Familiar Territory?

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We began our preparations for performing Journey to X at Kendal yesterday…three hours of rehearsals where our job was to start something we thought we’d taken as far as it could go back in March.  It is always a strange part of our year putting the connections play back together as although many aspects of the production stay the same: the story, the script, the themes, the people…the reality is that without really being aware that it’s happened so much has changed.

We first set off on the process of realising Journey to X as a piece of theatre 5 months ago.  Yesterday I looked at my cast and was struck by how much the cast had lived though…some of which has been dramatic, some of which has just been the general learning and development that happens by living each day.  Either way everything in some way has changed.  None of this is remarkable, it’s just what happens, but sometime things don’t have to be remarkable to have significance.  It would be so much easier to just put the play back together again…assemble it like flat pack furniture but that would be so far beneath us.  What we need to do is capitalize on the chance to look again with new eyes…find new things, affirm the constants, question everything once again…that’s the kind of creative challenge that engages us…so the next performance we do of Journey to X won’t be a copy of what we did before it will be the next chapter of the play, the next chapter of the performers…If we get it right it will be enriched by new experiences and understandings.  An interesting thought to have, not just regarding this play but also in light of the new term starting for many of and for all of us the fact that spring has established itself full of its possibilities and promise…

If that wasn’t enough to get you all thinking…applications for Connections 2013 open tomorrow…if that wasn’t a perfect invitation for a whole new journey for YTYT I don’t know what is…

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