Social media has been difficult the past couple of weeks. Rage inducing, confusing, fearful. I desperately wanted to have face to face conversations with other people. Create something together as totems are being torn down.
Huge thanks to my colleagues at the Tron Theatre who responded with openness and support to my ask to host a 12 hour zine jam, an open invitation to members of our theatre community to respond to abuses of power across our industry. We didn’t know who would turn up. I got a lot of external support too in terms of setting up the space, establishing a code of conduct and gathering together resources to sign post people to should they need them. Thank you. I gathered my collage making materials and waited to see who would arrive. Some people stayed for a couple of minutes, some stayed for a couple of hours and some stuck it right out to the end with me, determined that we’d get our zine to print by the end of the day, ready for distributing the next morning. Across the day we welcomed a range of collaborators from across the industry, actors, writers, directors, playwrights, administrators, producers, administrators, men and women. The conversations that took place across the table were perhaps the greatest thing to come out of the day, but our collective zine is a beautiful thing to share with you.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE
A rapid response zine created by members of the Scottish theatre community addressing abuses of power within our industry. The following pages represents a range of people who work in theatre who attended a zine jame on Thursday 26th October 2017 at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow. Over the course of twelve hours, we cut, pasted and chatted about our response to revelations related to Harvey Weinstein and the #MeToo movement in relation to our own industry. The resulting zine is intended as a rapid response to mounting conversations about sexual harrasment and abuses of power in theatre. It documents where we are after two weeks of seismic ground shifting. We hope that readers of the collected responses will find solidarity, provocation or insight amongst these pages. - Eve Nicol This zine was created by workshop participants who responded to an open invitation. The opinions expressed here are their own and not necessarily those of the Tron Theatre.
Me and Laurie made a thing.
We’re both playwrights. We’d been feeling as if there was a bit of a gap in the current provision of new writing nights in the central belt and mystery around the work that actually gets commissioned/programmed. We’d spoken a lot about what our version of a new writing night would be – we ended up making a wee publication instead. Our zine, Sugar, is focused on celebrating the processes and successes of playwrights working in Scotland’s central belt. It’s an opportunity to share our ideas, the work of peers, gain insight from established writers who inspire us. Then comes the most important bit – shoving it in the faces of other people and saying LOOK, LOOK, LOOK HOW COOL THIS IS! SCOTTISH PLAYWRIGHTS ARE AAAAAMAAAAAZING.
We only gave out the zine by hand. Having conversations was important. I did whack a few copies off in the post but on the proviso that they send something back in return. My favourite was An Oral History of Pirate Radio in Hull, 1993 -2005 from Jamie Porter. I wouldn’t have stumbled across this topic in any other way. Brilliant.
Zinewright is the new playwright – there are lots of great examples of literary and art based publications in Scotland but its fun to see more popping up in our own industry. Our local pals Andy Edwards & Gareth Vile have made great publications. Further afield there is Exeunt’s membership publication, and The Dionysian and OG theatre-zinewright Megan Vaughan’s creations. We really love creating something with love and care that can also be torn up, scribbled on, photocopies, destroyed. Aye, we’re going to make another one. |
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