As I get older I network less. As I look out of my view across the Firth of Forth from my tiny office window, I don’t get the urge to go to the membership meetings and first nights which are out there for me to attend (and I can’t afford to). As I get more interested in very specific things and individual emerging talent, I am more likely to spend one-on-one time with someone rather than broadcasting my wares. This is all well and good for an employed person or a retired person, but a challenge for a freelance being who has made a career in inventing things and jumping to take on new challenges.
I too often sit at my laptop and rely on my Facebook friends, Twitter followers, Producers’ Pool database, Clothing Optional database, friends groups, and direct email to old mates, who haven’t yet retired, to help to get the word out – and to find out what’s happening. I realise that bubble gets smaller and smaller, and I could feel that I am floating off into the distance. That is a dangerous thing to start believing and so this email is a reminder to myself to help myself.
I have two projects which I want the right people (and loads of the wrong people if they’d like) to know about. I’ve got lots of the right people on my lists, but there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of people out there who know you, but they don’t know me or my projects yet. So maybe I can get into your bubble and we can help each other.
I’m currently launching a search for, say, 200 plays which have had previous professional productions in the UK, but have not been picked up for publishing and licensing. I sent out a press release and to date no press has carried the story. I wonder whether its too much of a good news item. I know it is about a small publisher without big street cred. I know we don’t have a celebrity patron. Its just me, and founder of Stagescripts David Waters, a small but perfectly formed one-off donation to make it happen allowing 10 of these plays to be published, plus 20 young directors and producers waiting to read the scripts after the 30th Nov deadline. If you can help get this info into your bubble and out of mine, I’d be so grateful. http://www.chrisgrady.org/stagescripts-1010-quest-for-10-unsung-plays/
Secondly, I’m trying to get the word around without major advertising about two Clothing Optional performances at the Vaults for Divine Proportions on 8th and 24th November. I have a wonderful network of naturists, fellow naked theatre explorers, and people who attend and run workshops about the body, sensuality and sexuality. But we are all in very interlinked bubbles and now I want to expand and reach some new theatremakers and theatregoers who will have bubbles filled with interested people of their own. Maybe you’d like to be on my list for future Clothing Optional projects, maybe you fancy a night out with Dionysus and her high priestesses – see you there…and the food is delicious https://www.thevaults.london/divine-proportions-clothing-optional
And then third I realise that I’m in a bubble with 48% of the population who are scared and deeply unattracted to the shenanigans which are going on around Brexit. I have yet to have a discussion with people in the majority bubble, and I haven’t seen much theatre made by that majority of the population. So if there’s a leave championing theatremaker out there reading this, then I’d love to learn more, see your work, and understand how this can be good for us all in the future.
I am loving my idyllic new home location. I am hopeful that my freelance portfolio will begin to coalesce soon to keep my bank account above zero, and I am so excited to be reaching out to funders and friends in order to make a new theatre/happening – Revelation – The More Show for 2019. I will be looking to reach out to many different bubbles to excite people about that show soon. And I keep buying my Lottery Ticket to ensure the luck-gods look favourably on me and we can make the very first piece of theatre of this kind to open next year.
Thanks for sharing these reflections, and the links to reach the right people. Cheers Chris