31 Jan SDUK Blog: Kate Nelson
Hello from Edinburgh.
Having lived and worked in Scotland for over 20 years, I joined the SDUK board because I felt that the perspective of directors living and working here needed to be represented. However, working as a freelance director, as AD of a tiny, independent theatre company, and as a part-time academic; I also think that I’m quite typical of lots of theatre directors across the U.K. who do multiple jobs to earn a living. Over the last week my work as a director has involved: running a participatory arts workshop in a foodbank, a new writing workshop for a play about hospices, teaching Drama undergrads not to mess with Pinter, completing 2 funding applications, re-organising a cancelled tour and planning for a show in April. All of it under the umbrella of being a theatre director, none of it in a theatre building. So I bring to the board, the reality of being a director from those of us not blessed with a salaried job in a building.
Directing in Scotland presents a unique set of challenges. We work under a different funding model to the rest of the UK, under the aegis of Creative Scotland. Since 2000, many of our civic theatre buildings have become trusts and have moved from being producing houses to simply receiving work. Our touring network is broken through years of neglect followed by Covid decimating our volunteer promoter networks, and Scotland has fewer than 10 theatres where work is produced year-round. So, opportunities are thin on the ground across the country. The challenges of working in Northern Scotland where a round trip to a theatre may involve a journey of 200 miles, is very tough indeed and the few hardy makers creating work on the islands and the far North Coast are true theatre heroes bringing extraordinary work to rural audiences there. Most of us less brave souls base ourselves in and around Central Scotland where commuting to another city is a matter of a couple of hours rather than a day trip. But that is predicated on there being work to commute to – which is a whole different story. Most directing work in Scotland’s theatres is still handed out via the dispiriting tradition of coffee meeting pitches from known faces. But, the following story shows that change is happening for us – albeit slowly.
In January 2021, in the depths of another lockdown, I spotted an advert on Creative Scotland’s Opportunities page. It was an open call for directors at the new Cumbernauld Theatre at The Lanternhouse. In a directing career in Scotland spanning two decades, it was the first time I’d ever seen an open call for freelance directors to create shows in one of our producing houses. Was this really an open opportunity? Intrigued, but steadfastly cynical, I applied and to my delight, was shortlisted.
I had an hour to pitch my idea and instead of the usual coffee meeting with an Artistic Director, this was to be via Zoom, to a panel of six people, comprising theatre staff from all paygrades and two board members from the local community. The CEO and Producer were nowhere in sight. My face was obscured by my power point for 95% of the interview – a great way for me to circumvent the intersectional challenge my age, gender, and ADHD usually presents. As a result, I was very relaxed. There was no wading through the coffee meeting agonies of small talk, or any other awkwardness dressed as nicety. It was the nearest thing to a traditional job interview I’ve ever had as a theatre director. It was a genuinely open process. They even checked my references; and reader, I got the show.
Cumbernauld’s new management team have initiated a policy of open call for most opportunities. I also thought it was an experiment worth exploring in casting the first show in their new building. I must admit, I didn’t relish the prospect. I’m used to conventional casting approaches via agents, and I was pretty confident I knew the range of actors available in Scotland. The administration of open calls is really time consuming. I knew there would be a tsunami of mail. But, by making smart use of the filtering that Spotlight offers, plus careful combing of emails from a few actors unable to afford Spotlight, my lovely assistant director was able to create a robust shortlist for me to work from. All the actors offered showreels and audio samples which helped me refine my choices and I found my subsequent face-to-face meetings were very focussed. I was able to home in far more precisely on what I wanted to unpack with each actor individually.
My original advert was a friendly, inclusive brief with all the right language of “we welcome actors from all backgrounds etc.” However, it became clear as the emails started to arrive, that not everybody thought that I was sincere when I said ‘’everyone”. There were large sections of the acting population missing. When making direct approaches via agents it’s easy to be directly inclusive in who one calls for audition, but open call requires a little more force to ensure no one self-deselects. I redrafted my advert as a clear list of who I wanted to meet and was very relieved to hear back from the real “everyone”, including actors from the global majority, non-binary actors, actors with disabilities, LGBTQI+ actors, and BSL actors.
My version of Romeo and Juliet required a cast of 5, all with a playing age of under 25. They needed the ability to flit between stage acting and playing live to camera and have the potential to work with rapier and dagger as we had large fight sequences in the show. I had already made one straight offer prior to advertising, because I had a particular actor in mind for Mercutio when I came up with my vision for the show. We hadn’t worked together before, but casting him was part of my pitch, so I felt I had to honour this. He was utterly fantastic, so no regrets there! However, as the emails came in, I saw scores of new faces. It rapidly disabused me of the idea that I really knew who was out there. I have realised that this will be the case with open call for actors across any generation.
The young actors I met were all brilliant. They were professional, intelligent, and talented. They were very positive about the open call, and I was humbled by their appreciation. There was something special about the energy of the auditions which I think came from their ethical foundations. People had come into the room via a fair and transparent selection process. What started as an experiment has made a convert of me.
As we push onwards to hopefully happier times, we need to try and reconfigure our industry along lines of greater fairness through direct action. Open call is exactly this. Sure, it takes a bit longer and it’s intense. But it goes beyond the virtue signalling and performative language often visible in mission statements offered by organisations when recruiting office staff. It’s a pity that they currently don’t follow these statements of intent more robustly when recruiting creative teams and actors. The work of Open Hire ( see link below) is a refreshing move in the right direction and let’s hope that many more organisations sign up to this in the coming year. The realpolitik of the world of business, which often bends towards cronyism, should be no part of the working practice of theatre artists. We need to step away from this in deed as well as word. Just because it’s “aye been thus”, doesn’t mean it should carry on. If we are to have any hope of truly effecting change, we must include open opportunities, so everyone has the chance to be considered for the work available. I am confident all our stages will be the better for this fairer way of working.
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Kate Nelson is an SDUK Board member.
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SDUK supports transparent recruitment for creative freelancers with #OpenHire