Thursday 31 May 2012

What we're going to do right here is go back, way back, back into time...

Loving the retro experience of playing with tape again.

Been listening to Blondie and the sound quality is awful. I think we forget how bad it was. But I love the whirring sound of the machine, the number counter, the tedious process of 'fast' forward and rewinding to the exact spot, the sound of the record button clunking on and off caught forever on tape.

When I came to play with it I remembered that you either needed to leave the 'pips' in or cover the hole up with cellotape so you can record over it and I don't have any cellotape with me but luckily there is a tape with Coldplay (BLEUGH!!!) that still has the pips in so I can still play...

It's doing exactly what it is supposed to do and is taking me back to my childhood. Mum still has the tape I made when, aged 6, she was decorating our flat and to keep me occupied she told me to record myself reading stories and singing songs including such classics as Tiger Tiger and The Bear Went Over the Mountain. Then there were the many, many, MANY Sunday afternoons in my teens spent glued to the charts trying to catch the songs JUST RIGHT to avoid getting too much of the DJ's voice, and finally the anguished taped love letters sent to my boyfriend back home when I went to work for a touring theatre company aged 18.

It's pretty evocative stuff and I hope it will find it's way in to the show somehow...

There is something here about the layering of sound, the imperfection of it, the direct address, of the 'liveness' of a recorded voice in a pre-Skype era and the disembodied voice reaching out to connect over distance.

(Big thanks to Third Angel for the equipment!)



Wednesday 23 May 2012

Embracing my inner child

It's funny how everything has changed, in the most subtle ways in some cases.

Being on my own in my own space, talking to myself in my own space. These things are fine. Here? It's is different. It's difficult. But then it was supposed to be. Isn't that the point?

Even just playing ball. Everytime the ball hits the floor it gets dirtier so everytime I catch it my hands get dirtier. This bothers me more than I would like. When I was a kid I would be doing this in my Grandma's back yard, the side of Dad's house, the back of my Mum's best friend's house, the street, at school - not a recently cleaned studio. So what's wrong with getting a bit mucky? All the best things in life involve a little bit of mess. I am not a neat freak. I can do this.

Hang on a sec, must just go wash my hands again...

Sunday 13 May 2012

Meet my Imaginary Friend

In preparation for my show One, I am thinking about loneliness.

  • I am thinking about how to populate an empty space, how to bring more than just myself to the stage.
  • I am thinking about my childhood, being an only child.
  • I am thinking about Imaginary Friends and why we invent them.


I never had one so I am thinking about collecting stories of other people's Imaginary Friends.

Please tell me about an Imaginary Friend you or someone you know has/had. If you didn't ever have one as a child, what would your imaginary friend be like if you invented one now? What would they look like? What special skills/powers would they have?

At this point I am unsure exactly if/how this might be used but anything you do choose to tell me may be referred to on this blog and/or in the show. If you would prefer me not to use your name please tell me and I will make sure that I do not.

Please email all responses to: jayekearney61@googlemail.com and please feel free to forward on to others.

Thank you.




Saturday 12 May 2012

Let's start at the very beginning...

A very good place to start.

So here I am. At Northern Stage on Day 2 of Title Pending. This is the beginning.

Today is the first day of rehearsal ever, for my very first solo show called One.

I'm in a meeting room above Stage One in Northern Stage, I have an array of drinks and tasty snacks to fuel me and I'm feeling pretty good already. Hell, I feel amazing!!! I'm buzzing with excitement, at the possibilities, at the fact that I have stopped talking (OK, OK, not entirely) and started DOING.

And so I wanted to mark this moment. As I will be marking much of this journey, here.

This is where is starts.