COMPANY FEEDBACK FOR ACTORS AND TECHNICIANS ON PENNED UP TOUR.
I loved every minute of it. A great and moving experience, for not only the cast and crew but also the audience feedback, written and verbal, showed how much they connected with the piece. A truly emotional and fulfilling insight into a world most of us are completely unaware of.
Heydn (Actor)
I loved every minute of working on Penned Up - from first reading the play (where the characters and setting leapt off the page), to the initial meetings, through to the rehearsals, techs, and finally in performance. Seeing my designs in a variety of spaces, and experiencing the different audiences reactions was very moving. The entire production was a wonderfully positive and collaborative experience, and I felt supported through every stage of the creative process. By the end of the tour I was desperate to get started on the next one!
Set Designer
Penned Up was a unique experience: taking a new play about prisoners to theatres and prisons, moving prison staff to tears, prisoners to cheers and audiences to laughter and loud applause. Please can we do it all again?
Geir (Actor)
My experience working on Penned Up was so rewarding. Especially touring such a thought provoking play around East Anglia and to prisons. More of this please!
Ashton (Actor)
A fun experience and rehearsal period that had more laughter in the rehearsal process than I expected all whist honouring the craft of acting and honouring the script as an ensemble. The prison performance also felt like a truly unique experience that I felt many will probably never experience in their acting career and I will remember it for a long time.
Shelley (Actor)
From reading the first draft I loved the play and knew that if Hal could get it on stage it would move and entertain people... and I was right. But I didn't reckon with the profound effect it would have on me. Through this show I have discovered a new passion for acting and I have understood I can do the work to get a brilliant but demanding show into my system and on stage. I have a deeper understanding of prison and prisoners and I have worked with the most extraordinary group of creative souls. Doing Penned Up has changed my life, entirely for the better.
Rebecca (Actor)
From the outset it was an incredibly challenging yet incredibly enjoyable production to work on. The rehearsal process was well structured and gave us time to dig deep into the text to allow us all to create our individual characters with truth but also with nuance and depth. We never felt rushed but we always felt the pressure of getting the play on its feet as quickly as we could.The tour itself was nicely paced and allowed us time to breathe. No tour I’ve ever worked on is ever completely logical in its geographical direction but Penned Up’s did make sense which gave us the opportunity to mentally switch off at times. So often with nightly touring you’re just forever checking into a B&B, unpacking a bag, performing, packing a bag, travelling, checking into another B&B etc but the way our tour was scheduled offered us downtime and no ’silly’ journeys, something that a lot of companies could learn from as it cut out a lot of stress on the cast and crew.Performing the play in prisons was something I’ll never forget. I loved it in one of them but hated it in the other. Nothing to do with the play, just an eye opening account for someone who never breaks the rules! I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. Can we do it all again in a heartbeat?
Chris. (Actor)
It was a great experience for me, giving me the opportunity to see the current state of the industry I am training young people to enter. It was also a key chance to confirm and demystify the prison system; meeting actual prisoners first-hand was quite eye-opening. It really showed how the justice system cannot just be a one-size-fits-all approach. The negatives were that the industry is in a very sorry state: many venues with money had poor standards of technicians, and venues with little to no funding had much higher standards. Everyone is feeling the pinch in these tough economic times, which is evident when venues such as Blackpool Grand are in desperate need of working dimmers in their studios, or Greenwich Theatre is staffed by church volunteers who are afraid of heights. We need real change across the country, including arts programmes with affordable subsidised tickets so we can fill the houses and foster lifelong theatre-goers. This was especially clear in the prison, where, from my perspective, some may never have seen a play before and may have only experienced pantomime or stand-up comedy. In the larger venues, we sold half the capacity, and in the smaller ones, we had similar results, except Norwich, which was our lowest ratio again—this is a great venue but staffed by very inexperienced technicians. We also suffered from a lack of social media engagement from the venues; I tagged them, but only two shared my posts and engaged with our social media. Is this something that needs to be addressed? Are these grassroots areas allergic to money, or is it that there is no funding for a social media manager? Could Arts Council England help in this respect, perhaps with county-specific people to publicise new work?
Tim (Lighting and Sound design)