Fun and a Blessing

The team talk all things positive as we hear from the winners of Short Cuts and they tell us all about what the virtual festival has meant to them and just how to go about making winning theatre in a pandemic.


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Hello and welcome to the offstage cast, a podcast all about the Liverpool international Theatre Festival. Each episode, we will deliver an all access pass to what staging and international Theatre Festival is all about. I am your host, Deborah rattle along with Neil Maidman and Vic Mills. We are the offstage cast. Hello, and welcome to our second episode of season two of the offstage cast. My name is Deborah rattle and I am so happy to be here to talk to you today. Well, you know, when we last spoke, we were talking about shortcuts. And this is kind of shortcuts to because we had so much more to talk about, we decided that we were going to do another podcast because we have further things we want to get into talking about our troops and how they felt about everything, Vic, why don't you review our winners? Okay, in the third position was a piece called fetters. It came from a gentleman called Christian Ito, who was based in Napoli. A Christian is a solo performer. He's a poet, our performance poet as well as as an actor and divisor of theatrical pieces. And this was a wonderful piece where he takes on the persona of an unborn child and we're going to hear more from him in real time so let's hear who's there number two again, okay, well okay on in second place, Neil. Yeah, is troopers reward that's on the you shindy Theatre Company in Uganda. Yeah, which was much more so more peace. And all the three that this was actually on was a small as a stage production. So yeah, very, very, very colourful and passionate piece. And in the first place, just to remind everybody was another piece from Italy, this time from a severe dementia just outside a Roma and it was a piece called family pics by a company called event city centre. And you have very, very sophisticated piece looking at the various stages good and bad in the long life of an extended family. We're going to hear from Christian ETSU who did foetus or foetus from Naples Italy and let's hear what he had to say about what shortcuts meant to him. For me to be a winner no shortcuts was a great honour. I was really honoured when I hear the news this because it was the first time that there was playing in English man everything in English that there was playing a wished while Theatre Festival so you know, for me was something new. And also because I was a follower of the festival or from the social and I was looking at coming there somehow and then in addition in some of the additions so for me was really really I really loved the festival and I really loved to participate in shortcuts and that's why I was really honoured over being part of it and being one of the winners the idea for fantasy came from the you know, I saw the theme the theme of the first developer that was family so I just think about the situation in which we were with the pandemic but also before the pandemic there were a situation of economical crisis and depressions around the world. So a lot of tension and I was thinking about okay family family, but what which kind of family I would like to to speak about I would like to to tell the story of a family that this not even more so we we are discussing so much about global changing and global warming and climate change so that was the idea was okay let's give the the next generations the right to speak in this in this time. So let's see a family that will be how will judge our our time. Okay, Christian, I loved your comments. I thought they Great. I really liked the way that you spoke about how you thought about coming up with the idea. And all the pieces that you incorporated into it. Yeah, it's a smash hit. I think it's very kind of honest about it isn't he just says, you know, look, it came it was born of his own strong feelings wasn't that intensity about it when he delivers it, as well as the comedy? And I think that kind of comes across as a, it feels kind of genuine. I think you anybody watching it feels that kind of straightaway. This is an intensely felt piece. Yeah. And his spin he the way he combined so many things in the piece. Yeah. And you know, he tells us lesson a metaphor about all the things that we is already born people should be thinking about if we aren't already. Yeah, that's right. That was really neat. Now the next winner that we're going to hear from is Polycarp Waukesha from Uganda. And the you should the theatre and he's going to talk about the experience that their theatre had, or theatre true pad with doing shortcuts. Hello, everybody, my name is Polycarp MUGISHA, and I am the writer of Topaz rewired. Participating in the shortcuts Theatre Festival means the absolute world to us, all the actors and all the directors that we worked with, very happy that we were able to achieve this award. 2020 had few opportunities for us to participate in any theatre related activity and the shortcut Theatre Festival came as a blessing for all of us. And being a short cuts winner. That alone stands out as the biggest achievement for us of 2020. So we want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the directors of the shortcuts Theatre Festival. And for all the participants out there, wherever they knew. The idea for our play came from the theme given to us which is family, families are so important to us. In Uganda, it is a connection to your clan, it is a connection to your tribe, and everyone else in the world, I'm sure family is something that you really, really need. And so we wanted to bring out the fact that people, image family are very important. And however different they are from everyone else, they each serve a particular and unique purpose. So to bring this out, we use the character who was looked down on by everyone in the family, because of how different he was. And this same person was a source of great honour to this family. This irony helped us to show that I have a different person is in the family, this person has to be respected. And it was so fun doing this, everyone enjoyed it. I'm very happy that it worked and that people enjoyed watching it to the group that is planning to join the shortcuts festival next year, I have nothing else to say except that you are very blessed. And you're very lucky to be participating in one of the rarest forms of theatre. And it has been one of the best kinds of theatre you can ever have a chance to participate in. Because you have the freedom to choose from anything you you want, or whatever you're inspired by. My advice is, do your very best to try and have as much fun as possible. Oh, it's so nice to hear from Pauline and many of you will remember that he's been on our podcast in season one, talking about his Theatre Company. And whenever I hear his voice, I just think happy. I think happy. Yeah, be happy. I can't wait to meet this. This man. I can't wait to meet him. I'm so excited. We're exactly the same. Yeah, yeah. And his viewpoint. And I mean, I know I'm going to jump way ahead, we could come back to this other stuff. But I really love his advice to anybody who wants to think about taking part in any other kind of shortcuts if there is one to just have fun with it. Just have fun. And that's certainly what what most what all of our submissions were they were just really fun. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, good advice. One of the things that struck me was that you use the word blessed. And so what is a word that maybe sometimes seems a little bit old fashioned, but there's not another word which says exactly the same thing. is a sense that something has happened for you, which has had a real impact and maybe you kind of didn't necessarily do anything to deserve but you you just feel that that life, or God has been kind of good to you, you know. And you do get that sense that you kind of feel blessed to be part of something or to be involved in something. And theatre does gives you that kind of feeling sometimes, and I think we all felt such a kind of barren time, in many ways as creatives last year. And as you said, you know, it was a one really kind of creative thing that they did and that what they look they would look back on that as they a real achievement of, of 2020. That's pretty powerful stuff. Yeah. The Rarity, the rarity of the opportunity. Yeah, that that that I was really impressed by how much that meant to their Theatre Company. Yeah. You don't you don't actually realise how much something means to you when it until you can't do it. Yeah. We didn't know how thirsty we were until it was gone. Exactly, exactly. We've spent money but it's not funny. It's we all understand is that it is so great to hear from from Polly and the Shanti theatre. And one more thing. I mean, as he talked about having the freedom to do whatever you wanted, huh? Yeah, that was really cool. Yeah, I really like that and a very interesting perspective. And this is why I was excited about this to hear what each of these winners and I'm sure that we would hear the same kind of things echoed from all the participants. Yeah, that would mean we've probably gotten some feedback on that already. Yeah, from some of the people so last and certainly not least our winner. From Italy, Andrea guerini is going to be talking about the experience from a Vinci to say now Theatre Company and their view on shortcuts. Thank you so much to everyone, to everyone because if we still don't believe it, we are the winners is something amazing is an amazing feeling. knows that people from every part of the world appreciate your job is a feeling I don't know how to describe because it's something completely out of mind. And it's something that gave us the strength to go on every time because especially 2013 the short movie was the only work with it. And knows that that work was winning work. Is is amazing. It's incredible. Literally we still don't believe it. And the FBI in we we want to show to everyone the different kinds of families because especially in Italy, people think families just men plus woman plus kids, but it's not true because families could be anything. Then we could be a group of friends family could be a theatre company. family could be a cat family could be a dog. Family is not something you can just describe families. is where you have your heart is where you feel at home. And we want to show that then family is not is not one time there are different kinds of family and all of that are important. And we can say something, a suggestion to the people who was going to do something for the festival. Be honest, we honest. Say your fruit because it's not important. The language is not important. The music is just important the feeling that the product gives to the people to the people who's going to see the your product so always be through. That is what we want to say. And Steve thank you in the name of allanson Shanna, thank you so much guys, because you give us very important news and you make our summer so thank you guys was amazing. Lovely hearing from Andre again and he was a guest on On one of our podcasts from season one. So what struck me from what Andrea said was, Home is where you have your heart. And that choked me up a bit like I, I'm feeling all the feelings after hearing that. about you. Yeah, absolutely. It was. Yeah. Cuz you mentioned about fear to family and and I'm, you know, even your family dog or whatever it all part of it, etc so you it's relatable, isn't it? You know, I think that's right. I think particularly one of the things that struck me that he was saying was that we, when we think of Italy, we do very much think of very strong family ties, don't we think of a society where family is hugely important? And that that was almost something they were trying to say, Well, look, a family is not just like your traditional Italian family. Yeah, nice man and a woman and chill, yeah, I imagine that in a society like Italian society, having a different kind of family is perhaps quite difficult sometimes, because maybe family expectations are more intense than they are in some other countries, you know, kind of conformed to family expectations. So it was interesting to see them kind of want to expand our concept of the family and explore it in a wider context. So yeah, that was very interesting. And further to that point, that I think in our society, now larger global society, that we're beginning to identify, there are so many different kinds of families. And when we have had our COVID, since we have had our COVID experience, when you really think about it, in many, many cases, if you weren't married, or you weren't, didn't have a partner and you had a roommate, instead, you spent large amounts of time not seeing your immediate family and, and needing to get that kind of support from the people with whom you were spending most of your time. Yeah, so the idea of who your family is, of course, you want to see your loved ones. But let's hope most of us were spending all that time in isolation with people we liked. Because Yeah, so there's so many things to take away from this. And the other thing was, speak your truth. speak your truth, that's very profound, very, very profound, and easily said, and not easy to do. So I think it's a lovely thing for us to ponder on. Yeah, that was a big message was that it really was like, be honest, and speak your truth. And we're better to do that than in a video that 1000s of people are going to watch you know, to get your message across certainly. And yeah, I thought it was it was lovely hearing from all of them. And thank you, Vic, for, for curating all of those for us. I tell you what, it was interesting is struck me when he said, you know, you make something and then in some sense, it's a kind of surprise, the extent to which it has an impact. You know, I would relate to that, as the writer myself, you know, when you produce something, even if you produce things that people have liked, or been drawn to in the past, you don't know all what the reaction is going to be when you put it out there do well that's the risk. That's what makes theatre exciting. And right, I'm excited to say that they just felt amazed that people from all around the world had kind of related to something that they had been working on in one little bit of the world, you know, but that's so true. I mean, our own experiences as participants in the international Theatre Festival Liverpool. I've just been that haven't they because we've brought original work written by Vic and directed by me to the Li TF on on three separate occasions. And we've we've ever known really, especially the first time we we thought, Well, we know that this is a good play in our in our own backyard. But are people gonna get this from Liverpool? Are they here? Yeah, you know, this we could we could be a deafening silence with with with God. What the heck was that all about? And it was the contrary we loved it. Well, yeah. I know that now. But it's still at risk. And I'm still feeling as well this this could all go horribly wrong. And that's, that's the that's the thing with any kind of creative pursuit, I believe. Yeah. You, you take this decision to put yourself out there to warts and all it's gonna happen. You're gonna do it and it's in enormous risk. And you sure maybe there's certain calculated bits to that risk that you practice, but we all know, things can definitely get messed up. But we do it anyway. And we all keep our fingers crossed. Well, they're gonna love it. It's all going to be okay. Yeah. And most of the time it is, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. What does that say for us doing this, talking about the Theatre Festival here on the offstage cast and talking about theatre and being creative in general. I think it brings such an important part to our lives. As humans, it rounds us off it, it makes us humble. And it lifts us up in so many ways and fills our collective buckets when we get a chance to do it. So it's lovely to have shortcuts. And that was something I think that we heard reflected in, in all of the comments that it was so great to have something to do during this pandemic. So I have to say, this is a good time for us to tell everybody that we're going to do another short cuts. Yeah, yeah. Bring it off. super exciting. Yeah. And this will technically be called shortcuts. 2022. Yeah, that's right. Guys, we're gonna call it shortcuts. Let's decide on that now. Yeah. Well, I think i think that's that's true. We've we've thought and discussed long and hard as to when this should be. And the, the festival, the main festivals in main festival, the in person festival, is scheduled to go ahead in May 2022. Having been postponed twice. But Fingers crossed, we're going to be there next. We're going to be there. We're going to be there. We're gonna be there. Yes. There's a lot of positivity about that happening. We've talked to the vast majority of the troops now and they're all very, very keen. And I think you're in a good position to be there. And certainly from the from from the local and from Canada. Yeah. Absolutely is going to happen. So shortcuts is going to be the in between. Now the place keeper from year to year. Yeah, it is. Because we going in in May 2022. And then our next festival, our next in person festival, will be when mid October 2023. Yeah, so there's only going to be about 14 or 15 months between the two festivals. But you'll get we get back on our our prosecutors back in October again, they're exactly, exactly so which is kind of exciting, it's a little bit shorter for in between festivals. We're hugely excited about being involved with that one as well. But in between, we're going to have shortcuts. So once the festival is done next year, the impersonal festival in May, we'll be announcing during the summer of 2022, the the parameters and the closing date, which we think there's going to be around about the end of November 2022. And then we will be announcing the winners in early 2023. One of the key thing I think, for us for Rick and myself especially is to is to look at what we've learned from the from the shortcuts process the first time around, because we were making it up as we were going along, which is kind of how Rick and I work. Now everybody knows, everybody knows you just made this up fellas. And then we'll take some learning from that and get the best of it as it were, and then we'll launch next summer, but it'll be opportunities. So the key thing for us is that the opportunities for people that may not be able to in a position to come to Liverpool in person to do it in a play, then they can still take part in international Theatre Festival, or be it virtually so this is around the pandemic, and it's a positive thing to come out of the pandemic. You know, I think and we already have people that have taken part in, in, in shortcuts, who may well put submissions in for future future in person festivals. So Oh, and I certainly hope they do because this is shortcuts is has achieved so many lovely things. It's brought new theatre companies into our orbit here. Yes, it's opened up ltf to a whole new group, and many groups of theatre communities that might not have known we were there before. So it's a great symbiotic relationship between ltf shortcuts and Li TF Theatre Festival. Yeah, and it's it's very, very exciting. And I really think it's important for us to continue to talk about those things and that there other opportunities and encourage anybody that's interested in participating in shortcuts, or in a Theatre Festival, to go to our Li TF web page, visit us on Facebook, get in touch with us feel free to contact any one of us. And we will point you in the right direction for more information if if you want to participate in shortcuts, 2022, or any of our upcoming festivals, one thing I think, which has come out of it, which strikes me is that with a normal Li TF, where we encourage people to bring original new work, but it's by no means a stipulation, and I suppose minority of the work which is performed is original. But part of the whole purpose of shortcuts was to create new work. And it's been lovely to see people throwing themselves into that I think the kind of writing and development of new theatre is by somebody very close to my heart. But I think something that we all really love to see, I think we know we're seeing something fresh, that's from our time, this link to a particular culture. And I wonder whether that might encourage more people to bring original work to to Liverpool where they visit festivals to, you know, that might happen, see that they get a chance to test drive something in shortcuts that they may not feel comfortable? Or brave or? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's it's nice to have options. Yeah. And as creative people, it's always great to have options, different ways to workshop, an idea, or to just share it with like minded people. Absolutely, mostly low risk. But definitely, I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of development, I mean, we're Liverpool International, amateur Theatre Festival, and and what we're about is sharing theatre. But also it's a developmental festival, you learn so much. And that's part of what what we do in the festival is to provide learning opportunities by not only seeing different plays, also through our workshops, and through the coffee critiques that come in the morning after the plays the previous evening, to learn and understand motivation, from the different theatre companies, why they made their decisions and then ultimately hearing from the adjudicators. And so we're all we can always learn as performers as creatives. So shortcuts gives us yet another vehicle in which to foster and develop all of that interesting creativity and theatre through the Liverpool international Theatre Festival. So it's, it's very exciting it is one of the one of the byproducts of what has happened in the last 18 1920 months is that because we've had to postpone which have been awful, I mean, it's been an awful thing to have to have to do is that, let's not forget, we'd already chosen our troops for October 2020. And they're all in place and all those guys are happy to be, you know, really excited to be coming to Liverpool and you know, that the the pandemic aside, will hopefully you see all of them next year. But what has happened is because of social media, and because we've been able to keep in touch with all these guys and girls, and and all these various different groups from across the world. We now have a fairly tight knit sort of group of people who are desperate to meet each other, I think, yes, and, and which is something that we've not had before, because I think when we again, Vic and I talking as past participants, is that it's always a joy and to actually meet new people. But actually, these people are not new to each other anymore. They're they're all they're all friends on Facebook, and they're all in our little group and whatever. And they're very encouraging to each other, which I think has been a very happy byproduct of a very sad time. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's a very nice, you know, that's a very nice way to put it. And I really want to encourage our listeners or anybody that's involved in theatre. We have tonnes of room in our close knit group. We encourage people to get in touch with us, reach out. Let's talk let's talk theatre. Keep tuning into the offstage cast, and if you like what you hear, definitely subscribe to what we're doing. There's a like a big plug right there. Please subscribe to our podcast. But more importantly, if you like what you hear and you want to be involved, reach out and we'll we'll help you sort The best way for you to get involved. Absolutely. Yeah, very true. Very true. And to that. I want to tease a little bit for our next podcast. We are going to be talking about what is going on currently at the Astor theatre. We'll be talking, I'll be talking to Jean Dexter, and you'll be hearing some of the interesting things going on at the Astor. We're going to talk about what's happening in Canada at that point, regarding COVID. And so we have lots to talk about, and lots of things upcoming for our season two. So I hope you will tune in. I want you to go right now and to subscribe to the offstage cast. And thank you Neil and Vic for another fantastic conversation, for tuning in. Thank you, Deborah. See you next time. You've been listening to the offstage cast from the Liverpool international Theatre Festival. Remember to subscribe in your favourite podcast app, so you don't miss any future episodes. For more information, and to contact us, be sure to visit our website Li tf.ca