(Please scroll down for the Designer/Maker role)
Job Description: Performers
We are looking for two professional devising actors/performers for our new outdoor production.
The Park Up is a transitory place, where people sit to rest along a journey, meet with friends or enemies, look out at the world, ponder life’s questions, carry out illicit activities. The audience arrives at the seedy Egg Shack Cafe on the edge of a carpark, where the service is dodgy but butties are good. This is the jump off point from where small groups are led by cafe staff to a series of vehicles. They step inside and experience intimate stories, reflecting lives of drama, toil, pain, hilarity, friendship and love. Audiences may be cast as characters within the stories or be consulted as the character’s conscience. More stories are discovered in or around other vehicles, experienced as audio via headsets.
The performers will join a creative team to create a series of characters and short performance pieces that share their stories, set in or around a range of vehicles. These will respond to stories gathered from local people in Bideford and Ilfracombe and will look to offer a series of contrasting experiences for the audience (for example ridiculous, sinister, odd) The performers will perform in at least one of these pieces and will also contribute to audio recordings.
Required:
- You will have experience of devising theatre and have strong improvising skills
- You will be a good team player, able to give and receive ideas within a collaborative process
- You will be ready to assist with simple production tasks and be ready to learn new, technical skills if necessary and within the scope of your role
- You will contribute feedback to the company at the end of the project
Valuable:
- Having performed outdoors, especially walkabout and street theatre
- Having a good understanding of the context of outdoor arts
Dates:
6th-10th May: Research and Development in Goran Haven, Cornwall
29th July-2nd August: Rehearsal Week 1 (location tbc)
12th-16th August OR 19th-23rd August: Rehearsal Week 2 (week & location tbc)
27th August – 31st August: Production week and performances in Bideford
10th – 14th September: Production week and performances in Ilfracombe
Fees:
Weekly rates are £800 per 5 day week plus travel expenses, with accommodation and subsistence provided.
TO APPLY
Please apply with a CV and a cover letter (1 side of A4) describing your most relevant experience and why you would like to be a part of the creative team and send to kim@redherringproductions.co.uk
Deadline: Friday 19th April
If you fit the bill, we will contact you on Saturday 20th April to invite you to a workshop audition or an online interview on Tuesday 23rd April. We appreciate that it takes time and effort to apply to jobs and we will endeavour to reply to all candidates. However, we are a small team and can sometimes be inundated with admin, so please bear with us.
Thank you for your interest!
Job Description: Designer/Maker
We are looking for a set and costume designer/maker for our new outdoor production.
The Park Up is a transitory place, where people sit to rest along a journey, meet with friends or enemies, look out at the world, ponder life’s questions, carry out illicit activities. The audience arrives at the seedy Egg Shack Cafe, where the service is dodgy but butties are good. This is the jump off point, from where small groups are led by cafe staff to a series of vehicles. They step inside and experience intimate stories reflecting lives of drama, toil, pain, hilarity, friendship and love. Audiences may be cast as characters within the narratives or consulted as the character’s conscience. More stories are discovered in or around other vehicles, this time experienced as audio on headsets.
You will join a creative team, taking responsibility for creating and delivering striking designs for The Egg Shack, a range of vehicles which will feature in the show, a uniform look for the Egg Shack staff and character costumes for three vehicle performers.
The Egg Shack
We have temporary use of a horse box to transform into The Egg Shack, which has been previously adapted for art workshops. So we will be asking for a light touch design that can involve painting and billboards, but will not damage the physical integrity of the structure. We can source tables and chairs to be dressed. The look will be reminiscent of a greasy spoon, perhaps a little gaudy but warm.
Egg Shack Staff will include two company members and up to 12 community cast members and separate casts in each town, so the designs need to be adaptable for people of different sizes. We realise that our budget is limited so we are looking for simple ideas that will identify people together rather than a complete set of uniforms.
Vehicle Stories
6 Vehicles will be borrowed or hired and so the designs will be light touch, quickly and easily struck. We will work together to identify atmospheres that we want to create through stuff (messy or ordered for example) and identify key objects that are used within the pieces.
The 3 character costumes will composed of pre-worn items that will need to be found. These are likely to stay in the realms of realism but we might indicate a feature – perhaps a colour – that ties them together.
Green Policy
We are following the Green Book for Theatre Production, which means that we are committing to becoming more sustainable in our practice. We will encourage our collaborators to source more sustainable materials, buy second hand items where possible and factor in the continued use for materials objects beyond the project. We encourage open conversations with collaborators around their processes, exploring the pressures around budgets and time, with an understanding that conditions aren’t easy, so that we can all learn and adapt together.
Required:
- You will have experience of working in a devised theatre practice
- You will be a good team player, able to give and receive ideas within a collaborative process
- You will be good at time management
- You will agree to work in line with our Green Policy
Valuable:
- Previous experience of designing/making for outdoor contexts
- Already working towards a sustainable practice
Dates:
6th-10th May: Research and Development in Goran Haven, Cornwall – you will join the team for 1 day (ideally 9th May), to see where we’re at, contribute and develop design ideas.
3rd June: Our deadline to provide a clear brief for characters and performance spaces
3rd June – 29 July – Production Period working at home
29th July: Deadline for costumes to be ready for fittings, for set designs to be finished and key props / set pieces to be bought/made, in prototype form if necessary.
29th July – 23rd August: There will be 2 Rehearsal Weeks in this period – dates and locations are to be confirmed – and you will join us for one of them.
23rd August: Deadline for all costumes and set elements
Fees:
Day rates are £200 per day, weekly rates are £800 per 5 day week – both rates are plus travel expenses, with accommodation and subsistence provided.
Making fee during the Production Period is £1,500, with a budget for materials etc.
TO APPLY
Please apply with a CV and a cover letter (1 side of A4) describing your most relevant experience and why you would like to be a part of the creative team and send to paschale@redherringproductions.co.uk
Application Deadline: Friday 19th April
If you fit the bill, we will contact you on Saturday 20th April to invite you to a an online interview on Tuesday 23rd April. We appreciate that it takes time and effort to apply to jobs and we will endeavour to reply to all candidates. However, we are a small team and can sometimes be inundated with admin, so please bear with us.
Thank you for your interest!