This week: the perils of pitching your work to producers, how silence is the best way to kill a poet and entering a prize marrow in a county fair.
I don’t know what I am doing here. Honestly I don’t. I’m sitting on a Zoom call preparing to pitch to a panel of prospective regional theatre booking agencies. I know they hate the term ‘regional theatre’. They hate it just as much as I hate the term ‘local poet’. It’s small time, demeaning and it sounds just a bit, well, just a bit regional.
Most of the booking agents have their cameras off. They all seem to be called either Hannah or Steve. One of the Steves (who doesn’t have his camera off) used to be an actor. I imagine he used to be an actor, was once understudy to Horatio at the Gielgud back in the 90s, received good notices for his Titus Lartius at the Aldwych and then, well, you know, kids and a mortgage and now he’s on some arts advisory board in a market town and disguises his bitterness by asking seemingly meaningful questions. “And what exactly are you expecting the audience to feel when watching your production?”
In front of the panel we have an assortment of immersive comedy shows, camp cabaret acts, spoken word performances and an audio-described Brontë costume drama for blind people. They are all worthy and carefully considered, the pitches are confident and articulate, the artists are friendly and I don’t know what I’m doing here.
The guy pitching his cabaret act does so in song, interjects an apology for being ‘over the top’, explains he spent twenty years ‘working the ships’, makes a lame joke about sailors and then bursts into song again. Everyone finds him utterly delightful. I suspect they also find him slightly annoying but would never admit it for fear their prejudices might be exposed. At the conclusion of his pitch he is met with insincere over-enthusiasm. It is performative and awkward and even our cabaret star looks a tad embarrassed. I feel sorry for him. He deserves an honest critique as much as the rest of us and honestly I don’t know what I’m doing here.
The spoken word artist tells us that audiences don’t like poetry and even if they did like it they’d never admit to it and what makes their own poetry show unique is that it contains absolutely no poetry whatsoever - although it’s still very much a poetry show. This is basically what spoken word poetry is you see. Spoken word poetry is poetry with all of the poetry taken out. And that’s why audiences love it. There is a general consensus of approval from the panel and I don’t know what I’m doing here.
Next is the costume drama for blind people. Honestly, I quite like this idea. I’m all for inclusion and reaching out to new audiences and I begin to think I should be doing more in this respect, should be more proactive, I should have finished the sign language course I was doing at community college, I should be making poetry for deaf people. There are so many things I probably should be doing although I do know very well what it is that I am doing. I’ve been doing it for years. I know exactly what I am doing it’s just that I don’t know what I am doing here.
When the immersive, high energy, comedy show is up I begin to drift. It is in moments like this when I genuinely, deeply, honestly question why I’m here at all, moments like this when I begin to conceive of elaborate ways of killing myself.
It is not that I will or even want to kill myself it’s just a door that opens when you knock too hard on the ‘why am I here?’ sign. Conceiving of elaborate ways to kill yourself is a rather good if not precarious deterrent against actually killing yourself. My suicidal scenarios will often involve antique duelling pistols and Caribbean beaches or sloping olive groves and eighteenth century duchesses, factors so fanciful that acting upon them is highly improbable.
It is not the process of making the work - that is a labyrinth you must navigate yourself - it is the task of delivering the work, of having it platformed, of getting it before an audience, that I find so unbearably maddening. This is when the exit signs start flashing.
Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance.
James Baldwin
If I had advice to offer a young creative it would be: prepare yourself for dead ends, for unhelpful suggestions, for vacuous promises and above all for silence. Expect excruciating, agonising silence. If you do ever receive a reply to a speculative email, a response to an application, a reaction to a submission then get ready for seemingly endless meetings with an infinite number of Steves and Hannahs who will all mostly have their cameras off.
I know artists who were signed up after their first pub gig, writers who had their very first novel accepted, poets who walked out of university and straight into book deals. It happens. For some. For others, well, we find ourselves pitching our ideas to panels of prospective regional theatre booking agencies.
Even former actor Steve has his camera off when it’s my turn and despite the committee sitting inside my head all chorusing, “What are you doing here?” I give a reasonable account of myself because I know what I’m doing even if I don’t know what I’m doing here.
Hannah turns her camera off when the Zoom host asks the panel if they have any questions for me. I imagine an eighteenth century duchess handing me a duelling pistol and then there is silence.
“OK,” says the Zoom host as the silence stretches beyond the limit of awkward and extends into the realm of deeply uncomfortable, “I’ll ask a question if nobody else has one.”
And I am ready because I know what I’m doing, I’m ready because this is my moment, I’m ready because I know “this work returns poetry to the ear, is an experiment in form, a reification of ancient approaches, a resolute commitment to being boldly human.”
“Is it suitable for children?” says the Zoom host.
I close my eyes, cock the imaginary duelling pistol the duchess has handed me and, instead of aiming at my love rival opposite, I place the barrel to my temple.
“Is this world of ours suitable for children?” I’d like to say. Are the atrocities in Gaza suitable for children? Is Donald Trump suitable for children? Are trillionaire tech bros suitable for children?
“14 plus,” I say politely, “most venues suggest a 14 plus age range.”
The duelling pistol in my hand turns into a banana, turns into a feather, turns into a fish and swims free. I have brought a Ferrari to a demolition derby, I have entered a prize marrow in a county cake baking competition, I am a gangly teenager in an ugly baby contest and it’s wrong, it’s all so very, very wrong and honestly I don’t know what I’m doing here.
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