Whaddup. I'm a performer (currently in Fawlty Towers in the West End). AND I run a business. Because art and commerce can exist together. Quite successfully, in fact. If you're an audience-facing professional, and you want the tips, tricks and techniques used by theatre performers all over the world, then this is the place for you. This is where you get confident, you get charisma, and you start owning the room in a whole new way. This is Showing Up 2.0. It's a vibe.
We must have art
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You can listen to this email here: We Must Have Art Apartheid.mp3 I don't have a specific piece of art for you today, Reader. I'm sorry. Rather, I have some musings on why it's so important that we HAVE art. So, I'm going to try and share that with you coherently, on a day, and at a time when I don't feel very coherent at all. I feel quite sad and overwhelmed and helpless. Here we go... I grew up during Apartheid in South Africa. It was a very dark time, the '80s. We really were on the brink of a civil war. One of the ways this was avoided was through sanctions and boycotts. Countries all over the world cut us off. No trade, no sporting teams visiting, no access to the world economy. So, the Apartheid government really had no choice but to release Mandela and abolish Apartheid. Because money talks. The other thing that happened in South Africa, though, was the rise of what was called 'Protest Theatre.' Plays and musicals that were written in reponse to what was happening in the country - and that were staged so that people could see and hear stories, and talk about the systematic oppression of non-whites. One of my university lecturers, Malcolm Purkey, started a protest theatre company called Junction Avanue Theatre Company. They workshopped beautiful work about the people in South Africa who were living under the horrific Apartheid government. Malcolm was white, most of the company was not white - and it was the first non-racial theatre company in South Africa. The theatre group spoke directly to a young, English-speaking audience and served as a platform to address the social injustices, exploitation and racism that black South Africa faced. So... We Must Have Art. Not just to enjoy and to escape the real world. But to face and expose the real world. We must have art because this is how we tell the stories of people who have no voice. This is how we change the course of history. Art is an act of rebellion. It is an act of war. We have to have it. As business owners, what does this mean for you? Well, nothing. Until you lose YOUR voice. Which can happen. It's happening in places all over the world where we NEVER thought it would happen. America, for one. And slowly, slowly, voices are being silenced in the UK too. It is up to every single one of us to keep our voices alive. To use our voice. To not be silent. Not just to make money. We're in a place and time in the world where money should not be the point. The point is freedom. The point is humanity. Keep using your voice. Tell stories. Tell the stories of the people who can't speak. That's how we make a change. With that in mind... I can't change the world. I am just one person. But I can raise money to help people who have no voices. So I'm doing that over the next year. I'll be hosting ten events in ten different cities across the UK as I go in tour with Fawlty Towers. The first one is in Wimbledon on 24 October. Coffee/networking Audience-facing workshop Hand out your business cards Refer work Tell the group about your business Learn new confidence-building skills From £16.96 If you can't make the Wimbledon event, here are the other cities I'm coming to: Wimbledon, 24 October All the proceeds from the events (that's your donation and/or ticket price, Reader, will go to displaced people in war-torn areas (including Gaza and Ukraine). It will buy winter coats for children. Shelter for a family. Water for a family. It'll help reunite families in war-torn areas across the world. Can you help? Will you come? I do hope so. Ashleigh. |
Behind the Curtain
Whaddup. I'm a performer (currently in Fawlty Towers in the West End). AND I run a business. Because art and commerce can exist together. Quite successfully, in fact. If you're an audience-facing professional, and you want the tips, tricks and techniques used by theatre performers all over the world, then this is the place for you. This is where you get confident, you get charisma, and you start owning the room in a whole new way. This is Showing Up 2.0. It's a vibe.
👂👂👂 You can listen to this email here: We Must Have Art Jack Nicholson.mp3 --- There are three major moments in film history that I LOVE. They are POWER. The first is Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring. He turns to face the Balrog on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm in Moria. And he commands, from deep within his soul..."You shall not pass!" It's probably the most iconic moment from all three of the films. The second is a simple, polysyllabic utterance from Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman, but...
I'm the adult child of an alcoholic. I posted about this on LinkedIn this morning, because something interesting is happening on that platform which I find a little worrying and bizarre. It seems everyone is a coach now - everyone can coach you out of burnout, to be more confident, to stop being a perfectionist, etc, etc. I'm seeing it a lot, and I'm kind of confounded by it. As an adult child of an alcoholic, this is what I've had to work through: Fear Anxiety Abandonment issues Compulsive...
(TL;DR - Listen to this email here: We Must Have Art Madonna.mp3) Last Friday I sent out an email with the exact same subject line as today's: We must have art. That email got the highest open rate of all my emails this year. So, that's information for me. That's data. And, as a business owner, I love data. Data is power. So, today, you get the same subject line - because I want to see if this is something that resonates with people - this idea of art. And the notion that we MUST have it....