Young Director Interview

We are incredibly proud to have offered four young people the chance to take on ‘Young Creative’ positions on this project, shadowing the professionals as a learning opportunity and putting their skills into practice by creating their own Curtain Raiser performance inspired by the play’s themes.

We sat down with Aalim, our Young Director, to find out more about the ideas, inspiration, and creative process behind the piece.

We’re really excited to present your Curtain Raiser next Thursday! Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind what you have created?

We birthed our idea on a few prompts we selected, which swiftly transformed into gay rival clowns. The Young Scriptwriter, Lune, and I had a go at improvising an idea of a scene involving said clowns taking part in nose theft and balloon metamorphosis…if you couldn’t tell, our original idea was a touch absurdist and, as a result, wasn’t quite within the realm of possibility to achieve! We tried establishing themes, setting, characters, etc… until the scriptwriter came up with the idea of two clowns, Sun, and Moon. When designing the costumes, Moss took inspiration for a local drag queen, Mystika Glamoor, who is a unique performer.

What was your process for bringing the piece to life?

To get to our final product, the Young Designer and Young Stage Manager – Moss and Cal – created some mood boards for set, costume, and all that jazz, while Lune and I gathered some rough ideas of what we wanted the characters to be and what their relationship was. We took everything into the performance space and used our knowledge of the characters and the actor’s interpretation of the characters to solidify what we wanted from the piece.

What have you learnt through being part of this process?

I gained a lot of experience understanding the steps it takes to put something on stage and how it also takes a lot of effort to choose an idea and work with it to make something you’re really proud of. The mentoring I received from the director of TheMultiverseisGayreally awakened me to how differently everyone processes a character and develops an understanding as an individual, and how that can open up new pathways to explore something you once never even considered.

Can you share a bit about what it was like working with the other Young Creatives?

It was absolutely brilliant working with them, having a massive collaborative effort to pursue a goal was so much fun, bouncing ideas of each other and mindmapping created such a unique atmosphere that I’ve never been given the opportunity to try before. Naturally, Lune and I spent most of our time together to share our ideas of the characters and themes while the Cal and Moss worked on other elements to bring the play to life, but overall the collective effort was an experience that could not be beaten.

How does your piece relate to TheMultiverseis Gay?

For me it relates a lot to the ideas of identity, a distinct one being that you don’t need anyone or anything to be who you are, and that who you are should be a choice you make.

What do you think makes a good piece of writing for a young cast?

I think a piece that allows people’s imaginations to run wild and give room for exploring new ideas and ways of bringing those ideas to stage. Something that explores an actor’s strengths and weaknesses, and ways to interpret and build character through many different mediums.

And finally, what would you like to do next?

Greek tragedy. Gotta give it a whirl! Effectively I want something that pushes my brain in a completely different direction, and I think a tragedy will be just right. Understanding what makes an audience feel the way they do is something really important to me and I desperately want to be able to understand that.

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