Episode 5 - Unlocking Work.txt

ID: a graphic of an old white computer monitor, keyboard and mouse (circa 1990s) overlaid with two pop up windows. One window has a spoof to-do-list explaining this is an advert and the other defines work.txt as 'a play about work performed by the audience'. The screen displays a glitched green picture with a naked torso bending over.

Lend me your ears!...

I chatted with Creative Director, Nathan Ellis, and Producer, Emily Davis about their critically acclaimed play 'Work.txt'. Part comedy, part existential nightmare, Work.txt is a zoom play with a philosophical difference. In our enjoyable conversation, Nathan and Emily unlocked behind-the-scenes insights, giggled over worst heckles and shared top tips for aspiring practitioners.

Searching for advice? Fancy reading our interview? Or perhaps you'd like to dig a bit deeper? If zoom plays be the food of love, play on!

Work.txt credits

Text and concept by Nathan Ellis

Creative producer Emily Davis

Coding by Harry Halliday

The chat function was operated by Sam Osborne

Music by Tom Foskett-Barnes

Cityscape by Eliott Bloomer

Dramaturgy by Sam Ward and Ben Kulvichit

It was supported by The Place Bedford, New Diorama Theatre, Incoming Festival, and Arts Council England

@workdottext

Twitter

Instagram

Transcript with definitions guide

Unlocking Work.txt_otter

.pdf

Download PDF • 136KB

Nathan and Emily's 5 pieces of honest advice for aspiring creatives

Nathan

1) 'Take it slow' was always good advice – it's not a race or a competition or a zero-sum game: your great, huge idea will still be a great idea in one year or ten and in between then you get to practice on smaller canvases (even just the ones in the hypothetical theatre in your head).

2) Art often comes from a place of happiness - I wrote nothing for months because I was sad, I didn't write King Lear and I didn't have anything to say and I think, for me, it might be a myth that being desperately unhappy helps you create, and I think it might in fact be the exact opposite.

3) Document your work – a bit like how I imagine now every student in the land is going to take their mocks incredibly seriously forevermore, I wish I'd documented my past work more carefully, in a way I was proud of, I wish I'd filmed the show when it was ready and it looked great, and not on my phone in a rehearsal room.

4) Theatre can be more accessible and international – one of the things theatre always had against it in a globalised world was that it was local – this is obviously a strength [community is good] but also a hindrance [it's irrelevant to me if I'm elsewhere in the world] - the pandemic showed that we need to find ways to explore delocalising theatre AND offered windows into how to make that happen.

5) 'Liveness' is a real thing! - nothing makes you long for a roomful of people sharing breath more than a pandemic - turns out Netflix isn't a substitute to live performance, which is something I – as someone who had committed their life to live performance – doubted a few months ago.

ID: green glitched graphic overlayed with a nude, hunched torso

Emily

"If you’re a producer, director, designer, devisor, and you’re at the very beginning of your career, these are five things I wish someone had shaken into me when I first started making work.

1) Find your tribe

This is a biggie. Make work with people who you think are awesome, and surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. Because not only will you share a passion together and constantly inspire each other, you will make each other better as artists.

2) Programmers are just people with opinions

And honestly, some of them are not very good. When I first emailed a venue about touring a show, and they said a polite no (or ignored my email) it felt like a personal rejection. But that is just one person with one opinion, and often, there are other factors at play, like timing, venue finance, or a theme to the season. You can’t persuade someone to love your art, and that’s ok. Because someone else will.

3) Be Selective

I made the mistake at the beginning of my career of trying to work on as many projects as possible because I felt so woefully inexperienced. Most of these gigs were unpaid, some turned out to be very stressful, and all of them together made me miserable. A friend has since told me about a really good measurement to use when deciding whether to say ‘Yes’ to something, that I’ve since taken on wholeheartedly: When struggling with saying yes or no, you ask yourself the question, will this project:

Pay me fairly for my time?
Be fun to do?
Move my career forward (in terms of contacts made, skills learnt)?

And the project you choose should fulfil at least two of those criteria to be worth doing.

4) Try (really try) not to compare yourselves to others.

Because I guarantee, that will be the number 1 cause of misery in your career. Edinburgh Fringe is an especially terrible breeding ground for insecurity, where you see glowing praise for every single one of your peers pasted on walls with what seems like infinite stars.

The creative industry is so brilliant because there are so many different paths to success, and most of them are bumpy and meandering. You don’t have to be the whizz kid who has a play on at the royal court straight out of uni, or the Edinburgh fringe show which transfers to the west end. Stories like that are 1/100,000, and any creative who seems outwardly successful will have had crushing rejections somewhere along the line.

5) Do other stuff

This one comes from my personal bias… but I’m inherently suspicious of people who leave education and go straight into lucrative creative work, because it usually means there’s some kind of nepotism or back-door-ism at play.

Everyone else in the creative industry needs to side hustle. But that, in my opinion, is a good thing. The more you see of life, the better you’ll be able to reflect it in your art. The more you learn about the world, and the more kinds of people you meet, the better an artist you’ll be. The more jobs you do, and skills you learn, the better a collaborator you’ll be. I’ve used skills as a waitress, bookseller, office temp and lab assistant in my work as a theatre producer, and I’m a better, more well-rounded person and professional because of it."