To present an offsite theatre piece, You’re Needy (sounds frustrating)
Self-care is becoming self-destructive.Putting yourself first has become putting everything else to the side.It’s time to peel off those cucumbers, take off your mask and take a long hard look at yourself.You’re Needy (sounds frustrating) is a unique theatrical experience about wellness and unwellness.An intimate encounter with a victim of the industry in a specially curated offsite venue, this is for the manifesters, the crystal queens and the sage burners.It’s about you; its not all about you.
National
Ireland
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Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: Grace Last name: Morgan Gender: Female Age: 27 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Ireland Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 26 Church Avenue south Town: Rialto Postal code: Dublin 8 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 87 237 0863 E-mail:gracejanemorgan@gmail.com Website:https://www.gracemorgantheatre.com/
First name: William Last name: Dunleavy Gender: Male Age: 27 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Ireland Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 4 Landore, Orwell Road Town: Rathgar Postal code: Dublin 6 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 877526428 E-mail:dunleavywilliam@gmail.com
First name: Laoise Last name: Murray Gender: Female Age: 26 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Ireland Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 4 Mount Anville Lawn Town: Goatstown Postal code: Dublin 14 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353879299510 E-mail:laoise.murray@gmail.com Website:https://www.laoisemurray.org/
Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @gracem00rgan
Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @will_dunleavy
Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @laoise_murray
YOU’RE NEEDY (SOUNDS FRUSTRATING) is an offsite piece for one audience member, set in a domestic bathroom, about a woman's retreat from everyday life in pursuit of peace, solitude and "wellness". The piece interrogates how the wellness industry and capitalism seek to control women’s bodies under the label of “self-care.” It privileges image and atmosphere over text and delights in satire and comic juxtaposition. It touches on monotony, meditation, and medication in the twenty-first century. And, of course, Gwyneth Paltrow.
This will be a unique experience for an audience member, who will experience a one-on-one theatrical event in an intimate setting. We are inspired by hikikomori, a Japanese phenomenon whereby young people voluntarily retreat from society, and Rental Sisters, a volunteer organisation that helps hikikomori re-enter society. The audience member will take on the role of this volunteer worker. They have a short series of interactions and complete a number of simple tasks with the actor, such as preparing slim noodles and making coffee. The site-specific nature of the piece will create a distinctive experience immersing the audience in the world of the show from the outset.
The idea for the piece was conceived in 2020: since then, the piece received an online scratch showing, a live work-in-progress, and was one of eight selected ideas to be pitched as part of ‘Pitchorama’ at IETM, Belgrade 2022. It has been supported by local funding bodies, mentors, and the Arts Council of Ireland. We have a clear idea of what the show will look like and what ideas we would like to experiment with in the next stage. It is important to us to ensure we are giving the best possible care to the performer and audience member.
Women
Wellness
Self-care
Capitalism
Control
This piece of theatre is an example of a piece that minimises waste. It responds aesthetically to each bathroom it is performed in, minimising the waste that is usually produced in designing and creating large theatre sets. As well as reducing waste, the piece’s lifecycle is longer than normal touring productions as there is no need for rebuilds or re-buys for the design.
This piece can also tour on a slow touring model. It requires a touring party of 4, which means that it can make use of the slow touring model whereby high-carbon modes of transport are eliminated. As it has minimal design requirements, there is no need for freights of any kind. This contributes towards our aim of creating a low carbon footprint when touring work in the future.
We are also developing an alternative touring model that sees the director of the piece travel to work with a local performer and team in executing the concept. This would again reduce the touring carbon footprint, create work for local artists and deliver the piece in the local language. We are confident that this model can make the piece not only environmentally sustainable, but artistically sustainable as well.
Finally, the piece is energy efficient. Electricity, mainly through lighting, can be one of the most environmentally damaging aspects of theatre. In this piece, any of the lighting we use is bluetooth operated and powered by rechargeable batteries.
Overall, this concept tackles three critical conversations in how theatre can be sustainable going forward: touring, material waste and electricity reduction.
Emotional benefits: The ability to navigate some of the most difficult and highly personal struggles we deal with today (mental health, body image, eating disorders, social isolation, grind culture fuelled by capitalism) and being able to do so in a safe space, with the help of Minding Creative Minds (an Irish based organisation who provide wellbeing support to the Irish Creative industry) ensures that the audience are emotionally cared for.
For those who don’t struggle with these issues, we aim to highlight how the seemingly benevolent and innocuous wellness industry can cause real damage to others. Being put in this position will help them better understand and empathise with the experience of others.
Connection to place/Design: The concept is exemplary in showing the potential of local buildings to the community. It aims to and succeeds in fostering a connection to spaces and places by creating an otherworldly and uncanny atmosphere in a usually familiar and mundane place.
Quality of experience: It is rare that people get to experience performance in this type of setting, with a level of their own involvement in which the audience is not rendered passive. They have an active role which heightens the intimacy, in that the performer is somewhat dependent on them too.
Cultural benefits: - In implementing the alternative touring model (the director tours with the work and collaborates with a local team and performer) we have created a piece that is mutable and can have various iterations. It can adapt thematically to the cultural context of a new place and linguistically for a new audience, meaning that the piece can gain a cross-cultural significance.
This concept can be exemplary in the area of inclusion through the following:
Accessibility:
With offsite theatre, accessibility can often be disregarded. The spaces we choose for this piece will be fully accessible in location (accessible via public transport routes) and with access to elevators and wheelchair ramps.
Our video content used to promote and inform audiences about the piece is neurodivergent-friendly through the use of captioning.
We will be meeting with a therapist from Minding Creative Minds, an Irish based organisation who provide wellbeing support to the Irish Creative industry, to discuss how best to protect the actor and audience member before, during and after the show. We want to ensure that we do not ignore that the wellness industry can often prey on people’s underlying issues.We hope that having aftercare as part of the theatrical experience will provide the option to anyone who may want a moment of decompression to have it.
Inclusivity:
Providing our alternative touring model as an option (where the director works with local creatives in presenting the piece) to presenters ensures that we can provide a version of the show that caters to international audiences where English is not their first language. This also provides an opportunity to open a conversation around areas of the wellness industry that are particularly pervasive in the location in which the piece may be performed and allows this to be adjusted in the performance.
Using the alternative touring model also means that we can ensure diversity across our varying teams, and with our local performers.
Grace (the director) is EDI trained with Dr Ebun Joseph and will share these skills with the team and how to implement them into our social media, marketing and creative process.
We strive to ensure a balanced gender count on our creative team. This project has a ratio of 5F/2M.
Audiences:
As this is a solo show with interactive elements, the audience member’s involvement is vital for the piece to progress. Their responses to the performer’s questions/prompts influence how the piece will develop. They are very much in control of how involved they become, and the show adapts to their comfort level.
We have time for audience members to give individual feedback/responses after each piece. We consider it very important that they are listened to and their needs are heard.
Past audience feedback and responses have influenced our process (audience members who have struggled with issues related to the wellness industry inspired us to provide more aftercare and collaborate with Minding Creative Minds in delivering aftercare), and the way in which the performer delivers the piece (gauging how comfortable an audience member is with eye contact, touch etc.)
Creatives
Our process is expanded from the outset to ensure the design team have a say in the development and aesthetic of the piece as it is being made, which resists the traditional structure of making work (when designers are usually invited into a process once the performance piece/script has been finalised).
This has resulted in a piece in which everyone feels agency over. It also has meant that the piece reflects a range of experiences on the topic of wellness making it a more rounded and inclusive performance.
The early involvement of the design team also meant that we could identify ways in which the piece could be tourable, adaptable to any bathroom space, and how the materials used could be sustainable.
Arts Council of Ireland: The Arts Council of Ireland supported the early development period of the piece through an Agility Award. This initial award aided the research and development of the piece.
Local County Council (Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council): This local county council provided a bursary award to stage a work-in-progress of the piece in our local community. This was the first time we were able to work with a creative team and trial the piece in front of a live audience.
Kilkenny Arts Festival: Kilkenny Arts Festival is a national Arts Festival in Ireland. They provided financial support to engage in a development period with a design team. This was a critical part of the development of the project as it allowed us to build the aesthetic of the piece, examine the specificities of the kind of bathroom we need such as dimensions and the positioning of features. Finally, it gave us the opportunity to examine the logistical hurdles we might face in presenting work in an offsite space.
Corcadorca: Corcadorca and The Theatre Development Centre supported the piece in 2020 through their development and mentorship programme, SHOW. When building our concept, we created some key visual references and began our research, meeting with our mentor Pat Kiernan each week to discuss our progress. This iteration was presented online and consisted of visual references reflecting our research in a video montage. We also filmed a short video presentation of the piece itself to give viewers a sense of the atmosphere and journey the audience would be taken on. For this, the camera was the point of view of the audience. Upon presenting the video, audience members were invited to ask questions and give feedback, which fuelled our next stages of development. This video piece is something we still use today as a reference point when discussing the project with people.
This project was a collaboration between artists of different disciplines. These disciplines are outlined below.:
Production designer: Having a production designer meant that we were able to develop the flexibility in design of the piece so that it can be tourable and sustainable. Our designer also previously worked in social policy for Airbnb which meant that she had an awareness of how to liaise with Airbnb owners when negotiating sites for the piece as well as an awareness of company sustainability policies.
Sound designer: Our sound designer has been involved from early stages of the project, and her soundscape, which runs throughout the piece, has directly affected the performance style of the piece, the performer’s embodiment, and is vital to the atmosphere we want to create in the space. The sonic world has been as important as a visual world of the piece from day one.
Minding Creative Minds: Minding Creative Minds is an organisation established to offer a free 24/7 wellbeing & support programme for the Irish Creative Sector. We have begun to collaborate with them in discussing aftercare for the piece and how we include a dramaturgy of care throughout so that the audience feel comfortable around the themes and intimacy of the show. This collaboration will allow us to begin considering what way we want to provide aftercare for our audience for this iteration. They have agreed to collaborate with us up to the final production. We hope this is a first step to us learning how to effectively care for our team and audiences going forward to future performance. We hope to gain the tools to be able to implement a dramaturgy of care into our practice when necessary.
When exploring the idea of regaining a sense of belonging, this piece both in form and its handling of the theme are innovative in the field of its concept.
Form: The form of the piece, being one-on-one and offsite, is an innovative approach which resists mainstream conventional play structure.This will be a unique experience for an audience member, who will experience a one-on-one theatrical event in an intimate setting. The audience member will take on the role of a volunteer worker and will have a short series of interactions and complete a number of simple tasks with the actor. The site-specific nature of the piece will create a distinctive experience immersing the audience in the world of the show from the outset. The piece is 30 minutes in length and can be performed a number of times a day.
Theme: This piece explores the idea of regaining a sense of belonging through the lens of the wellness industry. It is rare when seeing this industry represented in art forms that it highlights the extremities to which people can take ‘self-improvement,’ and the often dangerous repercussions engaging in certain wellness habits can cause on your body: all in the pursuit of gaining ownership over one’s existence. It explores the inwardness of ‘knowing thyself’ celebrated by this industry, exposes the ways in which control can masquerade as autonomy, and highlights the levels of narcissism that can be found in the pursuit of perfection. It questions the surface level ideas behind regaining a sense of belonging, and asks the audience what one must do in order to fully reconnect.
Both the methodology and product (including design and performance) can be transferred to other contexts.
Methodology: Our methodology of working can be replicated in other places and contexts. The model of creating means that the director can work with local performers or hosts who are interested in the piece, in developing it into a performance in their local language. and highlighting issues of wellness they find most prevalent in their life. This can be done via zoom or in person depending on the nature of the ask.
Product: The product can be transferred to contexts as the tour-able nature of the piece means that we can execute the piece on a skeleton crew and still ensure it is of an excellent standard. This makes it cost effective and sustainable. The small touring team and efficient design concept means that we can also engage in a slow touring model.
Housing crisis: As the piece centres around a young woman who is living in her family home, it examines the rise in young people not being able to move out of their family home as they cannot afford rent or housing prices. This is particularly prevalent in European capital cities (especially Dublin). By presenting the piece offsite, it highlights the problem and asks us to consider the impact that this inherited crisis has on young people’s maturity, development, autonomy, and social life.
Rise of mental health issues in young people: This piece highlights the rise of mental health issues in young people and how often people turn to the wellness industry as opposed to seeking professional help. We aim to highlight the danger of not practically addressing mental health issues by collaborating with Minding Creative Minds. This will ensure audience members are given access to steps to manage their mental health following the performance.
Sustainability in the arts: The piece provides a solution to the question of sustainability in performance making and touring. Any materials used in the design of the show are ethically sourced and sustainable. Our touring model has been designed to minimise our carbon footprint and be a proof of concept for this model of working.
