Thoughts for July: Pleasing People: The Joy & Art of Collaboration (Pt. 1)
Lizzy Whynes laughing with Kirsty Pennycook and Benjamin Wilson in rehearsals for Mother of the Revolution, 2024. Photography by Emily Goldie.
This month, before we take a summer break this August, here is the first in a two-part series exploring how active human collaboration is not only at the centre of our work, but feels more vital than ever.
A scary amount of the people we work with are losing out to AI.
And not just losing work - losing collaboration.
Within the last month we’ve listened to numerous stories from creatives, including set and costume designers, game designers, actors, directors, facilitators and writers being faced with being presented with an AI prompt from a manager and being simply asked to recreate the prompt within their own skills-sets. Cutting out what, for us, is probably the most thrilling element of making work -
creative conversation.
There’s an echo of this feeling across the many years of our experiences of the hierarchy of this industry. It's the same feeling when artistic leaders hand-select lead positions or commissions for their mates. It’s when open roles or funding pots receive thousands of applications but the opportunities inevitably go to folks/companies already on a radar. AI is now just another tool of inequality, enabling certain authorities in power to further ensure their authority is upheld rather than questioned.
In short, like any other yes-man, AI won’t say no to you.
This puts us in a position whereby no one has really actively interrogated the creative output. It gives people a free pass to buy into the toxic idea of solitary genius; that their work needs no sounding board. That art isn’t a team sport and doesn’t need others. But if an AI-drawn tree falls in the woods, and no one is there but a genius, does anyone really give a shit?
Our new least favourite word that has suddenly become ubiquitous is ‘frictionless’ 🤮. Nodding terrifyingly to a world protecting convenience over seemingly anything else.
For god’s sake…
GIVE US FRICTION!
Real, meaningful collaboration might not be as easy as generating AI slop but my-god is it more gratifying! We’ve both talked about this a lot, but neither of us ever come into a creative space with a road map already drawn, believing we already have the best ideas in our pockets. Always the joy for us in building creative teams, partnerships and why we, unusually, interview and not audition actors is because we love to load our spaces with lively, and crucially different, opinions.
All evidence from making our work has told us that if you open up the possibility for others to share stake in your ideas - to contribute, mold, shape, refine and expand them - the idea gets better.
One of the best examples of this was that, when it just existed in Beth’s mind, Mother of the Revolution was going to be a small-scale tour until Chris Sharp opened up the doors of Leeds Industrial Museum and welcomed the idea of the show into that space; immediately morphing it into something much bigger. Something that absolutely could never just exist with her but required and demanded so many others to step up to build the vision in its new vessel together. That first opening of the doors in 2020 is now in its 6th year of partnership.
In August, in this continued collaboration with Leeds Industrial Museum we’ll open a new exhibition, Ludd in the Machine. (So we’re not really taking a summer break!). This exhibition has been instigated by the conversations we’ve been having across our organisations as we have been developing our second production together Shirley: An Awakening. The exhibition will take this spark, discussing the impact and relevance of the Luddite movement today; as well as tracking this through other workers’ and community rights movements, focussing across the 1970s/80s and today. This exhibition has been a collaboration, not only of our two organisations, but a group of brilliant Leeds-local volunteers who have led the researching and writing of this exhibition, whilst constantly having to put up with our revolutionary-level enthusiasm for this topic and trying to get them to squeeze in both more references to Charlotte Brontë and more Margaret Thatcher jump-scares.
Another hugely exciting collaboration is in being able to bring our amazing designer Lu Herbert, with their exceptional skillset of theatre design, into developing the design for the exhibition hand-in-hand with the volunteer curators. With skills being given new context on both sides for artists and participants. It’s likely that when you’re reading this blog, we’re at Leeds Industrial Museum, with Lu guiding us and the volunteer curators through making protest banners you’ll see interwoven in the design of the space.
The opening of the exhibition will also mark the launch of our major new project, An Awakening: The Threads of Luddism, with lots of opportunities over the next year for different people to get involved in creatively exploring these themes inspired by the show and the exhibition. Opening up loads of new collaborations! (A wee taster of that can be found here, where you can sign up to find out first.)
Saying all of this is not a self-pat-on-the-back for how good we are as partners and collaborators, but rather, we hope this is the visible tip of the ice-berg in our ongoing commitment to putting collaboration with artists, participants and audiences at the centre of our practice. As we’ve said earlier, collaboration is rigorous active work. In the second part of this blog, in September, we’ll explore the muscles needed to get the most out of collaboration. Until then…
Beth Recommends:
A read: For my sins, as this has been out for ages and I should have recommended it already! From the master collaborators Common/Wealth and one every theatre-maker worth their salt should read: Do It Yourself: Making Political Theatre.
A Listen: It’s a sneaky double listen-watch hybrid, but Kate Rusby’s Light Beyond the Lines has popped up on one of our creative inspiration playlists for a new bit of work we currently have in the dreaming with playwright Simon Marshall. As another bit of collaboration magic, this track came out of Mark Radcliffe’s BBC Folk Show’s 21st Century Folk project, where folk artists craft new works based on the stories of real people. Last year’s tracks were all themed around trains and railways, and you can listen/watch/sob along to Kate and all of the tracks here. Worth the licence fee just for this.
A Watch: The best documentary series about collaboration in sport… yes of course it’s America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. I absolutely don’t need to justify why I love this series so much but I do need to let you know that my favourite part of it was when the cheerleaders advocated for better pay in Series 2. Workers rights with a side of sisterhood? I’m forever thunderstruck.
An Event: Two of my top pals and fellow Sheff creatives Jess Millward and Ellie-May Blackburn are hosting a scratch night Scratching the Itch on 20th July, celebrating local new writing. These are two of the best, so this is sure to be a great night of creative joy! See you there?
Seán recommends:
A Watch: A new batch of BBC 6 Music Artist in Residence episodes is gradually dropping this week. Some of these are quite good, but there are some outstanding episodes available from last year, with a specific shout out for the Bon Iver one). They’re a really great, accessible insight into the music production and, relevantly, collaboration process.
A Listen: I listened to Jjerome87’s (the solo project of Alt-J’s Joe Newman) The Canyonthe other day. Really nice, really summery, really sultry; which is predictable given it was recorded in LA!
A Read: Speaking of summery things, Ollie Randall’s Writers in Whites came out recently. It’s all about the role that recreational cricket played in England’s literary history. How quaint!
An Event: It’s July in Sheffield, which means it’s Tramlines Fringe Time; where there are loads of local artists being platformed, in both official and unofficial events as part of Tramlines Fringe across the city. If you’re around, have a look and find something or someone cultural to support!