Quick round-up of May as June is almost halfway through already. Life is pretty full when running a theatre, and it's so much fuller when running two theatres that I'm really worried I'm bad at it.
Anyway, let's rewind for a month and a bit. Started theatrical life on Friday 2nd May with the reading of It's Difficult by Wendy Fisher at Canada Water Theatre. Then straight to Southwark Playhouse to see Cockfosters, and hopefully we'll see Cockfosters again at Arches Lane Theatre.
On Wednesday 7 I went to a reading of three Eastern European plays at UAL Wimbledon, invited by Jozefina Komporaly. Global Plays in Translation. I really encourage the initiative and I hope there will be further iterations of this.
Went to Brighton on 8 May. Got invited to about 8 plays at Brighton Fringe this year and actually managed to answer a few invitations. I was supposed to see at least two shows, but I was late for Gawa's Open Source Intelligence, so I got in to see Landlord's Wet Dream by Verity Sharpe. Missed United's thrashing of Bilbao at Old Trafford because pubs in Brighton seem to all be aimed at the LGBT+ community, and sports is not really on their agenda. But I wondered leisurely around city centre until 9 pm, when I got to see Dangerous to Know at Lantern Theatre. I was really happy to see the Lantern, lovely little basement theatre very reminiscent of Barons Court albeit bigger.
Sunday Fix on 11 June, which I count as half a show. Sunday Fix will go on in July and over the summer, but I feel a reform of the format is imminent.
Shelter at Barons Court was a nice surprise, a very solid show about trans love and about being othered.
Between women's FA Cup, the Europa League final and a very stressy producer, Shelter was the only show of the week, and the highlight of it, because both football and Roger have been shit.
I teched my last Speakeasy show for a while on 24 May, and there's some chagrin at leaving House of Burlesque after almost 4 years, and leaving the longest running show I worked on. But it's not a sad one, the relationship will continue and hopefully develop.
Due to difficult techs I missed shows in 3 Mondays in a row. Coronet, Riverside and Old Red Lion, but I did manage to see The Space's Season launch, and was impressed by some of the plays to come. Hopefully people will like Lobster Pot too.
And Arches Lane is off and running, with Jen Tucker's Bog Body on 29 & 30, and The Electric Bill on 31 May. In between I've also rewatched Chop Chop on 30 May, bringing my total to 8 shows + 4 kind of shows (two readings, a scratch night and a season launch). I will count 10 for the month, 49 for the year, not including Mermaids Have no Tears which I saw 4 times, three more performances of Speakeasy and one more of Roxie does Chicago. Which I've seen twice more since.
