One of the best things about the Arches Award for Stage Directors since it was set up in 2002 is the breadth of work it allows. With a brief for its two winners to concentrate on new work presented as an original idea rather than a finished script, participants can use a variety of methods. These can vary from taking total ownership of the project from its inception, to employing outside artists in a more collaborative venture.
Results have been varied, although the award, now run in association with the Traverse Theatre and the National Theatre of Scotland, has consistently provided early showcases for some of the brightest talents around. These include Davey Anderson, Cora Bisset, Adrian Osmond and Neil Doherty. Significantly, all are noted for taking a polymath's attitude towards theatre-making, with all four having worked between them as writer, actor or composer, as well as directors of self-generated work.
This year's Arches winners are typically diverse in both their outlook and experience, as the two plays that flagship the equally eclectic Arches Theatre Festival should prove. Sixteen is the highest-profile platform for Rob Drummond, who previously wrote Gag for Arches Live! and acted in previous Arches Award for Stage Directors winner, The James Dean Death Scene. The Severed Head of Comrade Bukhari, meanwhile, finds Drummond's fellow winner, Daljinder Singh, drafting in playwright Oliver Emmanuel to help shape her wonderfully named work.
"The title came first," she says, "which I thought was really cool, and I thought could be something about a group of guys. Then a friend told me about something that happened in Bradford with a gang, which was really quite disgusting and made me feel queasy, but which in the play I've made even more extreme. So from being stuck, and then hearing about this real-life incident, mixing them up has really worked. I knew it was the right time for me to apply for the award, and the Arches is the perfect venue for the sort of atmosphere I want to create.
Drummond, too, began his project with a dramatic scenario.
"It's about a 15-year-old girl who makes it clear that she's going to have sex with her boyfriend on the stroke of midnight when it's legal," he says. "I'd read about people being imprisoned for statutory rape when the girl was 15 years and 11 months old.
"Boiling it down to one hour makes that situation even more crucial. The play's done in real time, and the actors have a clock on them. It has to be so well rehearsed, because the actors can't get to the end of the play before the characters do."
Drummond's involvement in theatre began while studying English at Glasgow University. With a second subject required, he eventually plumped for theatre studies, and fell into acting after accompanying a friend to an audition. Before long he started directing and became president of the student theatre group.
Prior to becoming involved with the Arches, Drummond wrote several short plays, which were performed at Gilmorehill.
"I just can't imagine ever wanting to stop," he says. "Doing Gag gave me the confidence to apply for the award. I'd considered it last year, but instead went and wrote something for the New Writing, New Worlds Festival at Gilmorehill. I'd met Neil Doherty when I acted in The James Dean Death Scene, and he agreed to direct Gag after I got talking to him about writing, and that was that. I can't imagine anywhere else where I'd be welcomed as family and allowed to try things out."
As well as writing, directing and acting, Drummond also moonlights performing front-of-house duties at Glasgow's King's Theatre, and spends his weekends acting in murder mystery tours.
"At the moment I just want to try out everything I can," he enthuses, "and can't imagine not doing one thing or the other. This is a chance to say that I'm serious about what I'm doing."
As if to illustrate, he mentions in passing that he popped over to Latvia recently to watch a show by Forced Entertainment. Oh, and he's written a novel as well.
In contrast, Singh's theatre career was launched in her native Leeds at West Yorkshire Playhouse before he moved to Glasgow four years ago as a trainee with TAG. This led to working with the multi-racial Ankur Productions, directing their debut show, Fewer Emergencies. Singh has also directed a version of Kafka's The Penal Colony for Tar Arts, as well as working with Contact, Talawa and the NTS.
"I knew from when I was a very young child that this was what I wanted to do," Singh says. "Apart from a very brief moment when I wanted to be an astronaut, I've never wavered from that. The first piece of theatre I ever saw was by DV8, and the second was by Theatre de Complicite, and they both created a real impact on what I wanted from theatre, in terms of ambition and inspiration."
Bringing in Emmanuel, whose work has been seen in Edinburgh via his own Silver Tongue company, and was suggested to Singh by Playwrights Studio Scotland, was a calculated risk.
"It's about working to my strengths," says Singh. "I could easily spend five weeks playing around with ideas but get nowhere, so I knew I had to find the right person to put a voice to my ideas. That was quite strange because it was my idea, and we had to be incredibly honest with each other. From the start I said if it's not his bag of fish then he shouldn't do it, but it's worked brilliantly so far."
Beyond the Arches New Directors Awards, both winners, still only in their twenties, have pretty busy itineraries. Under the mentorship of Douglas Maxwell, again via Playwrights Studio Scotland, Drummond is working on a play about a secret passion which he describes as his dirty little secret.
"Professional wrestling," he says. "Half of it is set in the very real world of Glasgow, and the other half of it is in the very fake world of pro wrestling in California."
Drummond is off to Liverpool in a few weeks to watch a programme put together by American promoters. Singh, meanwhile, sounds even more ambitious. "Theatre should be one of two things," she asserts. "Either it should be terrible or brilliant, but it should never, ever be boring. I think I've directed five shows professionally, but how long can you be emerging for?
I want to be director of the world. It needs it."
- Sixteen and The Severed Head of Comrade Bukhari are both at The Arches, Glasgow, April 8-12, then at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, April 16-19.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article