13th March 2020
Theatre On The Edge was pleased to greet the New Year with the good news that their application proposal for Hull: Yorkshire’s Maritime City’s Maritime Assembly Performance Educational Outreach project had been accepted.
Anyone who has ever applied for a job and spent hours perfecting their CV and completing the job application form and cover letter or for any performance company who has ever submitted a funding bid or grant application you know the hours of research, planning, writing, etc. that go into such an undertaking. When you hear positive news that the bid has been successful there is cause for celebration and excitement, but now the real work begins!
For us the “real work” began with meetings, meetings and more meetings! First meeting was with Charlie Trzeciak, Community and Schools Learning Officer, to go over details of the project and do initial planning. This meeting was held at the Heritage Learning Offices on High Street where the heating was not working.
A suitable environment, you might think, considering that our Assembly Performance tells the story of The Diana, Hull’s whaling ship that sailed to the Arctic in 1866 and became trapped in the ice and snow where its crew endured unimaginable conditions in their fight for survival. Bolstered by cups of tea, we survived that initial meeting, and went away enthused and excited to work. And for more meetings…
There have been production meetings to plan our production schedule and to give ourselves all important deadlines to meet; meetings with potential cast members; meetings to plan for the project’s media launch; meetings to discuss design and technical elements; auditions; and for the writer, Barrie Wheatley, research, research and more research and the writing of the script to complete. Oh, and did I mention meetings?
Follow-up meetings, progress check meetings, meetings to plan when to meet; a photoshoot to squeeze in and finally the media launch on February 17th which made it all official.
More meetings, plus rehearsals to come…
