hey hey bad news?

so guts wasn't selected for the theatre festival.

a few thoughts:

we 'lost' to a group from amsterdam who, according to theo was more risqué (as _mayanarebs put it) and thus fitting the theme of the festival better. their choice. i haven't seen or heard anything about what exactly they're doing, but as far as 'avant-guarde' theatre is concerned, well, hippies on acid have been running around naked on the stage yelling at the audience well since the 1960s. that is pretty passé as far as I'm concerned. but I don't know what the group from amsterdam is planning so let's not judge them before we've seen anything.

what I do know is that the organisation has turned down what might very well be the best play that is going to be produced and performed in groningen by a student theatre group this year. guts is blessed to have and to have had the best natural actors there are in groningen. every person who joins guts it talented in some way, and with the right combination (good board-management, good directors and good production crew), something astonishing can be produced.

from the moment I took the book from the shelf in that bookstore in oxford and read a few pages I realised that outlying islands is a play that must be made and must be seen. better sooner than later in my opinion, so the festival in october seemed a good oppertunity. now we don't have a fixed goal anymore - I'm not even sure if it will be performed at all. but with all my heart I hope it will - and I'm so happy that everyone who is on board now; that is cheroon, glarawen, mirudan, montymark, damnmydoah, cees and martha, and probably cutefairyapple, jexus and now mayanarebs as well, share that feeling - to an extent that I do not know of course. but suffice to say that they want to have this play performed as well.

so what are the options? (according to me)

we are on the reserve list for the festival, meaning, that if one group cancels we're on the bill. will we settle for this? at first I told theo yes, but later on - also after discussing with 'the team' (god I'm calling it team now!) I'm not sure we should settle for 'maybe' and being second choice. as I said, guts is the best student-theatre group in groningen. we should be headlining the festival and not be second choice. further more, I doubt that we - and certainly myself - will be able to put in the energy required to produce this before the end of october based on a 'maybe' and being second choice. the plan is to remain 'on stand-by' until the first of august, and then to abandon the festival.

so we are free.

the play has to be performed before january, because glarawen is likely to be living abroad by then. I don't want anyone else but her to play the part. unless of course -god forbid- she would have to withdraw for other reasons.

the play cannot be performed for certain in the latter half of november because cheroon will be extremely busy. in the latter part of december there will be no audience. I would prefer to perform the play at the very beginning of november. if that is not possible for whatever reason we'd have to perform at the beginning of december.

money
unlike the festival, an independent performance will actually make money. I haven't participated in a play yet that wasn't a commercial succes so I'm confident that this play, like The Number K, The Shape of Things as well as Disco Pigs will make money.

organisation
then there is the problem of the guts year-cycle. can we get rid of that? why is there still the idea of producing one play a year. I say there should be a new way of thinking in guts: guts produces plays. all year round, whenever we feel like it. why not divide the year in three terms? newbies can join twice or three times a year? term 1: november - february; term 2: february-may: term 3: may - ~summer holiday~ - november. maybe not those exact dates but something can be worked out.

so how does this work with outlying islands?
the term idea is far too radical of course, but given that this already was a project that was produced somewhat outside of guts, but still under the name guts, I don't see why this play cannot be produced - as a side project - in november or december, without the constraint that actors cannot participate in a project that will be performed several months later anyway. I do feel that new actors, as well as the amazingly talented actors we already have, should be given a chance. but the same goes for me and cheroon. if in october or november our actors cannot audition for a new play, that means that cheroon and me will also not be able to have auditions for a play that we might do either. we don't have a play yet, actually we're not even sure if we want to direct again in the first place (for lots of reasons), but we like to keep our options over. BUT say there are auditions for a play in october/november and say - for arguments sake - that jexus will direct that. the performance might be in march or april. cheroon and I might possibly start auditioning in february for our play and perform it in may...

what I'm trying to say here is... we must perform outlying islands, and after that I want to produce many more plays. for now preferably with guts. guts has so much potential. but I want to make plays. damnit. time to yell. aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhh