Developmentdevelopment history... I did a 'work in progress' night in LA for my own artistic research and audience feedback on March 2013. In June 2014, I was invited by William Hague and Angelina Jolie, to perform for the UN at The Global Summit to Prevent Sexual Violence in Conflict, in London. The show has been invited by Theatre Row in NYC, been nominated for mentorship by the Cherry Lane Theatre in NYC, and garnered expressions of interest from 6 Scottish Theatres, including the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in association with the Centre for Voice in Performance. Creative Scotland granted me a Research and Development award in May 2015, and combined with the donations of 150 generous donors on kickstarter, this took me to Scotland to work with Director Susan Worsfold, Producer Lesley Anne Rose and Designer Paul Burgess, to experiment with exactly how to tell Danna's story. View the details of this preparatory period and the award. In this week, I also worked with a digital chorus comprising two ex-military actors Mike Vaughn, R Lewis Blake, and Ex-British Army actor Euan McNaughton and also Nayo Wallace who played the part of Galen using digital green screen. It was written with the Clinical Forgiveness Inventory in mind, using this definition: Interpersonal Forgiveness is a willingness to abandon one's right to resentment, negative judgment, and indifferent behavior toward one who unjustly injured us, while fostering the undeserved qualities of compassion, generosity and even love toward him or her. -Robert D. Enright evaluation of development... Heroine came through the period of creative development at the Lemon Tree theatre in the UK with flying colours - our evaluation revealed that 100% of our evaluation audience wanted to see the full show and thought the material was very exciting. This audience was made up of veterans, local theatre goers, people who don't like theatre and never go, and industry appointed experts - those who are regularly funded to make theatre, and those who critique it. |
funding...
For the development week in June 2015, we had to raise extra funds - and reached our goal on Kickstarter 2 days ahead of time! What a brilliant feeling to have the support of 150 generous backers behind me as a creative team came together. It was such an honour and so exciting. Listen here for a snapshot of the audio we used from USA and UK active duty soldiers whom we cast as Danna's modern-day chorus. Heroine's development was funded from generous donors on Kickstarter, by Creative Scotland Producers Project and Aberdeen Performing Arts, with our massively grateful thanks. "This is an extremely thought provoking piece of theatre with an extremely important story that should be told." Audience member, Development showing We are delighted to have had a Work in Progress Showing with Edinburgh Festival and Kings Theatres, now Capital Theatres in Scotland, on March - April 2017. We completed it with 6 days rehearsal. For those who attended, we did two Q and A sessions with our very curious Edinburgh audiences, attended by Danna Davis herself over the phone. I was a go-between to ensure her anonymity so her voice could not be literally heard, relating audience questions to her and then her answers back to the audience - a slightly surreal and touching experience, and like much of this process, something that has been a huge privilege to be part of. Danna Davis and I received no less than 50 personal letters and emails afterwards, tributes to her story and the show, from 50% of our attending audience. THANK YOU. KEEP TALKING. Pics from Development in 2015 are below. Pics from the show's WIP showings are on the Press tab. “Now I will tell you something very profound, which I have learned after many years. War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. All wars, and all decent people.” - Ben Ferencz The last living Nuremberg Trials prosecutor, age 97 |