The Trouble With Being Gordon











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Oblique Strategies for Drama

I am a big fan of the musician Brian Eno. From his work with Roxy Music through to his records with U2 and Coldplay via Bowie, Byrne and inventing ambient music I think he has an interesting outlook on the creative process and has made a career out of reinventing his own sound, and the sound of others. As a theatre director who has a massive interest in record production I was drawn to Eno's Oblique Strategies . A series of prompts written on cards that he would pull out at random to instigate a creative impulse in the musicians he was working with. You can check out some of the strategies on this website .  Sometimes when you are rehearsing a play you can feel that, as a director, you are making the same safe choices again and again. Actors have this feeling too. They have made choices in rehearsal and are scared to deviate from 'what works'. This pushes a whole world of unexplored possibilities to the side.  I was working on some show or other a few years ago and when it ...
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Making Battery Park

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Opening night for my latest play, Battery Park, has come and gone. I'm sitting here, exhausted but exhilarated after a fantastic rehearsal process that led to us making what I think is a great show.  I started this blog as a student at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where I studied directing, as a place to reflect on my practice, and over a decade later I haven't kicked the habit. So here's a reflection on my process as a director - but also as the artistic director of Sleeping Warrior Theatre Company.  It will be of niche interest to some I hope, and will be a resource for myself looking back. Battery Park is about a group of young people from Greenock who form a band and attempt to become bigger than Oasis in 1990's Britain. We know right from the off that they didn't succeed and we watch the main protagonist now - a 47 year old man - as he grapples with the choices made by younger him and how they still affect his life.  Around a year and a half ago I appli...
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Meeting the playwrights

Week 3 at the Academy has really got me into the habit of what to expect for the coming year ... work - and lots of it. A big chunk of this week was spent meeting 4 professional playwrights who have been commissioned to write a piece for us. It was fascinating to see how 4 people who do the same job can go about it in such different ways. I'm really looking forward to working with any of them and I've already learned a great deal about writing and creating theatre from the few hours spent in their company. Sooooo, all is going well, I've not had a chance to do any videos, music or recording and can't really see when I'll be able to do that in the coming year, it's a constant routine of classes, reading and writing just now and I'm sure it will continue that way - which is just what it should be. Intense. But worthwhile. Been to see quite a few plays recently too, nothing that's blown me away but everything I've seen has helped to clarify what I like ...
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