Here’s the recipe.
Take William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a filleting knife. Cut away any material that can be possibly regarded as fat, leaving a lean narrative, anything remotely repetitive should be cut out and thrown away, retain a hint of poetry for the purposes of flavour. Continue reading “Shakespeare Recipe” »
At the beginning of the year a small group of Year 6 children from Billesley Primary School joined us at our base in AE Harris to begin work on an online choose your own adventure story. We used the journey from their school to the Jewellery Quarter as inspiration for possible starting points, settings and characters for their stories. As I walked with them I realised that this was their last year in primary school and that they were one of the first groups of children we had worked with in our now five year long partnership with Billesley Primary.
I first met them when they were in Year Two and aged 6. Together we made a comic book version of Treasure Island and looking back at the pictures from that project you can see their personalities shining through. The following year they worked with us on a Weather Project documenting the daily conditions, writing poetry and creating costumes for a meteorological themed performance in the school hall. In Year Four we explored Ancient China with them. Last summer when they were in Year 5 we made Superfast Shakespeare, a quick fire rendering of five Shakespeare Plays performed outdoors in their playground and on the terrace of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford.
Now they are in Year 6 and a group of ten of these now 11 year olds have just finished creating The Amazing Adventures Of You. They wrote stories and learnt coding to create a hypertext adventure in which you, the reader can choose which path you want to choose through the story.
We wish these children and the rest of Year 6 at Billesley the very best for their future adventures and thank them for their work with us over the years.
Please read and enjoy the amazing adventure they have created for you HERE
Craig
Photo Credit: Alex Brenner
This year I have the honour of being one of the judges for BE Festival. Here are five reasons I’m a fan of the festival.
1: I love the ‘lucky dip’ nature of the shows you will see. Each evening four short shows are shared, a tasting menu of surprises; a full meal just of starters – which are always the most exciting element of a meal. If you don’t like the flavour of one piece it’s not long before the next one comes along and the chances are high that there will be something each evening that you will find inspiring.
2: I love the cosmopolitan nature of every evening, seeing what artists from other countries are thinking about and playing with. This is a rare privilege, not a lot of international work reaches us in Birmingham and it’s especially unusual to see more ‘grassroots’ work and not the more predictable ‘big names’.
3: I love the food but more importantly audiences and artists eating together at long tables halfway through each evening reminds me of happy moments touring to theatre festivals in continental Europe, where making art doesn’t feel like a job but feels like life.
4: I love the sense of community at the heart of BE Festival. It was started for the excitement of it all by a group of friends working hard and relying on huge amounts of goodwill. Artists come to share their work, they are hosted by local residents and fed by the festival, volunteers help out and with BE NEXT the next generation of young artists are gaining valuable experiences making theatre.
5: I take an avuncular pleasure in seeing the festival’s reputation grow, the number of submissions increase, the cultural connections multiply, its ambitions soar and outreach work spread. Attending year’s festival causes me to remember with pleasure the excitement and anxiety of first B.E. Festival @ A.E.Harris in 2010.
Returning as a judge this year means I’ll definitely be at every performance. If you see me around please come and say ‘hello’ I’d love to hear your opinions all the show’s you’ve seen.
The taste of humble pie is becoming familiar. Now I admit my original scepticism was wrong, everyone should have a relationship manager.
The relationship manager ensures you no longer forget birthdays or anniversaries, they gauge the aptness of presents, nudge you to call neglected relatives, prompt you to throw parties, organise trips to the with friends cinema and host dinner at yours; they help smooth things over at work, they let you know when you’ve stepped out of line in the bar and they broker reconciliations after yet more misunderstandings. Now I don’t know how we ever managed without one. Continue reading “Relationship Manager” »
When Birmingham Conservatoire approached us about hosting a PhD studentship we considered some obvious options, retrospective surveys, philosophical reflections, contextual and comparative studies but ultimately composers want to compose and we want to both avoid the obvious and collaborate on making exciting new art. So a new plan has been hatched.
We are collaborating with Birmingham City University offering a PhD studentship to spend an extended period of up to three years as Composer in Residence at Stan’s Cafe. The plan is for this artist to become part of the team exploring how they can ‘add value’ in unexpected new ways. This figure won’t replace our existing musical collaborators composing music for shows, but prompt new interventions in unexpected corners of the company, to work with us innovating and exploring. It’s open ended and we’re very exited about the possibilities, we hope some exciting and talented composers apply.
One of the great things about being a theatre occupying factory space is that you can save masses of money by leaving things pretty bleak and claiming this bleakness as ‘post-industrial chic’. As those of you who have visited us will know we’ve been enthusiastically living ‘post-industrial chic’ for years and this approach has suited us well, but recently a problem has emerged. Continue reading “New Door” »
While noble volunteers were generously donating their labour scrubbing 4000 years of dirt from @AE Harris I was fulfilling the duty of anyone called James by driving a car full of American visitors around the English countryside. Fortunately our travels took us to Stonehenge and through Avebury which allowed my guilty conscience to excuse my absence from cleaning duties – suddenly I was on a research trip. Continue reading “The Camp – research” »
There’s a gem of a museum embedded in Birmingham University and now this fact has been acknowledged nationally. The Lapworth Museum of Geology has just been shortlisted for the Art Fund Museum of the Year award. Roisin and I went there this afternoon to learn about what all the fuss is about and it turns out the fuss is about a beautifully designed, beautifully laid out museum full of amazing objects. Continue reading “Rock Hard” »
With a busy office full of people I often plug myself into some music and headphones in order not to distract or be distracted by those around me. However today I hadn’t got to that point when I heard Lucy ask our current university placement Laura to help her with a problem… Continue reading “Very Difficult Maths” »
We are looking for an Artist/Designer to design and create an image for the main entrance doors to Stan’s Cafe’s performance space @AE Harris. At the moment the doors are looking rather tired and battered and we want to transform them into a distinctive and welcoming entrance.
You can download an ARTIST BRIEF which gives more details and contains images and dimensions.
To apply please send portfolio in a digital or scanned format along with a brief CV or biog. We’d be grateful if you could also download and complete the Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form
Please submit to Laura Killeen, General Manager, at laura@stanscafe.co.uk by 10am on Monday 15 May. You can also contact Laura if you have any further questions.
