#slunglow

[niomo]

OC for : x c h a i i

[cathieheart]

Really enjoyed seeing this cast playing the new Royal Vauxhall musical at Slung Low theatre in Leeds this afternoon. #musical #theatre #ovation #slunglow #leeds

[thedeathshow-blog]

Spring 2018 tour - booking links now live

All the booking links are now live for our Spring 2018 preview tour. Tickets are already selling fast so get booking via the links below:

Birmingham Rep Theatre:

Saturday 26th January, 8pm

Saturday 27th January, 2.30pm and 8pm

SlungLow, Leeds:

Sunday 18th February, 5pm

Artsadmin, London:

Wednesday 21st February, 7.30pm

Thursday 22nd February,  7.30pm

Arnos Vale Cemetery, Bristol:

Sunday 25th February, 7.30pm

[wcartistgroup]

Statement

The art sector has seen a wave of redundancies and closures sweep across the country as a result of the government's slow response to the needs of our industry - we’ve also noticed that those highest paid in our field seem to be the most protected. As customer service, technical and operational roles are made redundant whilst commissioning is at a standstill, we’re seeing the workforce suffer, with many executives taking home six figure salaries. We want to recognise that despite us, working class folk, making up about 18.2% of the workforce we will be the most affected by confirmed and incoming redundancies. Some people have said redundancies are necessary for organisations to survive but we believe they are the result of a sector that favors capitalism over community. We encourage you all to recognise the pay imbalance behind this decision making - the institutions where executive teams are earning upward of £200K+ are the same institutions that regularly ask artists to work for free or for low pay - this must be addressed. In the past few days The Royal Opera House have been heavily scrutinised for announcing potential redundancies whilst the Musical Director receives a reported £750k salary. This disparity between the workforce and executive teams isn’t just in the London institutions - looking at the charity accounts of one regional theatre in the East of England - it’s CEO receives £200K+ salary. We believe the leaders of these organisations should not have willfully allowed themselves to be put on such financial pedestals. We believe this is a moment for monumental change in our sector - one that could protect jobs and not cut them should the wealth our work workforce generates be more evenly distributed. We are a collective of 32 members from across the UK - we stand in solidarity with our peers and colleagues affected by the decision making of those in power and will begin to set out our own roadmap to a better, fairer sector. In light of the recent cuts to jobs we will be creating activisms over the next three years, leading up to next NPO round in 2023 to uncover what we consider to be a continual abuse of power and misuse of public money, we will begin to lobby funders, institutions and unions to endorse a wage cap on publicly owned and/or subsidised buildings and organisations and push for tangible accountability.

Many Artistic Directors have been in post so long their salaries have crept up to astronomical levels - we will be explicitly asking the top fifteen funded organisations across the UK what their succession plan is, how it will be actioned and when. There is precedent in ACE funded organisations for executive teams to be given a time limit, and we would like to see this become mandatory going forward. We will also question the need for hierarchical pay structures - companies like SlungLow have demonstrated this with success - a flat pay structure where every worker is paid the national average salary for the UK. We will encourage our sector to follow suit. We, as a consortium of working class artists and makers continually feel unsupported by our unions - Trade Unions were born out of a movement to ensure working-class people were not exploited for their labour, some of the creative unions seem to have forgotten these roots. We will be pressuring the unions to recommit to this movement and lobby against abuses of power in our sector. It is time for transparency and radical honesty - we want organisations to face up to what they’ve built and take responsibility for changing it instead of hiding astronomical salaries, expense accounts and profit driving subsidiaries. This statement and this thinking should have been done by people on the largest salaries but in their failure to do so we have done it for them, we now expect them to take this up and build a new sector that does not forget its work force in favor for self-preservation. We, the Working Class Artist Group will advocate, activate and seek accountability for our working class siblings - onstage and off. Get your house into order, we’re watching you. You know where to find us.

[mrsheatona]

Smile Club

I've been thinking about apathy, specifically my own. I've just begun development of a new show, Smile Club. My co-writer Adam Robinson and I are billing it as a dystopian feminist nightmare (sounds spunky huh?). The story is set in an alternative universe where a government sponsored initiative has led to the creation of sinister 'Smile Clubs' where women are sent to receive smile treatment. The idea has been inspired, at least in part, by the recent surge in feminist visibility in the form of #MeToo and #TimesUp. I have been reading Laura Bates (Everyday Sexism and Misogynation) amongst others, and we've been gathering some anecdotal stories of women's experiences of being told to Smile.

There are many things, especially those highlighted by recent campaigns, that make me really bloody angry. Why are we as a society allowing and accepting the mistreatment of women? What are we teaching our daughters? What are we teaching our sons?

But more often than not when reading an article, or the #everydaysexism feed, or (god forbid) the comments section under anything relating to women and/or feminism, I feel exhausted. Laura Bates quotes a satirical headline “Woman takes a short half-hour break from being feminist to enjoy a TV show”. 30 minutes- are you kidding me? It's endless. For the sake of my own mental health I switch off. Please god not another horrendous Trump quote, another high profile women torn down, another story about how feminists hate each other, another article/image/post that reminds us that the only thing that really matters is how we look, another example of the plethora of ways in which we pass this shit onto our children. I stop looking at it, I imagine it isn't happening, maybe it will go away.

Maybe I can’t call myself a feminist.

I think that's where the idea for Smile Club comes from, that tired lean into apathy. If it is too much, if being angry all the time is more than any of us can take, maybe we should stop fighting. Maybe I do look miserable, maybe I do have resting bitch face, maybe I should just Smile. In the Smile Club universe women are worn down to the point of giving in, conceding the status quo, and accepting impotence of opposition.

Yet as I write I feel the anger rising. Maybe that's why I want to make this show. I want to find a way to keep talking about what is happening to women. I want to stand up. I want to make something and for people to hear it. I want my voice to be valid. 

I want to call myself a feminist.

I am making Smile Club with the support of Arts Council England, in partnership with SlungLow, Harrogate Theatre and Square Chapel Halifax. I'll keep you posted.

[soundfackery]

Fairy Portal Camp. #fairy #slunglow #shakespeare #Stratford #rsc #theatre (at Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare's Birthplace)

[reelstreet]

I must say for an ocd germaphobe like myself this outside toilet in a shed is pretty nice :) #slunglow #leeds #toiletbanter #sofreshsoclean #ocd

[thedeathshow-blog]

The Death Show on tour - Spring 2018!

We are very pleased to announce that The Death Show will be going on a preview tour in 2018 starting at the Birmingham Rep on the 26th & 27th January. Book your tickets here: http://bit.ly/2Al5Rr8

We will then be touring to:

Sunday 18th Feb 2018 - SlungLow (Leeds)

Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd Feb 2018 - Artsadmin (London)

Sunday 25th Feb 2018 - Arnos Vale Cemetery (Bristol) 

Booking links to be shared soon!

[soundfackery]

Fairy Portal Camp. #fairy #theatre #Stratford #shakespeare #rsc #slunglow (at Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare's Birthplace)