Expanding the Bench Season

At the Bench Theatre Annual General Meeting back in 2006, I was obviously garrulous from the number of times my name appeared in the minutes. One of the items I raised was about the prospect of the Bench touring one or more productions away from the Arts Centre. I attended a meeting this summer with the Executive Committee and the Artistic Panel at which I was asked to firm up some ideas for presentation at the Annual General Meeting this year, 2007. I didn’t really have the opportunity to develop my ideas fully and, on reflection, I am not sure that the AGM was the appropriate venue. Please note these ideas are my own and not official Bench policy. What I hope will happen is that people will respond and that we have something of a debate/discussion in these pages. Hopefully this may then lead to the formulation of a plan of action or a policy by the Company.

Firstly, I have been through the stage of grandiose plans or ideas and have ultimately rejected them on closer and more careful reflection. What I have arrived at are more organic or evolutionary ways of expanding the Bench season.

Why expand the season? The Company has grown and more opportunities are needed to keep everyone gainfully employed. The five productions at the Arts Centre are the mainstay of our operations but it is very unlikely that we will be able to increase the number of productions we do there. We could, of course, do larger scale productions five times a year, thereby extending the number of acting opportunities. However, large-scale productions cannot offer all the cast equal opportunity to develop or extend acting skills and explore depth of characterisation. In addition, one of the strengths of the bench is the variety and range of its productions. I know this is prompted mainly by the wishes of the directors – we are a director led company rather than an acting one. I wouldn’t wish to see the company’s choice restricted by constraints imposed by finding large cast plays every time.

There are two issues, which come up time and again throughout any thinking about expanding the season; these are funding and rehearsal space. I am not in a position to give definitive answers to the problems raised by these issues. I do believe that where there is a will, there is a way. If the company decided to adopt some of my ideas, we would be able to find some solutions.

To put my toe in the water, I would suggest we first consider taking a more active part in the Havant May Festival. At the moment, this is an annual event and is co-ordinated through the Arts Centre but is borough wide (if it survives in its present format or indeed if it survives at all). A long time ago we did the Community Play (written by our own Jacquie Penrose) so this is not entirely new territory. Tim Taylor mounted a touring production of “Shakers” a few years back, which again means we have had some experience of this sort of activity.

The Bench would need to work out a structure to enable us to participate before we even begin to think about what artistic endeavour we were going to present. Our participation in the Havant Festival would also have an impact on the April and July main house slots at the Arts Centre. This would have to be taken into consideration when the Company selected these two slots and the Havant Festival slot.

I am not proposing that we angle for another slot at the Arts Centre as part of the Havant Festival but rather that we find other venues in the borough. These venues would hopefully be willing to be part of the Havant Festival so I am not talking hiring here. These venues would need to be carefully chosen, vetted and approached. My first thoughts would be Bedhampton Social / Community Hall (not the Bedhampton Arts Centre), two venues within Leigh Park (church halls perhaps) and one in Waterlooville.

The Bench would have to involve itself in marketing the shows but hopefully would be aided by the venues and the general Festival. Sales and marketing of Bench shows generally needs a whole debate on its own and Derek Callam did raise this issue again at the Annual General Meeting.

The venues would dictate to a great degree the sort of material we could offer audiences. Practically also we would keep the number of venues low and the time scale of performances within the Festival’s nine days. In lots of ways I am proposing a local version of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe approach – another bank of experience we have within the company.

Another idea would be to tie us in with a particular venue, such as the Staunton Country Park. We could either perform a commercial piece within their environs or if we wanted to be really creative, produce a site-specific production using the old library or the stableyards there, for example. We could at future festivals find other venues suitable for different site-specific presentations.

The second thought led me on to thinking about outdoor productions generally especially Shakespeare perhaps. I did think about the space outside the Civic Centre and admit this would need the creation of a suitable acting and seating arena but could prove worth the effort in terms of kudos and presence. Alternatively, we could do a Havant version of the RSC and do a performance in the Leisure Centre. We could do all of these ideas in different years of the Festival.

The bolder and more public ideas could be supported by sponsorship in money or materials although the Bench itself would need to finance initially and without too much hope of profit making.

A more difficult and pressing problem, which arises now, and would be even more so, if we expanded the season, is rehearsal space. The Arts Centre simply bulges at the seams on occasions and can make it difficult for even our main house productions to rehearse anywhere in the building, let alone in the theatre. It seems to me that the Company has an urgent need to find another rehearsal space.

The room at Nineveh, kindly donated by the Dawes family, is great for readthroughs (although it was a bit of a squeeze for “Wild Duck”) or for two hander rehearsals. The Company needs to rehearse in a space, which is the equivalent of the acting area at the Arts Centre. If this space could also accommodate some of our storage needs even better. It could also be a space shared with HumDrum, as their rehearsal patterns are so different from our own and should cause no clashes. An industrial work unit might provide the answer but of course would add to the funding problem.

I have raised two issues here for debate, the expansion of our current season to include the Havant Festival, and the need for rehearsal space. I am not yet in a position to offer solutions but will give it some considerable thought.

Contributions to the debate should be sent to the editor at benchpress@bench.co.uk or to me at peter.corrigan@frostymarsh.co.uk or here on my blog as a comment.