Freaks & Greeks /  by Jac Moore

Thanks to everyone involved in our R&D of Odyssey last month. It was great week of work with some excellent people, and I can't wait until we get together again. There's much more to come from this project. 

But before then, it's time to get in to Dahl mode as I prepare to start work on another production with National Theatre Wales, the madness that is, City of the Unexpected. 

This huge project, which will take over the streets and spaces of Cardiff in September, dwarfs anything that I've ever been involved with. I can't wait. 

Updates from the Field /  by Jac Moore

It's been a while since my last update, as thankfully, I've been busy. 

In the last few months I've finished my time working with Sherman Cymru Youth Theatre, directing Citizenship by Mark Ravenhill for the NT Connections Festival. I'm pleased to say that it was very well received. We now wait with fingers and toes crossed to hear whether we will be selected to play at the National Theatre in the Summer. I've also finished my first period as a module tutor, working with students from the University of Wales, Trinity St David to develop their skills in devising theatre. 

After a very busy time, I've suddenly found my self very free, for the first time in over a year. So here comes the mad dash to make myself busy once more. 

In the next couple of weeks I will be attending Complicite's Open Workshop with Lilo Baur, which focuses on devising from Russian short stories. 

I'll be applying for some R&D from ACW to breath new life in to my collaboration with Kirsty Harris, in the new guise of an exiting new show for young audiences provisionally called Several Small Steps. I'm hoping to have work shown in Manchester's HAZARD Festival of Performance art, and I'm going to be applying for one of the New Talent Residencies at Bristol's amazing Watershed. 

I'm reminded that no one gives you anything in this game. You've got to be hungry, and you've got to go out and get it. 

Citizenship /  by Jac Moore

I'm pleased to be directing Sherman Cymru's youth theatre in their National Theatre Connections production this year. Our play - Citizenship by Mark Ravenhill. 

Our first run is 24-27 Feb, going on to perform at the National Theatre Connections festival in April. Tickets available here!

I've made it! /  by Jac Moore

Currently taking part in the #64millionartists January Challenge; 15 minutes art takes to be completed every day throughout the month. 

I even made the BBC website; obviously they would choose this picture.

Follow my twitter for new updates every day.

{150} from http://community.nationaltheatrewales.org/ /  by Jac Moore

Crossing the Prairie & Other Rehearsal Metaphors 

The Patagonian steppe of 1865 seemed a pretty desolate place.

Dry, flat and forever. Even now, left & right turns are a novelty as you drive inland from the Atlantic.

It’s a place more akin to Mars than Merthyr. 

A daunting journey, fraught with dangers, failures, and guanacos. Our one-and-a-bit weeks in 2015 Splott hardly compare. 

They worked for survival. We work to remember. Their tools were clever women with irrigation systems, and a generous native people. Ours are performance, music, and a great big warehouse in Abercwmboi. 

But we’ve made strides of our own, as we try to make sense of this remarkable story of pipe-dreams, struggles, conflicts and kindness. As we hit the half way mark of rehearsals - which have thankfully been more fertile than our subject matter once was - I find myself exited by the scale of the thing. 

'Epic' is a word that’s being banded about, which is fitting. An epic impression of an epic place. 

{150} runs from 27 June - 11 July

From community.nationaltheatrewales.org /  by Jac Moore

{150}

Notes from the warehouse.

Día Uno. The sunbathed Argentine Steppe takes over a warehouse in Splott.

We can’t move for Frontiersmenwomen, all shaking hands. 

Pioneer-Performers, Tehuelche-Techies, & Caballero-Choreographers, have met & gret.

Megaphone’d preachers on pallets War with Horses in pink-threaded saddles.

Puma attacks, pack horses, packed lunches,

An outpost of Argentina in Wales.

The Old Patagonian Express /  by Jac Moore

Like in Paul Theroux's slightly boring book that I never actually finished and left in a crummy hostel dorm; it's time to jump off the last train and catch the Old Patagonian Express. 

A Good Clean Heart is playing it's last week, and it's fully sold out. The reviews have been wonderful & the audiences have been full of compliments. It's been a great ride, and very exiting to get involved with The Other Room and all it's lovely team. I now need to find a play so that I can propose something to them. Suggestions welcome.

And now I find myself returning to dear old South America much earlier than expected, as I have the privilege of working as 'Emerging Director' - still finding out what this means - with National Theatre Wales on their new production {150}. It's going to be everything we've come to expect from an NTW show; large scale, found space, performance, dance, film, and it feels like it could be awesome. 

I've also been kindly awarded a Waleslab R&D grant so that Kirsty Harris and I can continue to develop and make our exiting new project for the stars - New North Stars [Working Title]. This Summer we'll be going away to interview adventuring astronauts, knowledgable astronomers and quizzical children, then scurrying away to rural Mid-Wales to write and play and work. This also means I can update the holding page on this website which is brilliant and has only been driving me slightly mad.

Wonderful things all round. Watch the skies!


From aciw.co.uk /  by Jac Moore

A Good Clean Heart

Photograph by Aenne Pallasca

Photograph by Aenne Pallasca

I was born and bred in Cardiff. I remember when Hayes Island was the last outpost in town. Toys’r’Us & The Vulcan were still standing, and St David’s 2 was just a twinkle in Cardiff Council’s eye.

Cardiff’s changed since then. Spillers has moved, we’ve got a new library, Hotel Chocolat, a Burger & Lobster – “the first one outside of London!” – and we’ve got pub theatre. The first one in Wales.

Now well in to her first season, having had her first successes and first broadsheet favourables; The Other Room presents her first piece of new writing. It’s her first bilingual production, first full-length play for Alun Saunders, and for our young cast (James Ifan, GSA and Dorian Simpson, RWCMD) it’s their first stage outing.

A Good Clean Heart follows two life-changing days for Jay & Hefin, two brothers raised apart. The play has a personal resonance for Alun Saunders who is currently swimming the adoption system himself. A multi-faceted piece, it touches on different topics for different people, strokes for folks. It’s some of the questions about the link between identity and nationality that intrigue me most. Having been living away from God’s Own Country for several years now, I have at times found my own sense of self wandering, astray (or un-tethered?). Being raised both Cardiff and Welsh-speaking – meaning I can speak both, but neither of ‘em well, bach – I’ve had a tangible high water mark to measure myself against. The longer I let the gaps get between ringing Mam to say, “Helo”; the longer it takes me to remember to Welsh word for ‘cooperate’ or ‘whirlwind’. That’s one of the reasons I’m pleased to cydweithio with Mared Swain on this troellwynt.

As well as self-evaluation and looking deep in to our collective psyches, we’ve also been working. It’s been a busy few weeks up til now, and busier still to come. My official role might be Assistant Director, but so far I’ve also been Assistant Script Editor, Assistant Translator, Assistant Painter and now I suppose, Assistant Promoter too. I get to start playing with technical things now too, which is exciting, as one of the initial attractions for me coming on to the production was some of the innovative video work. Zakk Hein (fresh from Treasure Island at the National) is bringing a different dimension to bi/multilingual theatre, beyond what we’ve experienced before, and not just in Wales; elevating surtitling beyond simple translation, to a unique visual language.

As we approach our last week of rehearsal, sets are being built, lights focused, lines learnt, and I find myself feeling very pleased to be, in a small way, involved with Wales’ first pub theatre.

Jac Ifan Moore, Assistant Director of A Good Clean Heart by Alun Saunders

A Good Clean Heart opens at The Other Room at Porter’s on Tuesday 28 April and runs until Saturday 16 May. For more information and to book tickets, visitwww.otherroomtheatre.com

Where did the sun go? Oh safe it's back. /  by Jac Moore

image.jpg

Busy busy busy. Suns have eclipsed and stars have come in to alignment. 

This week I begin rehearsals for  A Good Clean Heart at Wales' only pub theatre. Afterwards I will begin my position as National Theatre Wales' Emerging Director on {150}. 

Sometime during, inbetween and whenever possible I'll continue working on New North Stars and will be taking part in a new exibition in Cardiff with International art collective 1800hrs .

I'm so lucky to be involed in these completely different and exiting projects. Crack on.

Stars on tape /  by Jac Moore

image.jpg

As pre-research-phase-research for an up-and-coming astronomical project, I've found this amazing old tape recorded for me by my Grandfather (Taid) many years ago.