Well, it has been quiet on the surface recently here at Stillpoint HQ, but the truth is, we have been busy busy preparing ourselves for a zesty summer and a feverishly hectic Autumn.

The Art of Catastrophe is on at the Ignite Festival in Exeter on the 8th of June. Come down and see us!

Then we get on with making our brand new piece Moon Project. This will be our first two hander and a more ambitious work than we have attempted to date. We have assembled a team that we are dead excited about. They include our regular team, plus some new folk. Jules Munns and Rachel Blackman will be performing with direction from Paul Hodson and Emma Roberts and design by Geoff Hense and Pearl Bates. We’ll be creating the piece together with concept and script by Rachel Blackman. To find out more about everyone’s roles, go here.

We are also excited about our new partners. We’ll be teaming up with Theatre in the Mill in Bradford and South Street Reading to build the piece, then we are delighted to announce that Oval House, London, will also be supporting and co-producing a season in November.

The image above is the promo image for the new piece. It was photographed at the Science Museum in London where our friend Colin managed to find us a space to shoot as well as source a reproduction of an original Apollo mission space helmet! Jules was so excited he nearly collapsed. The fragments were shot by Briar Ellen Photography, design is by Stillpoint and zero gravity effect is by your brain…

We also have summer workshops coming up. The next Body Intelligence is on the 1st of June and is almost full. The following one is on the 20th of July in Brighton. In July we’ll also be running a 2 day Masterclass for performers and writers on developing original work and finding original forms. More on that soon.

Enjoy the sunshine. xx

So here’s to fragile new beginnings. 2013 sees the emergence of a brand new piece that has been quietly seeding in the back ground since the beginning of 2012 where it began life as a Fuel Theatre residency at Dartington Hall. Called The Moon Project: home, we are scratching 10 minutes of new material at The Nightingale Theatre on the 8th of December, if you fancy a sneak peak.

Two people suffer nostalgia for impossible futures:
One yearns for home but can never return.
The other yearns for escape but can never leave.
You are invited – with us – to exhume the anatomy and cosmology of their colliding trajectories.
The Moon Project: home is about a car crash. It is about life (and love) after death. .

Stillpoint have also been invited with artist Emma Kilbey to make a piece of spontaneous work for City Running in Bristol on the weekend of the 30th of November. This involves scouring the city for inspiration then presenting the piece later that very night. Exciting, challenging and sleep depriving indeed.

City Running is the brain child of Rowena Easton and is about exploring and documenting an urban environment. For more information on how it works go here.
If you are interested to participate the applications are still open so maybe see you there! City Running is being produced in Bristol by MAYK.

Got a few shows on tomorrow at Merge, Bankside.
We’re doing The Art of Catastrophe and The Growing Room.
Here’s a little blog to celebrate.
All the info you need is there, plus a lot more that you probably don’t, but might enjoy.
Scroll down to the bottom if you just want the low down.

Mr.Clarke, by Mr.Chrisp

Well, our most intmate show ever, The Department of Unreliable Memoirs is well underway and our first reviews are tinkling in. There is still time to make an appointment with our office and pretend to be someone else for 10 minutes, facilitated by our sensational hostesses!

Here is a snap of our lovely clerk, Mr.Clarke in Department attire ready to invite you into our unfeesable and playfully off kilter world.

Here are our dates for the remaining shows at The Old Market at the Brighton Fringe 2012.

Next up Ms.Kilbey and I will be at The Pulse Festival, Ipswich as part of The Campsite on the 1st and 2nd of June.

For those of you who have already visited, we have been capturing your memories in photographs and you will be able to view them via a special portal on this website soon. Oh boy!

Happy fringe everyone.

More soon. xx RB

We’ve hit the ground running in 2012.

In February Stillpoint begins work on a fourth full length piece of work with musician Nick Norton-Smith in beautiful Dartington. The weeks residency has been sponsored by Fuel. It is early days, but we are thinking we’d like to build a two hander around the idea of space travel, home and distance. How far can you travel before the connection gets too thin and return becomes impossible?

We’ve also been commissioned by Fuel to contribute some work to the Phenomenal People project in the WoW Festival at the Southbank Centre in March (9th – 11th). Stillpoint, along with 17 other artists will be making 10 minute pieces in response to women who inspire us. Contributing artists include Katie Mitchell, Nic Green, Lois Weaver and the incredible Peggy Shaw, Hannah Ringham, Victoria Mosely and many more. We feel very excited, a little bit scared and deeply grateful to have been invited to participate in this.

You can buy day passes to the festival here

Also coming up, the much anticipated return of The Growing Room in its first outing since The Brighton Festival 2011 and the Premiere of Triptych: Three Attempts at Love in London

THE GROWING ROOM
4th April: South Street, Reading.
Preview £5.
11th, 12th & 13th April: Nightingale Theatre, Brighton.
Premiere £8.50 / £6.50 tickets

TRIPTYCH: THREE ATTEMPTS AT LOVE
18th – 21st April: Camden People’s Theatre
Premiere £10 / £8 (check back here soon for tickets)

A new micro project emerged from its chrysalis this Sunday the 29th as part of Brighton’s wonderful White Night celebrations. A co-production between Stillpoint, Emma Kilbey and the Nightingale Theatre, the Department of Unreliable Memoirs is an intimate encounter for one audience member. It invites you into a little world of shifting memory, secret lives and mischief.

In celebration of the lifting of the Ban on Dubious Facts, The Dept of Unreliable Memoirs has recently reopened its Brighton bureau! Make an appointment with our helpful hostesses to retrieve a half forgotten moment, from a past you may well have had.

We had a wonderful night, chock full of appointments, with many rediscoveries and much hysterical laughter as the clock ticked towards 2am.

If you missed us this time, do keep an eye out, because we will be back with a whole host of fresh memories to revive for you and next time maybe even a momento for you to take home!

Many people who helped us make our newest piece of work over the past few months didn’t get properly thanked, as the Brighton Festival free sheet didn’t make it into the hands of the audiences. Please accept our sincere apologies. It was not our doing and in order to rectify this and remind you how grateful we are for your contribution, your names are listed here. Also, posted below, an electronic version of the missing sheet you can read, download, or print off and fashion your own origami swan, fortune teller game, or paper aeroplane.

So BIG thanks to:
Geoff Hense, Emma Kilbey, Lucy Moore, Ella Thompson, Emma Roberts, Wendy Houstoun, Lucinka Eisler, Steven Brett, Kate Gower and the team at the Nightingale Theatre, Laura Chrostowski, Tanya Peters and all at the Brighton Festival, Arts Council England, The Brighton and Hove City Council, Driftwood productions, Foz Foster, Greg Allum, Toby Amies, Tim Crouch, Lisa Wolfe, Sean Phillips, Matt Blackman, Dr.Bramwell and all at Stitch Collective.

Brighton Festival Platform Freesheet

Acting Skills for Everyday Life 2
A follow on course for Acting Skills for Everyday Life
A special treat for those who did Acting Skills For Everyday Life 1 and want more. Also open to everyone. This course is more a continuation than an ‘advanced’ course. Please note, these classes are not about becoming an actor, but about opening up, learning some applicable skills, having fun and growing in creative confidence.

We’re aiming to offer 4 of these babies a year. Woop!

TICKETS DISAPPEARING!
The third part of our trilogy, The Growing Room, at the Brighton Pavilion on the 25th of May is nearly sold out! Please get your tickets very soon if don’t want to miss it.

Seats still available for the first two pieces, The Art of Catastrophe and Steal Compass, Drive North, Disappear. Go here to book or call the Dome Box Office on +44(0)1273 709709 for tickets to all three shows.

Be warned, the beautiful Nightingale who is playing host to our first two pieces, is perfectly formed but tiny, so please keep an eye on tickets, for they will wooosh!… disappear!

WORKSHOP POSTPONED
The Body and It’s Stories Performance Workshop has been postponed to the 18th of June. Please visit the education page for more details.

STEAL COMPASS, DRIVE NORTH, DISAPPEAR COMING TO THE NUFFIELD SOUTHHAMPTON & GROVE HOUSE, OXFORD
We’re taking Martin and his sensitive ego along with nearly half a kilometre of fairy lights to The Nuffield in two weeks time. If you know anyone in Southampton who might enjoy a dark and funny insight into a modern man’s private life, please send them here!

Then on the 4th and 5th of May we are taking Martin and his fairy lights out again for a very special couple of gigs in Graham Green’s old home, Grove House in Oxford. The wonderful old building we will be performing in, used to be used to be home to Green’s wife’s collection of hundreds of Victorian china dolls, but has now been reclaimed by Poly and Rose as an intimate and unique venue. We’re really excited to be bringing the piece to this unusual space.

Bella Todd’s theatre blog in the Guardian last week flags up some local produce exploring the relationship between drawing, theatre and audience engagement. Sue MacLaine’s re-imagining of Henrietta Morais’s life set in front of an audience armed with sketchpads and pencils this May as part of the Brighton Artists Open Houses. Local drawing legend Jake Spicer’s new work, Tim Crouch’s England and our very own Steal Compass… all get a mention