Is Theatre That Into You
By Nicola Schofield
Foreword by Grace Ng-Ralph
Foreword
I met Nicola back in June of 2017, a couple of months after having uprooted from my life of over 30 years in Singapore, everything familiar and known, my family and friends, to be with my husband who found a brilliant job in Manchester.. I had by then sent over 50 job applications and had only rejection or worse, no replies, for the hours spent crafting bespoke application forms. Working on Nicola’s project, titled FLIGHT – a site specific 40min play commission by Didsbury Arts Festival about the fearless RSPB founder Emily Williamson who bravely stood up for those whose voices are unheard – was an almighty YES that replaced and washed away the sting of all the many NO I had received.
People are vulnerable now and I know that from having sat through over 60 private one-to-one sessions with artists in my professional capacity as artist development practitioner. With all the well intentioned commissions and schemes that have and are coming during our season of cocooning, will also come rejections, not because of lack of talent, but only to the lack of resources.
We hope that this blog might in some small way think alongside how we now can and should be extra careful in the way we deal with rejections. I am hopeful that one of the transformations in our mindset might be how we treat our talented artists post COVID-19.
So close, so far away.
I wanted to write something about rejection, rejection at this time in particular. I remember two of the biggest knocks of my career happening within 5 days of each other and doing a sort of on the verge of hysteria laugh cry. And yet what we do we do? We carry on. Last year in meetings with two Artistic Directors both asked me how they could help writers. I said never be afraid to say No, it’s the silence we can’t bear. We know rejection is part of the job and a No means we can move forward. There is no limbo, no doubt or should we chase that up? In both cases when I said this they were surprised but noted it was helpful to know.
Did I get a decision? No.
I’ve always wondered how an industry and art form that is about communication can be so bad at it. Isn’t theatre about being in a room and connecting? Sharing an experience, an experience that will never happen again. All these different forms of communication and a desire for connection, and yet so often people can’t send an email. Why are people afraid of saying No? There are writers who only find out they aren’t programmed when a season is announced. When I auditioned actors for FLIGHT I made sure to email all with a decision and give feedback. In turn I had lovely emails back because I had made a decision. Think about that, in acting the decision rate is so bad people appreciated getting a rejection. But I knew how silence felt and didn’t want to do that to someone else. It also gave me an insight into saying No. I’m not pretending it’s fun or easy, but given its part of the process shouldn’t we figure a way to do it as best we can?
Is Theatre that into you?
I wonder what would happen if you applied the ‘He’s just not that into you’ logic to theatre. The phrase was used in an episode of Sex and the City and struck such a chord it became the basis of a dating book. It includes advice on how if someone likes you they don’t go AWOL as they want to see you. They call! So I guess when a theatre says can they read a script and then you never hear from them again this means they’re not that into you? Silence IS the decision.
Is it as simple as that? I had a meeting with a Radio Producer who told me honestly she had 5 slots a year. Only 1 of these might be a new writer. Think of the odds of that as a writer. You’re working on your ideas for no pay and you might have one chance, and you don’t know the odds of how many other writers are pitching to the same producer. It’s a lottery. I had that mixture of feelings you get when you hear these truths - where it feels tangibly close and a million miles from you all at once.
To apply, or not to apply
My own ‘break’ happened through winning a competition. The Royal Exchange did a writing competition called WRITE in 2002, open to young North West writers. I found out about 3 days before the deadline when some colleagues had taken me to see The Homecoming. I was working as a secretary and admitted I wanted to write. It was something I was very secretive about at 22. One read a short story I’d done and suggested writing for theatre because I could write dialogue. They took me to a matinee and I saw about the competition. I edited a short story into a play and sent it in. I was longlisted and in 2003 invited to a Royal Court Young Writers week at the Exchange with Simon Stephens and director Jo Combes. In 2004 I entered the second WRITE competition and won. I’m saying this because I don’t want anyone to think I’m down on competitions or schemes when I know for me they opened a door I may otherwise still be knocking.
But I’d started thinking last year that I wasn’t going to apply for schemes anymore. I’d had my luck when younger and I felt I couldn’t keep going through the cycle of the enthusiasm at applying and the kick of the rejection. It’s important to note schemes/competitions usually give a decision. I realised in a lot of cases I was applying because it gave me a sense of purpose. There was a clear deadline and goal and who wouldn’t want to get paid for a year to write? To me that felt like permission to write in a way it can be hard to do when unpaid.
Rejection now…
When coronavirus weaved its way into our lives like many my work instinct was WHAT CAN WE DO? I started thinking about online self taped monologues and so on and then realized so was everyone else. We base our identity on DOING and if you’re freelance you’re existence is indeed based on this. Many people don’t have the financial freedom to pause. Sure enough I found myself submitting a monologue to one of the first call outs. I had the rejection last week. Prior to that I’d realized I was falling back into my DOING mode and had decided not to enter anything else. I wasn’t sure rejection in this time was what I needed.
How are we going to manage rejection at a time when artists are feeling particularly vulnerable? BBC Writersroom did a callout for scripts on this period of isolation and got 6,803 entries. If that isn’t a lottery what is? I saw many despondent writers on social media who immediately felt this number was already a rejection. There are currently lots of call outs to create digital content, from sending monologues to pitching what you want to write about.
I also know its easy for me as an individual to sit here and say ‘it should be different’, but how? A pause might have helped as Grace referred to in her blog. Another might be if you are running schemes can writers not send work they’ve already done and decisions be based on that? Then any new writing they do is under commission? To ask people to create or pitch new work for free and to potentially be rejected feels extra hard right now when many are worried about income and an uncertain future. I can’t even make a decision in the supermarket at the moment let alone pitch.
When rejections happen matter.
It has only registered with me recently that 3 significant knock backs I’ve carried like a weight all happened when I had post-natal depression in 2015/6. It was a revelation. I didn’t get there on my own. Last year Script Editor and Life Coach in training Jessica Jones reached out on twitter to say she wanted to work with some writers free of charge, knowing they often had to deal with rejection in their work. I messaged Jessica and have been fortunate to have benefitted from sessions with her. I can’t pretend I figured some of this out on my own.
The context of my rejections was one of the most significant things I learned. I got them when I was very unwell, one of the big ones by email when I was still undiagnosed but with a toddler and an 11 week old baby. It was by email after a 10 year working relationship and the bulk of the email was about a holiday the sender had been on, the rejection came in the last sentence. I burst into tears. But it’s only now I realize why I carried three particular rejections for so long like a weight and with a massive sense of shame. What if people found out? What would they think? Why did I carry these when I’d let so many others go? Why did the brain return to them and I immediately feel a sense of failure and shame all over again? Because on some level I associate those rejections with a time when I was very unwell and I don’t want to go back there.
The Future of No.
So how are we going to better manage rejection at this vulnerable time and going forward? I still believe a No is better than silence but we must acknowledge there is an extra edge to them now. Are schemes the answer or would it be more helpful if organisations and companies actually went through their backlog of emails/scripts/invites and responded to people? Or do we risk people clearing their emails with a lot of blunt No’s at a time they are harder to hear? Organisations themselves are going through something horrible, their future uncertain and long planned shows in limbo. But how we treat people is often about communication and the language we use, not financial resource.
Something I heard a lot in meetings last year was about minimizing risk. That’s probably a whole other blog, but this mindset impacts programming which impacts those making work and what work is made. The lottery of it again comes to mind, a theatre ‘might’ have only one slot for new work in a whole year. It means I know where I stand if pitching to that theatre but it also means in honesty I’ve stopped writing new theatre work since last year that wasn’t a commission. I go to write a play and I stop. And I think that’s ok. But it’s not ok when I think about my fellow makers, all the many wonderful voices out there who we need to hear. They are taking risks everyday by just pursuing this as a career. Now more than ever, so how do we use this time to change? At the root of this is communication. How do we find a way to better way to do it? Because if we get it wrong now, it will be carried for a long long time.
