10 Aug A Sense of Direction – Kane Husbands

Kane Husbands, artistic director of award-winning physical theatre company ThePappyShow, likes to play. A rehearsal day run by him usually starts with an hour long “check-in”, during which the whole ensemble contributes to a group discussion on a relevant topic. Then, he explains, there is at least an hour of games.

“The check-in is when we really get to know each other, and when we give everyone the space to tell their own stories,” Husbands says. “Then we play a whole heap of games. We play ball games. We play team games. We play competitive games. Only after that will we move on to thinking about the work we have to do that day.”

Husbands’ extended introduction to the working day is all part of his philosophy for devising theatre. He prefers an open, collaborative structure to a hierarchical one. He prefers to see a show as an ongoing journey, without limits and without end – the WhatsApp groups for ex-ensembles are never quiet, he says – and, more than anything, he prefers to think of his company as people, rather than solely professionals.

“I have learned that we need to invest in people, not just in projects,” he says. “The people ThePappyShow has worked with for a long time, the people we have had longstanding creative collaborations with, we picked originally because we fell in love with them as people, not just with what skill they could bring to one particular project.”

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Husbands was born in Birmingham in 1987. His older brother was a talented footballer, who turned professional as a teenager. That sporty “space was occupied”, Husbands says, so his ambitions headed in a different direction.

“Football was definitely not for me,” he says. “At first, I wanted to be like the postman or the window-cleaner who lived around the corner, who were just really nice people. Then, when I was 16, a drama teacher encouraged me to try and get into the National Youth Theatre. I did, I got in, and that changed my life.”

Husbands spent several years with the National Youth Theatre, but his association with the company has never really ceased. He studied European Theatre Arts at Rose Bruford College, graduating in 2009, helped choreograph the Olympic and Paralympic Welcoming Ceremonies in 2012, then founded ThePappyShow in 2013.

“I never trained as a movement director or anything,” he says. “But I loved moving around, I loved playing games, I loved collaborating in groups, and I felt that there wasn’t really a space where you can keep exercising those physical ensemble skills after you graduate, unless you had some kind of formal dance training. That’s where ThePappyShow came from.”

Since then, Husbands’ company has grown – there is now a core team of ten – and produced several acclaimed physical productions focusing on joyfully exploring marginalised identities, including 2018’s Boys and 2019’s Girls. This year is the company’s busiest yet, with Girls reappearing at the New Diorama Theatre, two new shows in the pipeline, a podcast, a first foray into film, and a brand-new facility imminently opening as part of the NDT Broadgate development.

“Lockdown involved a lot of introspection,” says Husbands. “We really looked at what we do, and not being able to make work made us realise that making work isn’t the only thing we do. We realised that we don’t just make shows, we make communities. We care for people.”

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Husbands’ career now has several strands. As well as running ThePappyShow, he lectures at Central Saint Martins College’s undergraduate degree in Performance Design and Practice and works as a freelance movement director on other companies’ productions. Adapting to different rehearsal rooms with different values can be difficult, he says, but knowing he has his own projects going on simultaneously makes it easier.

“There are many things about the industry that I hate,” he says. “I hate hierarchy. I hate that people are often only given one job to do, and not allowed to have creative ideas outside that job. I hate being the only person of colour in the room, brought in just to authenticate the work. None of that is how I choose to work.”

“Having ThePappyShow makes all that easier, though,” he continues. “ThePappyShow is my space. I can run the room in the way that I want to. I can collaborate and I can care for people. And having that space means I don’t elbow my way into other people’s productions, bringing my vision and my values with me all the time.”

ThePappyShow’s success over the last few years means that Husbands is now able to turn down work if it does not appeal to him. He has a massive poster in his office with big writing reminding him to ‘Have the courage to say no.’

“I probably have capacity for one or two other projects a year, outside of ThePappyShow, so I have started to think carefully about which ones I take on,” he says. “I have a checklist. Am I excited by the collaboration? Is it going to make an impact with the people it is targeting? Am I just wanted to come in a do one dance routine, or am I going to join the creative team? Are we all going to be in it together?”

Kane was interviewed for SDUK by Fergus Morgan