their habits, blocks, and resistance. The beauty of a group is that there is less resistance, because groups don't behave that way. They are more reckless, less resistant to change, by being reckless the group is more open to transformation. Individuals are much more conservative.  And here is the thing: Contrary to this being a denial of the individual the nature of groups challenges and develops the individuals within it, in ways they wouldn’t alone, it’s also an acceptance of individuals as social beings rather than people in isolation. Groups give individuals courage to take bigger risks because, paradoxically, they feel there is safety in numbers
 
So back to the play we finish the pilot project and if the play looks suitable and feasible. We hold a public meeting after the pilot project has been presented. We present the idea of play and a feasibility report. It may include local advocates, others from precious play projects to say something about their experience. We will hold a vote and if the meeting votes ‘no’ that’s the end of the affair. If they vote ‘yes’, we hand out volunteer forms which explain all the potential activities people can sign up for. 
 
We now form a Steering Committee to help manage and oversee and proactively support the whole project. We have developed a community play board game the covers a large hall floor and the team spends a half day minimum going through a simulated eighteen month play project, solving problems. Creating imaginative initiatives, designing posters, making paper costumes the idea is to finish the game with as many community points as possible, and within budget.
 
During the pilot project we will have started soundings and will be continuing with them during the set- up of the play project. Soundings are brainstorming, exercise, game-based techniques to help the community identify contemporary issues and select the most potent or pressing and explore its complexities. They will then research to find events from their local history that resonate with the contemporary themes. These will become the focus for developing the play.
 
We also set up a devising or play development team which replaces the old research team. This team is really two levels, a small group who manage the script development, assess where we are, promote the workshops, set up the rooms gather material we might need. They are practical hands on. The other team are those who attend and participate in the drama searches and devising and development workshops, they are both tasked based.
 
The Drama Searches are powerful role-playing simulations of an imagined world that can accommodate large groups.  We select some time and place in the community’s history. We may start in a large circle with everyone imagining and describing the place and times we want to take ourselves to. I’m relying on the whole group’s knowledge. On the Isle of Sheppey, when we were exploring a famous mutiny, we first imaged the dockside in 1800 then we took up actives of mending nets, gutting fish, dockyard watchmen looking out for trouble. Later we were sailors huddled in cramped, wet and rat invested bays on the lower decks of ship complaining about conditions and I was provoking them in role to mutiny. Participants improvise their roles in the make- believe world and in this way can immerse themselves and experience other people’s lives together I take the role of facilitator to animate the drama guiding or challenging them moment-by-moment or releasing information gradually and indirectly.  They must work at solutions, and gain understanding by reflecting on what’s going on, and think about the consequences of the decisions they take; and so find meaning for themselves.
 
Although the writer is present at the Drama the Search we never talk about the play, the focus is always on the event in hand. The Writer is a vital part of the process and is there to ask questions, participate, suggest an event or a moment to explore improvisationally.  If the community identify with people of the past, it inspires them to research between sessions either to prepare the next Drama Search or in response to the previous which has perhaps prompted deeper research, maybe into actual individual characters, or checking historical accuracy.
 
Devising and Script Development begins as the writer feels the urgency to start writing
Devising takes the material from the Drama the Drama and other various sources and transforms them into the medium of theatre so has a different intention. My aim is not to impose of my ideas but evoke and implement an inclusive collaboration of many contributing minds. Devising’s eclectic and unpredictable nature makes it impossible to reduce it to a fixed method. I may begin with broad plan, but I will expect diversions because I know progression will emerge from moment-to-moment through improvisations, play and conversations. Collaboration can fill the room with a multitude of possibilities that gives us opportunities to move in many different directions and produce a range of creative solutions beyond the scope of an individual.  There will an interchange of ideas with the writer with greater focus on plot, creating-characters, genre, the writer giving structure, and incorporating their unique style. The relationship between writer and community is a negotiation based on mutual respect. Neither the revelations of the community in their search should be negated nor the integrity of the writer be disrespected. There will be discussions and experiments about scenes that can show rather than be told
 
Devising involves same elements that the writer, composer, designer, director employ to do their various jobs:  characters and their point of view and objectives, plot or storyline, form, framing devices, audience role and so on. There are really no rules but there are principles such as
First get on your feet
Committing around a common purpose
Doing the Research
Keeping Records
Keep an open mind
Constructive Pressure
A willingness to fail is an obligation
Respecting individuals
Listening to the group as separate identity
  
Once the play written and read publicly to the town, inclusive casting takes place, if you show up you’ve got a part.  
At casting everyone is measured for their costume, they fill in an availability form so their rehearsal schedule can be designed to suit their lifestyle, no easy task.
 
Around thirteen weeks before the performance date a professional theatre team become resident in the town. The size of the team and the length of rehearsal time are determined by the budget and community needs.  The production team mostly consists of a Director/Writer Project Coordinator, Designer, Design Assistant, Production Manager, and a Musical Director. But other roles may be required
 
Rehearsals
Twelve-week rehearsal period begins, we may have as many as four spaces in different parts of the town of various sizes, and the performance may be in a school hall, a church, an industrial warehouse a tent whatever is available. The play office opens to the public. A Design Studio opens in an empty industrial warehouse, or an empty shop in the town centre. It’s open to public six days a week, where they can arrange to work with the designer on specific projects or drop in ad hoc.  The community is invited to help build sets, props, and costumes with the guidance of designers and production manager. Workshops are taken into schools and other establishments. Small scene rehearsals happen nightly and on alternate Sundays the whole cast gather, and the fragmented scenes are linked together. Two weeks before opening night, we start building the scaffolding stages and rigging lights. A week before we hold full cast rehearsals every night.
 
The performances run for twelve consecutive nights. The productions is presented in promenade style. The space, a school hall, is transformed with a series of stages around the circumference. There’s limited seating for disabled and elderly audience members who need to sit down at the back of the school stage, but the majority are expected to stand with the cast in the central area. The action of the play, with casts, of over a hundred and twenty swirls all around and through the standing audience. 
We put the audience and performers in a shared space, so the audience are no longer silent witnesses in the dark but become a major scenic element as much in evidence as the performers, the become part of the world of the play.  Entirely new relationships are possible, there can be face to face social contact between performers and audience; voice levels and acting intensities can be varied, the sense of a shared experience is felt.  In a promenade play we find that the audience quite naturally press in close during intimate scenes and moves away when the action becomes broad. Usually, they willingly give way to the performers and re occupy areas after the actions pass through. This does not result in chaos; rules are not done away with they are simply changed. The audience are participating in the shaping of the spaces.
 
initially the audience may be nervous. One way of breaking down barriers is to have performers staff the box-office, play host and greet the audience socialise and advise them on where best to see the show.  The audience need help in making the connection between their experiences at other popular entertainments, religious observance, and festivals. They are knowledgeable about what to do they just don’t know it.  Sometimes we achieve this by holding a real fair at the start, so the audience are clear about ‘how to behave’. The difference between the community actor and audience is clear because of costume, but no attempt is made to hide the non-performing life of the actors. The audience and performers collectively form the community.
 
To emphasise our belief that individually and collectively people can make a difference we implicate the audience in the action of the play where we can. Implicating techniques includes treating the audience as 'other'; giving the audience another roll or identity; taking part physically; Moving them away from spectator into witness. In the Minneapolis play ‘Flying Crooked’ a play that explored class in America depending on which door they entered through the audience were treated either as a guest at a society function or destitute street people under the rail arches. A fence divided the space in half it was noticeable how this opening experience altered their points of view to the events in the drama. 
 
Implication is not only more powerful than preaching but helps us avoid taking the moral high ground. Implicating should lead to the audience toward making choices not ultimatums. The moments where we implicate the audience directly is no longer acting for, but in a confrontation with the audience.  In Out of the Blue, a character speaks to the audience as if they were fellow villagers and invites them to adopt three orphan girls and save them the horrors of the workhouse. Actors were briefed to withhold volunteering and await audience intervention. Participation can disrupt the prepared rhythm or even line of a scene and its uncertainty can be quite frightening for the cast, they resist events that disrupt prepared rhythms.  Once we involve them at this ‘higher level’ we try not to let the audience off the hook.
 
For me the final and greatest achievement are those nights produces the feeling that cast, and audience have created a performance together as one community.

We had technical problem with our last Devising Session on zoom because we couldn’t open the breakout rooms so couldn’t meet in smaller groups. People are naturally less reluctant to speak in larger groups; its not easy in any event because zoom has this small delay and people occasionally speak over each other as a result. However we managed with zoom as we always do. The devising group have been amazing, patient, imaginative and loyal, and new people joining, which is great. So here are the notes from the Music and Verse delving session and the provocation for the next one. Over the next four devising sessions we will be developing the plots of each our our four stories and discovering how to tie them together in a final scene.

PROVOCATION FOR DEVISING - THE STRUCTURE OF THE PLAY
& DISCOVERING THE PLOT'STAYING HOME'
The title of this session may sound daunting but we have actually reached a very creative stage of developing the play. We are getting down to finding the plot of each of our four stories. 'Staying Home'  'Leaving Home' 'Displaced' and "Coming Home'. All through the devising process I have tried to accommodate all the ideas and find a pattern, look for ideas that recur, maybe in different ways but essentially have the same theme. For example Evacuees, Refugees, places of refuge, have all come up; as have pilgrimages,  journeys,  life's paths, the landscape paths of Happy Valley themselves, the purposes of journeys to and from Home, community, sanctuary, safety.  Home is our subject, our four stories have themes that reflect Home. Now each of those stories need to be defined and crested as scenes; then we will discover the relationship between those stories to form a concluding scene that ties it all together. The scenes we discover over the coming four fortnightly Wednesdays will be explored on the two intervening Mondays with the improvisation group, and we will report back at the Devising Session. Everyone in the devising group is invited to come and observe the improvisations every second Monday so you can give us your feedback. The improvisers will improvise scenes so that the devises don't have to - but they are, of course, welcome too if they wish. 
I will start the next devising session talking about  possible structures for the whole play, how we might frame and link stories. I will expand on that on Claque's website (click below)
After that The first story we will look at is "Staying Home.' The following sessions we will look at two stories each time.

NOTES ON DEVISING  28TH APRIL MUSIC & VERSE
Becca's, Gilly's and David (our Musical Director's) notes from our Music/Sound Workshop on 28th April.
PRESENT; Amy Church, Scott Kingsnorth, Jill Scott, Claire Edwards and Daniel, Paul Fulton, Kate Sargent, Phil Byrne, Sally Sugg, Gilly Blaydon, Mary Jane Stevens, Joe Mendall, Lucy Edkins, Alison Mackenzie, Sonia and Michael Lawrence, Bernie and Julie Madden, David Brett, Jon Oram, Becca Maher. 

There were problems with zoom so it wasn't possible to go into break out rooms as we had planned. David Jinks wasn't able to join us due to those technical issues. We welcomed Amy who had joined the devising for the first time. She said that at her college she had taken part in a devised piece about homelessness. 

Song is a good way to tell a story and creating an atmosphere. A song can speak a thousand words. Initially we'll be gathering in the field opposite the church . Not yet decided whether music will be used at that point. What instruments would we like to hear/play? The natural environment such as sticks/rocks/grass make sounds. There will also be other ambient sounds such as dogs barking, people walking/talking.  
At the large oak tree the four paths diverge: place for poem “The Road Not Taken” Robert Frost. Invisible siren voices luring audience down the different paths.  Bells in trees. There’s a branch of the “screaming tree” that swings by itself for a long time – put bells on that. Rocks as instruments. Use the landscape.Daniel: Is a campanologist. Wondered if we could use whatever bells they had in the church. (Later discovered they have one bell.) David has a set of 8 handbells. Bells could be timers to indicate when a group needs to move on. We could add humming to bell ringing. Humming in caves, echoes. Humming might be safer than singing due to covid. Humming is very atmospheric.
M.J. Dinner gong, or J. Arthur Rank type gong – can be heard over whole area. She has a djembe ,rain sticks and other percussion instruments and would like to sing too. 
In Midsummer Night's Dream, Peter Brook used long tubes whirled around the head, like bull roarers. Sally has written a poem about a soldier returning home with combat stress. Sonia has also written two poems on the subject of home which she read to us. Poems condense as do songs. Song "Keep the home fires burning". Home sickness, recognition/tribal music. Small drums to beat a pathway. Military style. Phil can play snare drums. David has drums and other percussion.
Involve the Syrian refugees in Tunbridge Wells (T.W Welcomes Refugees). There are Syrian musicians in T.W. They would not need to attend every performance. We could make it clear that singers/musicians would be welcome even if they couldn't attend every performance. We could use a fallen tree as a boat carrying refugees. Alison spoke about a play she saw where the mobile phone was the most important object as the traffickers were going to abandon the migrants at a certain point and they would have to use thir phones to call the coastguard to rescue them. The phone was literally their life line. We could use phones to create sounds. 
Bath house could have Regency music, or modern songs arranged in Regency style (“Splish Splash”?). Singing in the bath. Voyeurism, audience creeping up to view. Not making any sound can bring tension. 
 Contact singers we know who might be interested. David has mentioned this to a couple of singer contacts who are interested. Paul mentioned  a friend who is an opera singer.
Familiarity/ recognition is good. But singing songs that are too familiar or obvious might sound a bit too much like busking. Has to be a bit strange and unfamiliar to draw you in. Calling from rock to rock, like a beacon. Street calls. Call and response. We should try one evening with a group, calling across the space to test the acoustics.
A performer whispering a poem into your ear.Songs should be simple: chorus, refrain, repetitive. Each story could have a musical theme which is woven into a larger musical piece at the end.Just as the thread of each story is woven into the final story.Involve the Create Choir if possible.
Use of phones as backing for songs. wireless speakers which could be used to play music or sound at a distance.Could be used to play birdsong in trees. Amplify the sound of shuffling feet, crunching through leaves and twigs. Or an image first seen as something normal changes to something strange.

Image of the Displacement group wearing headphones.
Actors listening to headphones , choreographed dance movement to unheard music. Emphasising they are cut off from their environment. Staying home we don't always notice or appreciate where we live. If Happy Valley is the star of the show maybe we shouldn't use too much technology. We want to enhance the features of Happy Valley and use what we find there. All the stories are really about Staying Home. All drama is about this. People don’t take enough notice of their surroundings.

MAIN POINTS;
1) We will continue to make Land Art/sculptures throughout the summer.There will be more dates for workshops that will be opened up to a wider audience.

2) Musicians/singers we could involve. David has a friend who is an opera singer and is happy to take part. Maybe contact TW welcomes Refugees regarding Syrian Band. Do we have any friends/contacts who are musicians/singers. Amy, Julie, MJ, Alison, Jill and Bec are happy to sing (but not all happy to sing solo), Jill can play the recorder and Phil drums. 

3) Organise music/sound workshops, looking at how sound/music travels in Happy Valley, in caves near rocks etc.

4) Consider songs that relate to the theme of home. 

5) Next Devising Workshop Wednesday 12th May 7.30 p.m. Devising Group will be invited fortnightly to join zoom improvisation sessions from Monday 17th May at 7.30 pm.

 .
Peter Terson (Patterson) 'Pete' died in the early hours of April 8th aged 89. He had been  living with Parkinson's disease for the last few years, stoic and good natured throughout and supported by his wife Shelia, who has been his rock through their 66 year marriage. Shelia had asked me to write an obituary for their local paper The Ross Gazette in Ross on Wye (See below) but I wanted to add some more reflections on his life and my memories of him. i first met Pete in 1985 at a weekend writers retreat in Monkton Wilde, Dorset that I had set up so I could meet writers and enthuse them about the community play genre. Peter Terson, David Cregan, Nick Darke were among them. I have to confess I was daunted by Pete's energy and frankness, he was a heavy cider drinker at the time and would disappear from the conference with Nick and they would come back somewhat paralytic.  As a result I was somewhat nervous and it took five years to invite him to write a play for Bradford on Avon "Under the Fish"and Over The Water (1990) . I then collaborated with him in developing two community operas in Southborough "Have you seen this Girl" (1991) and "Twin Oaks"  which were also performed in Lambersart and Lille in France with an Anglo French Cast, directed by Mark Dornford May. I then commissioned him for a second large scale promenade play in 1999, "The Sailors Horse" (Minehead and Watchet). Pete was the most diligent in meeting the community' face to face. These plays can take up to two years to develop. Pete not only made flash visits, the more common approach by busy writers committed to other projects at the same time, he would come and live or holiday in the town with Shelia. As a director I never worked harder having to keep up with Peter. In Minehead he wanted to know about Butlins, both as a holiday maker and behind the scenes, so he insisted I organise a week end stay. We followed the day in the life of a Bluecoat, and the holiday maker, We sang Karaoke, joined a quiz  team and played crazy golf with a family, He'd given up drink by then thankfully though we sat in the bars in order to meet the punters and drank juices. Peter watched, listened and most particularly picked up the rhythms, accents, turns-of-phrase of local people. He incorporated these experiences and their personal stories into the play..
The play scripts emerged over the weeks, inspired by events of the previous day or some newly discovered research. Odd scenes would arrive in no particular order. Eventually the full script would arrive in the post. Typed on an old Olivetti typewriter with an old ribbon on various lined, plain yellowing paper or opened envelopes pinned and sellotaped together. There were amicable exchanges of ideas to get to a rehearsal draft, I was to learn that Pete didn't consider a script finished till the show was over. He attended many more rehearsals than any writer and sat on the edge, often with a pile of script papers and listen and watch, seldom interfering. One regular thing he did do ,however ,when a community actor came out with a line in his or her own natural framing, because he or she wasn't yet word perfect, Pete would call out something like "that's not it... "that's not what I wrote" followed by  "but. it's better, say it like that."  He recognised it sat more comfortably with the actors vernacular, and was therefore more truthful..

`I don't believe in the latter years that Peter Terson got the credit he deserved, Age did not weary him nor did his talent diminish. He was undoubtably one of great playwriting talents of his age. In a self written short biography he wrote that the sixties and seventies were his 'glorious days' a period in which he wrote  and had produced somewhere in the region of eighty plays for television, radio and the theatre. He went on to say "but I'm not dead yet and just coming up to my peak `~~(confidence and mad optimism  is all to the playwright.) that was Peter Terson to the last, until Parkinson disease robbed him of the capacity to write. Peter Terson's plays are social dramas as relevant today as ever they were. It is beholden on the theatre and those who can to resurrect past plays and produce the more recent ones; we still have a lot to learn from him. He should be as honoured as a dramatist equal to Harold Pinter and Arnold Wesker, especially as he never abandoned his working class roots.

​THE STRANGER ON THE PATH
24th February session
 
PROVOCATION ON STRANGERS ON THE PATH
On our next Wednesday session is going to ask you to imagine that you are walking in Happy Valley and sit on a bench to look at the view over High Rocks and Hargate woods. A stranger sits down beside you and you start a conversation and his or her story grows and develops as you ask questions.
This is the setting of a game between you, the curious questioner, and a seasoned improviser. The first part of the evening we will disperse as usual into break out rooms. Two or three people plus one of the members Claqueur impro theatre. You will simply ask them questions to delve into the life of a stranger. Neither you nor the improviser will know where the story they tell will go. The story will be prompted by the questions you ask. Questions will encourage the storyteller to dig deeper into the story. When it’s over we will return to the main group where you can share the stories you have been told.

PLEASE BRING PAPER AND COLOURED PENS AND DOODLE AS YOU HEAR THE STORIES. 
You don’t have to share them though it’s nice if you do. But drawing prompts your visual memory of the story. This is not an art competition its part of a process of stirring our imaginations, just give it a try.

DEVISING SESSION NOTES ON STRANGER ON THE PATH
PRESENT; Joe Mendel, Michael and Sonia Lawrence, Paul Fulton, Claire Edwards, David Jinks, Jill Scott, Kate Sargent, Richard Sylvester, Sally Sugg, Gilly Blaydon, David Brett, Julie and Bernie Madden, MJ Stevens, Alison Mackenzie, Lucy Edkins, Becca Maher, Jon Oram.
 
Jon talked about the idea of audience members being given a letter and on their journey they will meet a stranger (cast member). The audience will need to find out as much as they can about the stranger’s story, by asking them questions. The stranger may have nothing prepared and the questions will prompt a story.
We were then placed in break out rooms with members of the improvisation performance group acting as the stranger.
 
Jon did a practice run with MJ, Joe and David Jinks as audience members.
Jon(stranger) was a father looking for his son. His son had left home many years ago and until he had had a letter fairly recently there had been no contact. Jon carried the letter from his son (each stranger might have another object such as a key, a cup that would have significance). The letter was sent from The Happy Valley area. The stranger didn’t know why his son had run away from home when he was 13. 
 
Group 1. Richard, Bernie, Becca, Alison.
Richard (stranger) had come to Happy Valley looking for gold. A friend had told him there was gold in the rock or in the water. He needs money to claim the love of his life, Esme. Esme’s father gave him 5 years to make his fortune so that he could look after Esme and would therefore be a suitable husband. Since then, he has been working hard having many jobs including looking after pigs. He now only has a few days before the 5 years is up so is relying on finding the gold in order to marry Esme. Esme’s father owns a pub, The Walnut Tree, near to Happy Valley. . Not many people know about the pub as its tiny. The stranger is not allowed to work there to earn money as he has been in prison for arson. The stranger revealed that he has not told Esme or her father about his criminal record so some of the audience became concerned for Esme and wondering whether the stranger was after all a suitable suitor.
 
Group 2. Paul,  Lucy, Julie
Paul (The stranger) was very sad about the loss of his wife, Edith. He had met her when he was a DJ on a cruise. He had a dog called Wolf. The stranger had found a half written letter  (from Jon’s son, reincorporation). Audience felt that maybe they should pop in and see the stranger as he was lonely.
 
Group 3. Jill, Gilly, Kate, David Jinks.
 Kate (stranger) was a painter seeking inspiration. They pretended they were in an art class to enable them to look at the stranger’s painting. She lacked confidence; how could we make her famous? Maybe she could do a series of pictures. Gilly and Jill started drawing. It felt a bit like communal Art Therapy.
 
Group 4. David Brett, Joe, Michael and Sonia.
David (Stranger) was looking for his 3 friends. They had made a pact 50 years ago that they would meet now in Happy Valley. He had travelled from Australia on a steamship. He had broken his son’s arm so maybe he isn’t a very nice man? Maybe he was the problem rather than the rest of the family as he claimed? The bad apple in the barrel? They discovered that he and they were wearing kangaroo skin boots.

Group 5. Sally, Jon, MJ. Claire
Jon (Stranger). The stranger’s name was George who told a sad story. Thirty years ago, his father killed himself. In one of the rocks there’s a carving of the Frog Brothers Music Group, which his dad was a member of. George was anxious as his dad had buried a lot of money in a tin. However, he told George he wanted him to make his own way and then reveals that he has hidden treasure in Happy Valley and shortly afterwards kills himself. George has worked hard for 30 years as a butcher but has never found his way. He felt he was a disappointment to his father, and he is now the same age as his father was when he died. Something has motivated him to disclose to us, is he suicidal? I feel bad that I let him walk away.

Jon Postscript
The questioning of an improvisor Actor validated the idea that we could have improvised elements the involve the audience. We might need to think about how we set up the situation or brief the audience to find out all they can from the 'stranger' character. If we are to take the audience on a journey we next need to think about what roles they might play, whether they have a task, a mission, or a purpose for this journey. 

DEVISING HAPPY HIGHWAYS
February 10th 2021
Theme: "Stories"


Present:
Participants: Claire Edwards, Gilly Blaydon, Gill Scott, Lucy Edkins, Kate Sargent, Paul Fulton, David Brett, Michael and Sonia Lawrence, Richard Sylvester, Julie and Bernie Madden, Phil Byrne, Suzy Phillips, Alison Mackenzie, Jon Oram, Becca Maher.
 
NOTES ON DEVISING SESSION "STORIES"
Jon talked about reaching out perhaps further than the play to different groups in the village by sharing stories and perhaps displaying them at shop counters, shop windows, delivering fliers getting stories into Rusthall Life etc. Suzie talked about the quirky tree they had at the RCA festival in 2017 people hung items and poems.  Sonia spoke of a man called Arthur Tribe who lived at 15 Rusthall Road and died in 1961 aged 90. He had lived in the village all of his life and he loved the common. There is one particularly moving poem written when he was posted in North Africa during the First World War where he described memories of Happy Valley keeping him going. Sonia has since sent in the poem about Happy Valley.
Jon introduced the purpose of the session buy talking about the power and purpose of stories, why where and when do people tell stories? What situations encourage story telly? How might we deliver stories in the play; What situations can we set or recreate, from bedtime stories to Speakers Corner?  Jon mentioned the communal bath is potentially where people would tell stories to each other. People would come here for health reasons, not unlike pilgrims to Lourdes. Michael had set some atmospheric picture of the baths. He sent another this week building on the idea of it being a story telling station. Sonia said that her son had excavated the baths several years ago down to the tiles, it wasn’t very big. They then filled it in again.
 
GROUP 1 Bec, Suzie, Julie   
Grandparents passing down stories, sitting on laps. Imaginary friends. Folk tales, songs, rounds, ghost stories, stories around the fire; bonfires elicit story-telling and singing. There’s reminiscing, night and fire, sounds, smells. Morale tales, Victorian Struwel Peter, Johnny-Head -In - Air didn’t look where he was going so walked over a cliff. Matilda and the matches if you cry wolf (Matlida gets burnt to death). Grimm’s Fairy Tales, The Grimm brothers travelled all over Germany to collect and preserve traditional tales. Fairy stories portrayed females in a particular way ie: goodness and beauty go together, Cinderella and the ugly sisters, she will be rescued by a knight in shining armour. Giving messages to girls on how they ought to be, conditioning women, propaganda. Greek myths and legends, The Odyssey, men are heroes.
 
GROUP 2 Lucy, Gill, Sally
When, Where Why?
WHEN: bedtime stories, one on one, comforting, fiction and real life memories. Around a table; eating, drinking, Bonfire; stories through song, walking with a friend through lockdown meaningful conversations.
WHY: Sharing memories, making sense of our past, connecting, sharing, bonding. Draw from memories. Draw inspiration from emotions, does it have to have structure? Can be spontaneous don’t have to go anywhere. Story cubes, pieces of paper with prompts.
WHAT makes a story? It has to have emotional content.
 
GROUP 3 Kate, Gilly Bernie
We tell stories when we have time. More time in lockdown. When travelling, train journeys, exchanging stories, getting to know people. Confession in crisis, truth. Lies/showing off. Telling untruths. Fake news, political narratives. Unintended consequences of stories. Families have different stories/different versions of events. Excluding and including information.
 
GROUP 4 Alison, David, Michael, Sonia
Dark winter nights, passing on stories, campfires, bringing people together. Sharing stories. Pubs, the more you drink the more outrageous. Sailors yarns, soldier’s self-glorification, heroism. Children want the same story over and over again. Familiarity is safe. Stories of your past become more important as you age, Stories keep people alive who are no longer here.
Super- heroes used to be Gods now they’re Spider man, Superman. Folk stories, fairy stories, children want frightening stories. Eastenders/Archers/Shakespeare. Does it have to resolve? There are a limited number of basic stories.
 
GROUP 5 Paul, Claire, Richard, Jon
Stories inspired by College/family reunions. Stories develop into gossip. Future stories, fortune tellers. Churches/religion hopes and fears for future. Folk songs, letter writing. Dog walkers exchange stories about their dogs. First dates, interviews, interrogations. Hospital beds.
 
GENERAL DISCUSSION.
Invisible Theatre – rehearsed / improvised scenarios happen spontaneously on trains, busses in the street; the audience don’t know it’s been prepared.
Alison/ Belgian refugees Mayor and mayoress from a village outside Antwerp came to Tunbridge Wells with their extended family in 1914. They lived in Nevill Park and decided to come here as she liked Thackeray. They walked in Happy Valley. Both died in 2015 and there was a huge funeral as they were so well respected.
Looking at ancestry, who do you think you are? Reciting in military costume?
Phil talked was asked about Chimney Sweeps, they supposed to be good luck at weddings. Story is that King George was on his way to a wedding when one of his horses got spooked and a chimney sweep saved his life so they became a lucky symbol. The Queen and Prince Philip had a chimney sweep at their wedding.
The idea of story cubes was put forward.
Jon wondered about situations when we would be less likely to tell stories – short bus and train rides, in an elevator, just approaching someone in the street – this would feel weird. Situations that encourage stories – interviews, interrogations, First Dates,
`Gossip and Chinese whispers, telling tales out of school (splitting). Somebody mentioned imaginary friends.
The idea of Travelling theatre groups was added to the mix.
 

PROVOCATION ABOUT JOURNEY’S
What kind of journeys do people make and why do they take them?  Physical journeys of necessity, pleasure, or work, adventure or escape. Think of the t journeys in literature; Canterbury Tales, a Kentish pilgrimage where fellow travellers shared stories; Pilgrims Progress, a journey from this world to that world which is to come. The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy follows the yellow brick road to both find her way home and save Oz from the wicked witch, and on route picks up fellow travellers who help her, but have personal missions of their own, one to gain a heart, another a brain and a third to find courage. The Hobbit, a chosen band on a quest to win a share of treasure guarded by a fearsome dragon. Or think of real, local characters who are likely to have once walked through Happy Valley; would we like to meet our ancestors and hear stories from our own community?

Imagine an audience, not merely witnessing a story being played out before them, but actually taken on a journey, fellow travellers with the actors.  Might they collectively be set a task, or have personal missions of their own, what might they discover, what and who might they meet on the way? what paths do they travel, do they have choices about which route to take?  How do we go about creating a real adventure for them?
Imagine an audience divided into different travelling groups, will they be given a guide, or discover cast members as travellers as they set out? Will each group or indeed individual experience a different journey or story to the others? Where will the journey end? 

In Happy Valley there are many potential performance areas, where scenes can happen, events and rituals can take place, story circles can be created. Most notably there is a large natural amphitheatre. Could this be where the final part of the story is told, and what would that be? Maybe it's the journey's end, if so, where could that be?

This conversation is about gathering ideas that reveal how this unusual performance style might work, how we can both tell a story and involve the audience in the adventure. Could it be that the final outcome in not known to anyone, not even the cast?

DEVISING SESSION NOTES ON "JOURNEYS"
 
Present; Michael and Sonia Lawrence, John Harris, Paul Fulton, Gilly Blaydon, Gill Scott, David Brett, Richard Sylvester, Alison Mackenzie, Julie and Bernie Madden, Sally Sugg, Kate Sargent, MaryJane, Jeremy Woodruff, Jon Oram, Becca Maher. Mark Broad registered his interest but had to leave.

David talked about Nana Tomova a Sussex based storyteller. She is a qualified guide and professional storyteller who takes people across the Sussex Downs to tell her stories.  

Jon suggested play where the audience could be travellers be implicated in the drama. He reminded us that we will have to be flexible in the mechanics of the show because of COVID restrictions. Rather than thinking this as a restriction, perhaps it’s an opportunity to create a theatre experience that engages the audience into conversation, and physical engagement.
There are connections with first world war Belgians refugees in Happy Valley. Also, the Beacon pub housed Jewish refugee children during the second world war. Different destinations, rushing. Encounter images/events on way, Exhibitions in a suitcase. Problem pictures. Tableaux. Refugees take them on a journey. Audience as refugees- stories told to each other. Maybe 3 groups encounter different scenes different strands of a story.  Referred to Kentwell House in Suffolk as potential style – an area of re-enactment, crafts people – a living community in the valley. Canterbury Tales, encounter Inns on your travels, Sweeps cave? Fox hunting took place in Happy Valley audience hide the fox.  The idea of suicide as there are places from where you can jump – audience engaged in persuasion (talking them down) Reference to “wonderful walks” an article Alison discovered.  In the 1890’s there were geological walks, extraordinary descriptive language. In 1975 Rusthall primary school undertook a project called Wonderful walks where they walked around Happy Valley and wrote about it. Flash mob implicating audience actors not in costume.
Audience given a letter to deliver (refrences to Claque Mystery Houses where single audience member is engaged in one-minute theatre experience, where they make decisions.
Sweeps cage possible refreshment area,
An actor/ guide leading people through different experiences, meeting at a central point, experience of place/geography. Audience having independent choices of which paths to take Go down one path you receive a reward, or a negative experience (out of tune violin?).
Meeting figures from history, journeys happy and sad. Searching: “Where is Home” Caves/carvings/sacrifice/mythical energy about the rocks. Graffiti- loves lost/loves found. Murder most foul. Supernatural area -Owls in trees, themed areas; people in the trees. Land art in the trees.
Paths not taken. Do you involve audience. Actors not learning lines, but improvised characters.
Story stations, leader/guide/character. Chest of drawers with ancestral belongings, claimed by characters. The film The Point, starring Wayne Sleep. His character was ostracised and teased. He went on a journey and discovered everyone has a point. An outer and inner journey, bringing all stories together at the end.
Responding to environment. Boarding houses. Moved to Pantiles. William Cobbett. Actors question audience, “why are you travelling?”. A quest, letter in envelope.
Jon described his life changing experience of a little girl during a community play taking his hand and asking why a child in the play was being hanged for stealing bread as he was hungry. How those moments of reaching across the centuries to others like us can be so powerful for example a Jewish refugee child at The Beacon. Where is home?   John Harries knows Peter Cornwell the owner of The Beacon. His son runs a theatre company. They have an amphitheatre in the grounds of The Beacon.  The 101 steps down to the cold baths lead to a No Entry sign. Could we use masks (might be necessary anyway re: COVID). Land Art, Field, Forest and Sky on iPlayer.

SUMMARY:
These notes reflect the meeting as one idea stimulated another so are written in the order or form in which ideas flowed. They can act as stimulus for developing the form of the performance; also a provocation to develop of discover new ideas.
Overall, it seems that there is a feeling for hearing, seeing, witnessing, participating in a collection of stories which come together at the end so there is a sense of unity, a final event that connects all the stories or lives we’ve heard on the journey.

 We have been developing a devised community play project, our second. As with the first it will be in Rusthall, this time in an area called Happy Valley. We have secured an Arts Council Grant to continue developing the devising process and the play is the core of the programme. It develops process we tried the first time round with Legends of the Rocks. You will be able to follow the programmes as it unfolds through the category 'Devising the Legend" on this blog page. The project will be subject to changes due to the COVID pandemic but is designed to be flexible and adjust to changing circumstances. Here is our starting starting point:
​
THE PROCESS
The Project is in two distinctive yet dependently connected parts. The first. ‘Paths’ is a heritage project that could stand-alone but is strongly enhanced because it ‘feeds’ ideas and material to the second where they will be re-interpreted and developed to give them greater meaning, purpose and depth.  The second project, a legacy of the first, is The Happy Highway, a promenade Community Plays on and around the paths of Happy Valley on Tunbridge Wells and Rusthall Common.
 
PART ONE
‘PATHS’ A HERITAGE PROJECT
 
Path’s and The Happy Highway has evolved out of identifying needs following a series of projects we’ve undertook over the past 2 years locally and the past 40 years nationally and Internationally.  They are

• Build on the legacy of Rusthall Community Arts (RCA) festival
• Expand the number of Claques, partnerships and strengthening our relationship with our present ones.
• Develop new services and improvements of Claque’s Empty Gallery Heritage projects
• Deepen the experience of community members who are involved in the process of creating community plays.
• Increase our understanding and explore further the process of devising with a community
• Add material to complete “The Art of the Community Play” a book currently being written by Jon Oram.

 
Step One -The Basic Building Block (Preparation)
August - September 2020
Two of Claque’s core principles are inclusivity and community ownership. No one is turned away, we believe everyone has something to contribute and everyone is valued for what they bring.  The community ownership is such that they have considerable input into the development, management and devising of the process and the product and we are looking to expand it further. Over the past two years we have formed a local volunteer conservation group who help keep paths and rocks of the Rusthall Common clearer of bramble, fern and tough to encourage the royal fern, unique to the area, and wild flowers and meadow plants.  We worked in partnership with Rusthall Community Arts to devise and produce Legends of the Rocks, a centerpiece for the biennial festival in 2019. We’ve made a lot of ground establishing support, building networks and developing relationships with venue managers, services, school, clubs, organisations, pubs and shops, the commoners, association and friends of the Commons as well as the warden and his team. With the pause caused by Covid we need to reestablish our connection and get activities moving so we don’t lose energy build over the past three years. There is significantly more to do with developing that work and engaging with new partnerships.
 
The RCA committee was very small and remains small, due to a resistance for people to make long-standing commitments. We know once people get the vision for an idea and experience success they are more likely to stay. The success of Legend of the Rocks on a local level has increased registered volunteers from something in the 30’s to over 200. We will create ‘task teams’ that half clear briefs and distinct targets and that have interest values that suit the interests of the volunteers, who we now know better and can invite to help in areas they would more likely enjoy and excel at.

 In this preparation period we would establish project steering committee, research and devising teams and create platforms for the community to actively engage in dialogue that would include refining the aims, themes and programmed activities, identify resources, participate in devising heritage and theatre products (Exhibitions, the play etc). We also need to work together finding flexible ways to meet the changing situations of the COVID pandemic that is likely to be with us through the whole period of these projects. So in preparing we need to create contingencies for every event so that we don’t cancel activities but offer different ways of delivering activities remotely or maintaining the current government guidance of social distancing. We believe cancelling is soul destroying, but that pre considered alternatives or creative improvised solutions could be surprisingly bonding. We have had considerable successes with online improvised workshops and developing the Empty Gallery café for large group conversations, they are all well and consistently attended and it has developed a supportive atmosphere, we all look forward to them.
 
Step Two - Paths Gathering Material (Creative Preparation)
September - October 2020
The production Team, Steering Committee, RCA, Researchers, Partners and others start the creative process and engagement of the community s early as possible. Through Empty Gallery Café conversations if necessary (and more than likely in this early stage) We start gathering and selecting specific themes, ideas medium of expressions (window exhibition, landscape sculptures of rearranged natural flora, fauna and debris) selecting elements in preparation of composition workshop assignment, out of which the heritage presentation products and the ‘play will be composed. The nature of presentation will also have to have alternative solutions.  The material might include historical research, stories, pictures, objects, sounds, physical actions, text, theatrical conventions, and interactive on-line activities and display platforms. etc.  
 
Step Three - Heritage workshops, provocations, making and presentations.
October - November 2020
To cultivate community ownership, we will commit to allowing and encouraging everyone in having their say and being heard we will establish a deliberate policy of not over defining, and mostly not defining at all either the subject nor the mode and medium of presentation. In order to maintain the focus on the central focus of paths in context of heritage will set parameters on the content.  Projects will need to be responses to material derived from collaboratively researched and discussed ideas around ‘Paths’ gathered out of the research, Café conversations, and devising workshops.  The are other obvious parameters such as budgetary considerations, practicality and, essential at this time, maintaining covid safe working situations in line with government advice.
 
We are developing what we are calling ‘provocations’ to help keep us ‘on subject’, provoke creative thinking, charge conversations and challenge preconceptions.  A provocation around Paths might suggest walking around the paths of the Common and the village in small groups, or sending individuals out with a camera to take a maximum of ten photo’s of sites that inspire them as potential venues or subjects of a presentation; they might offer creative ideas of what could happen in them.  Ideas will be shared on line. If group gatherings are legally allowed a number of people might tour together and spark off each other.  We will gather notes and illustrated drawings of Empty Gallery Café group conversations. And provocation papers with lines of verse, headings, and questions. Heritage walks and talks; on line on talks or virtual walks if necessary can inspire conversation as can stories of personal stories of life’s paths
 
Covid requires a flexible, improvisational and creative approach. As we are in a world of fluctuating rules we may have to establish projects quickly to realise them under the rules existing at any give time. Workshop dates can be preset to allow people to plan their lives to attend but there would have to be alternative methods of running them. We will have a collection point or delivery for material if people have to work at home. Indoor venues may remain questionable, in which case weather may be an issue but less so up until end of September. It will require patience and generosity but working collaboratively can still be rewarding. We are finding it so. Setting up displays in open spaces, shop windows, in store, in our gardens, in and around the paths. In and on our cars, on what we wear, on our face-masks. We have to be open to unexpected solutions. We had a successful Heritage project in the City of London with exhibitions in a suitcase; perhaps we could do similar in shoeboxes, an item associated with walking paths.
 
HAPPY HIGHWAYS
Happy Highways is a Community Play informed by Paths Heritage Project. Throughout Paths we have been investigating the community and our individual past and present, and or dream and fears about our future in relation to the paths we have taken and could take.  Individuals and small groups will have already presented some of the material through exhibitions, rituals and other forms; some of these events may have involved theatrical elements.  Now we gather together as many people from as broad a spectrum of the community as possible and ask them to work collaboratively on the ambitious task of creating a work of art in terms of their community. 
 
 THE HAPPY HIGHWAYS
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content;
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
AE Houseman
 
Happy Highways is a Community Play informed by Paths Heritage Project. Throughout Paths we have been investigating the community and our individual past and present, and or dream and fears about our future in relation to the paths we have taken and could take.  Individuals and small groups will have already presented some of the material through exhibitions, rituals and other forms; some of these events may have involved theatrical elements.  Now we gather together as many people from as broad a spectrum of the community as possible and ask them to work collaboratively on the ambitious task of creating a work of art in terms of their community. 
 
 Improvisation and Devising Workshops (Preparation)
November-December 2020
The Paths project will have done much of the creative preparation of collecting provocations to stimulate devising workshops, we may want to search out more as the devising becomes more specific but we will have plenty to start.  One of the gifts of devising is the way in which it challenges us to become authentic collaborators, to work with the spirit of generosity. If a group is working together, listening to each other, not worrying about power and control, the work is usually fantastic. Improvisation workshops give people techniques to help them work generously. One key to composition work is to do a lot in a little time. When we are not given time to think or talk too much wonderful work often emerges; what surfaces does not come from an analysis of ideas, but from our impulses, our dreams, our emotions. Constructive but exquisite pressure comes out of an environment where forces lean on the participants in a way that enables more, not less, creativity.  
 
We now have twenty improvisers from the community and Claqueur Impro Theatre to help us. The community group has been attending weekly workshops since Legend of The Rocks and Claqueur have eleven years experience
 
 Step Four - Composition Workshops 
January -February 2021
Albeit Legends of the Rocks was Claque’s fiftieth community play it was the first one they have fully devised with a community.  I have devised with professional companies and smaller groups but co-ordination upward of 80 different points of view is a challenge to say the least. It depends on everyone understanding and accepting that the play can’t deliver so many views without confusion, nor are they agit-prop vehicles for personal causes. Challenging plays pose more questions than give answers. Characters, however can and do express a range of views and it’s only the involvement of people from a broad church that can deliver honest representation of the community. The world is polarised now more than in any time I remember, it’s a feature of Rusthall and Tunbridge Wells like everywhere else. Conflicting hard held views spawns an unhealthy side of tribalism, one aspect of which is we neither side listening to ‘opposing views. Acknowledging our differences and searching for points in common is an aspect of devising process, and paradoxically in my experience it has a bonding effect; it can surely therefor help heal divisions in the community too.
 
I want to bring the community deeper into the process of creating a performance from start to finish by exploring devising on an unrestricted scale through improvisation and composition. “Devising” is commonly a process in which all members of the production team from actors to technicians develop a show collaboratively; we want to open it further to the whole community, partnering groups, schools and local organisations. Opportunities to input into the composition of the play will be through composition workshops both open to public and customised to specific groups involved in arts and educational activities (music, performance, arts and crafts, dance, film, poetry, writing, literature, heritage and history, environment and conservation etc).
 
Alongside workshops are other activities to provoke conversation and ideas. The activities include tours of the rocks, photographic search for faces and creatures, workshops in prop, mask and paper costume making, performance, and singing.
 
Step Five - Present and Discuss (Composition)
March - April 2021
The different workshop groups perform their compositions to each other one after the next with no commentary in between. Then the feedback for each composition focuses on the positive innovations, articulating what is useful to the production. A semblance of a script or a running order emerges from these discussions.
 
Step Six- Construction and Rehearsals (Production Period)
May- July 2021
With Legends the eight-week rehearsal period began with an outline script, here we aim to leave more room for improvisation, parts will be left open to development and change. Decisions about costumes and masks will be more a part of the devising process, so they influence and inspire the creation of a character.. Under present conditions with regard Covid we couldn’t do an outdoor play with a seated audience, it would certainly limit numbers involved and audience size, and performing at such close quarters, especially singing wouldn’t happen. We must assume things could be the same so in the general preparation and planning we need to have a picture in our mind of what a performance in present conditions could look like. I have prepared a covid performance provocation page to get people thinking in these terms from the start.
 
We are limited in the numbers we can work with indoors so we have to rethink the Design workshop, a central design studio may not be practical. We will have to think of making in several and various environments and se where we can store images made at home, in our gardens or other outdoor spaces. Storage may be the one space we could use and it has to be found. ‘
 
Scenes can rehearsed in small groups, as can elements produced by different entities and groups (Djembe Drummers, Rock Choir etc) can be rehearsed separately and brought together with other parts of the production as rehearsals progress. The final rehearsal stage runs into the summer so we can use the performance spaces as much as possible. In the final week of rehearsal all elements are brought together for full cast calls. Limiting time is a deliberate and valued as part of the creative process.
 
Step Seven
THE PERFORMANCE
July - August 2021
The specifics of the performance will emerge through Composition and rehearsal, we deliberately stat with a blank stage so the community is an authentic collaborator in creative process. We do, however have certain parameters in place to fulfill social, educational, artistic, and community objectives.
 
The content of will be inspired by ‘place’; the Rusthall rocks, the performance venue, the location - Denny Bottom, history, the imagined drawn from folk tale and oral storytelling traditions. The performance will certainly include elements that reflect the skills and interests of the participants and partnership groups so we can determine there will be lots of music: drumming, string band, choirs and likely chorus. The performance is site specific so becomes are stage, set and backdrop. The artist groups involved will determine the props, likely to involve backpack puppetry, masks and painted banners.  There will elements of dance and physical theatre. Parts of the event will be improvised.
 
Paths’ was inspired by the limits of Covid which is why Happy `Valley seems more appropriate space for performance, there are various circular routes, great performance areas for individual and small groups and a potential amphitheater site. This requires small groups, distancing and an audience who encounter theatre as they walk in ‘bubble groups’
 
The performance style will reflect Claque’s wider agenda related to exploring the concept of the Social Actor, an idea born out of the Community Play and the actor’s relationship with the audience. Happy Highways as part theatrical walk will add a dimensions and ‘implicating the audience. It will be a personal experience for each audience member because their encounters with performance will be unique to tht moment they meet each other.
 
The process of composition is about involving the community actor in the ‘making’ of the play. In the same vein the performance will attempt to make theatre a more ‘social event’ by various means such as: Implicating the audience in the drama, giving the audience a performance role, involving the audience in ritual, incorporating social one to one dialogue; consulting the audience; allowing the audience to determine the direction of the play- such as passing a verdict, include a meal, social dancing or singing. There may well be post play event at the Toad Rock, the rues allowing.   
 
The performance dates are as yet unconfirmed; they are likely to be mid to late July or in early August. We have much do in preparation, finding funding, raising monies and support in other ways.. The performance will be no more than 1hour 30min, but may will be staggered with audiences starting a walk for instance at different times. We anticipate a local cast of around 80.  The audience size is so much dependent on Covid is an area that will comfortably take an audience of 250-300 standing and/or seated on the ground. We have taken a conservative estimate of audience as being between 160 and 250 per show.

. The Poor Man's Friend, a play by Howard Barker written and produced for Bridport in 1981., was my first experience of a Community Play. It was Ann Jellicoe's third production, after having set up Colway Theatre Trust two years earlier. I had heard about her work from Roddy Maude Roxby who knew Ann from her days at the Royal; Court Theatre. I drove down from Norfolk little knowing that it would change the whole direction of my life. I was to work with Ann on her next play in Sherborne and become director of Colway four years later. Community Plays have been a central part of my life ever since, This year, 40 years on I directed and helped my own community in Rusthall devise a play about Toad Rock just a hundred yards from my front door. It marked my 40th play. I indulged myself somewhat by hiding small moments and  lines from previous community plays within the script, most notably lines from the opening scene of The Poor Man;s Friend..  Alan Yentob made an documentary of the play for BBC Arena series called 'A Play for Bridport." I lent my copy of the film to someone years ago. I can't remember who, but it was never returned. I'm pleased to see it has re-emerged on line so I am  able to share it with you here.. I hope you enjoy it. 

At our full day devising workshop we explored ideas through costumes.  Costumes are transformative - they make us feel differently, help us adopt different roles; give us confidence and permission to be other than ourselves. It’s a perfect medium for devising. 
 
We did a few exercises to understand better a performance principle: making changes in our body shape, altering way we walk, or introducing new gestures, changes the way we feel.  We can find many ‘characters’ within us simply by changing physical thing about the way we move or stand and paying attention to how affects our inner feelings.  In our first exercise everyone walked around the room and tried to find a common rhythm for walking so that everyone was in step, once that new rhythm had been found they ‘listened’ or paid attention to how that made you feel different. Many said it felt ‘unnatural’.  Finding a character will initially feel strange just because it’s different.  They then worked in pairs, one following the other and imitating characteristics of their partner's walk. Sitting down they were asked to find a little mannerism, such as rubbing their hands together, or some small trait of someone they know. They were to then to allow the feeling they got from that to affect the whole body. Immediately we saw another character emerge in people, very subtle but clearly different to their usual selves.

People then put on ‘practice skirts and they walked about paying attention to how the skirts forced them to move differently and how that adapted movement made them feel. Laura Stanfield, our designer demonstrated different ways of wearing a skirt;  tucking them up into the waist, wearing them like a cape, lifting the bottom of the dress up and over your head (See below). Each changes solicited different manners of moving that and prompted different inner feelings; from feeling "more grounded" "floating", "spiritual" and so forth

So far in the process of ‘discovering the play’ our 4 heroes have been defined and have begun their journey, stepping through the threshold between this world, the one they know, and a different and unknown world of the Stone People. To move the story forward there were a number of things we wanted to develop and discover in this session: 
 

1. The heroes’ journey will pointless unless it changes or confirms things for them, so we have to decide a point and a purpose for them to have taken it.  We have agreed the Stone People represent ‘The Earth’ endowed with wisdom, knowledge and experience.  But we need them to have a potent philosophy or belief to relay to us through the stories they tell, their history, their rituals (including their birthing ritual) their dance and songs.
2. We need to find the stories they tell, (perhaps starting with a creation myth) or experiences that give them lessons they require.
3. We have previously imagined, our heroes’ destination being the land of the Stone People, but we agreed today that they should first face, trials, tribulations and hardships on the way. I (Jon) wanted to find characters and a situation to contrast with the Stone People.
4. Technically we need to find different ways of verbal communication to the audience to compensate for being outside and accommodate for people with ‘small’ voices. Important to think about this during devising as it influences ideas.

 
​We discussed a possible ‘Badlands’ the heroes need to cross before they meet the Stone People; somewhere that contrasts to them. Direct opposites of Stone people would be (no kind) Cruel, (not Creative) Destructive, (not Calm) Frenetic (not Ordered) Chaos (not Pure) soiled, (not Considerate) Oblivious (not gentle) but wild. We imagined a devilish King obese, and gluttonous, pushed around in a beaten up shopping trolley by buffoon cohorts. These clowns would tend to his every need, the flatter him; they are both terrified and in awe. They are ingratiating in front of the King and rude behind his back. This gives room for a lot of clownish business. Perhaps these creatures live in the darker underground fissure; fossil fuels, polluting smoke, volcanic ash, oil, coal dust and pure C02 is the air they breathe.  They have the ear of the Climate Change Deniers: Those taking fossil fuels out of the ground; self-interested profiteers - Car manufacturers; Big Government who depend on the polluting industrialist to prop up their expensive election campaigns.. Maybe these underground creatures in the Badlands know they are destroying the planet - their ambition to to destroy the Stone People. There is something Faustian about the profiteers selling their souls for earthly rewards in disregard of the consequences for others.
 
In groups we created four paper costume images of the self-Profiting Climate Change Deniers.

​Listening to previous discussions in the devising workshops the idea of their being spirits in the rocks, not least the Stone People has become very strong in everyone’s imagination. Our civilization of Stone People is very much like spirits’ and there may be others, in trees that are quite different; we should allow for others. I (Jon) pointed out that this is very close to the beliefs of the Australian Aborigine.  We don’t want to appropriate the Aboriginals belief but I think we can extrapolate a simple idea to serve the play and the story we want to tell, and that is of the world and everything in it being ‘dreamed’, and continuing to be dreamed. The ‘Creation’ was not a one off event but the start of a continuing process.  So maybe we can have ‘The First Dreamer” who dreams the land seas, the plants.  During the Dreaming the first creator made men women and animals, declared the laws of the land and how people were to behave to one another, the customs of food supply and distribution, the rituals of initiation, the ceremonies of birth and death which are required to be performed. They hold and practice their belief so that their own Dreaming is ‘pure’ and a period on a positive continuum embracing past, present and future. So our Stone people continued preserve life on earth for us. They live in secret places, out of site. Other spirits may live in the trees, trees and water holes; others in the sky as natural forces such as wind, rain, thunder and lightning.
 
We took these ideas into a Creation myth that Jon wrote for a Chorus exercise. Everyone dressed up in a costume - gender neutral, no period or cultural restriction. They could wear whatever and however they wanted (skirts as shawls, trousers as scarfs) so long as they paid attention to what character was emerging from the clothes and how they made one feel. We wanted a chorus not as a single voice but a collection of unique individuals.  

we finished the day thinking about how we move through, air, fish through water and how stone people might move through rock, perhaps it would need to be  be fluid for them. We covered a group laying on th ground with parachute silk and simply asked them to breath more deeply,  the material is very sensitive to movement. They were then asked to find their way out of the silks but to move very slowly, almost imperceptibly. This may be a possible image for the birth of the first dreamers.

An final thought: Connected to ‘Dreaming,” and to what we are doing when we listen to our own bodies and allow costume, new movements and ways of walking to change us and how we feel is the shamanic idea of dreaming. The Shaman’s term ‘dreamingbody’ is a name for unusual experiences and altered states of consciousness that try to reach our everyday awareness through signals such as body symptoms, movement impulses, dreams, and messages from the environment. It is a bonus that these exercises help us to be aware of these signals and become more in tune with each other and ourselves.
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