Developing Your Craft Directors Book Group A Living Pictures initiative supported by The Young Vic Are there theatre practitioners you’ve heard of but never had the time to explore? Theatre practice books that you’ve never known quite how to tackle? Do you fancy a chance to practically explore a range of written works with a group of directors and theatre makers over six weekends throughout 2021? Then Book Group is for you. What it is: an informal group of directors and theatre makers at varying career stages coming together in a supportive environment to learn together. What it isn’t: an inaccessible intellectual exercise in academia. The Directors Book Group will bring together 15 directors and theatre makers who want to develop their practice. Workshops will be held in a safe, supportive environment and will be peer led, allowing directors to explore different approaches to directing whilst also developing their skills in leading workshops. The workshops are designed to test the ideas of the book in a space where we can also admit: we don’t know what this means! The workshops will be spread over a series of six two-day weekends running January-November 2021. Each director prepares an agreed section/chapter and leads a session with the group that tests the ideas. Previous books have included - and could include again: Viewpoints by Anne Bogart, The Science of Acting by Sam Kogan, Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches by Sharrell D. Luckett with Tia M. Shaffer, and The Michael Chekhov Technique by Sinêad Rushe. The first book/text will be programmed but the group can collectively agree on the remaining texts/approaches that they would like to explore over the course of the Book Club sessions. When possible, we will also invite the writer of each approach to join us for a Q&A over Zoom at the end of each weekend’s exploration (subject to availability). Format: Six daytime weekend Book Group sessions (Saturday & Sunday, 10am - 5pm). All workshops will adhere to Covid-19 safety and social distancing guidelines. Dates: One weekend in January, March, May, July, September, November (precise dates TBC). Texts: Unfortunately, Living Pictures cannot supply hard copies of the texts to participants. Participants will be responsible for sourcing. Venue(s): TBC, London (We will try and stick to one venue but this is dependent on availability and restrictions). Potential venues include: Young Vic’s Platform, Southwark; Bold Elephant, Elephant & Castle; FH Space in Forest Hill - there is potential to move online according to Covid-19 restrictions. Covid-19: Subject to the ongoing pandemic, all sessions and meetings will adhere to safety guidelines around social distancing, hand sanitizing and advised precautions / preventions to keep participants as safe as possible. Facilitators: Poppy Rowley and Claire Parry. Claire Parry is a Lecoq trained multidisciplinary theatre maker who directs regularly for multi-roling, multi-instrumental touring Shakespeare troupe The Three Inch Fools, alongside developing her solo clowning work. Boorish Trumpson is her latest show and will be (virus permitting) at Edinburgh Fringe 2021. www.claireparry.co.uk Poppy Rowley is a hard-of-hearing theatre director who has primarily worked with new writing and classics. She was artistic associate for Eastern Angles Theatre Company and has worked nationally and internationally, regularly directing with Holden Street Theatres, Adelaide. She is currently working with Fourth Monkey Actor Training and is an ambassador for StageTEXT. We are committed to widening access, equality and diversity, and actively encourage applications from people who are under-represented in the arts sector due to their socio-economic status, ethnic background or identify as disabled to increase the representation of these groups within the cultural sector. Application: Please send a CV and a paragraph or two about why being involved in Book Group appeals to you, and what you hope to get from the experience (max 300 words). If there is a book/text you would be interested in exploring please do suggest them in your application. Alternatively, send a short video (via WeTransfer etc.) or link to a video providing the same information. We would be grateful if you could complete the Equal Opportunities monitoring form, which you can download here. Please send to Neil Bull, Project Coordinator at Living Pictures: [email protected]. DEADLINE: 5pm Monday 2nd November 2020 What 2019/20’s participants said: ‘...a chance to play and interrogate with a group of people who are as fascinated by theatre as you are in a safe space…you will learn about yourself as a director and as a person.’ ‘...an invaluable learning experience… ’ ‘...to explore so many new directorial approaches in such a constructive way (within) the structures and community Book Club has offered.’ ‘...an awesomely supportive and engaging way to develop your practice!’ ‘...I will take away the connection with a group of directors who I feel I can call on and chat with about different aspects.‘ ‘...I feel I have learnt a whole new toolkit to call upon in the rehearsal room, and more than that it's changed the way I look at things outside of theatre too.’ ‘...It's CPD (Continuing Professional Development) for free... It gives you a support network and theatrical intellectual stimulation. It's great!’ ‘...My understanding and engagement with the texts would have been so much less without Book Club. I'm even running free fortnightly zoom workshops for actors I've worked with based on one of the books.’ ‘...An energising, stimulating and fantastic way to explore theatre texts with a community of inspiring directors.’