It’s been a non-stop couple of weeks at the Artz Centre. I could’ve wrote chapter after chapter over the last 4 weeks discussing each jam-packed day; instead I wanted to create one chapter that wraps together that experience as a whole and talk about how it has felt to be at the epicentre of this whirlwind. Before anything else though, I may owe some explanation to anyone reading who doesn’t know what I mean by ‘non-stop couple of weeks’.
At the Artz Centre we have just completed the final 4 productions of the year, in almost just as many weeks. Within that collection of productions, I’ve personally been tasked with a really varied mix of jobs and that have each presented different challenges and lead me to work with lots of different sections of the Artz Team. Those productions and what I done as a part of them has been:
- The Adult Academy’s political satire turned musical UrineTown. (Actor in a principle role)
- The 2019 Student’s Choice Solo, a concert where any Artz Student is encouraged to get up on stage and have their moment in the spotlight. (Sound Engineer)
- The Artz Choir headed down to Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral in the NSPCC’s Carols By Candlelight service. (Chaperone)
- Last, but by no means least was our full company production: Elf The Musical. (lighting programmer and Sound Engineer)
When preparing for UrineTown, I saw a quote that had been shared online. It said:
“Put aside the need for certainty. Focus on riding the best wave you can today. Don’t wait for the tide to be perfect”
at first, I struggled to appreciate its message. I could see some stoic philosophy it may carry – there’s a limit to what we can control and nothing outside of that limited control is certain. But that quote really wedged itself into my brain for a while.
Then, just a couple of days later, as we had started to set up for Solo, I was really feeling the relentless nature of a show schedule like this. And I heard that quote still wedged in my head, along with a striking eureka moment! ‘This! The Shows! Our Schedule! That is what riding the wave is like’.
Being a part of a community and company where we are working on back to back events like this, it actually can feel like you’re trying to ride wave after wave until the tide clears. At first, much like a wave, a show begins small, it isn’t much more than someone’s idea. But over time, it builds up energy and momentum, eventually it can become a force stronger than any one person. When that happens, you either embrace it, or get out of its way.
I feel The Artz Centre (by which, I mean its people, not just the property) has been the ship that’s ridden four gigantic waves, one after the other, this month. Now, as the tide finally starts to settle, it is becoming more and more clear just how much we have all accomplished this month, not one person, but all of us.
Jumping between different roles has given me a great deal of exposure to all the different work people put into making performance possible and as a part of my apprenticeship at the Artz Centre, I’ve been challenged to nurture several key personality traits during my training, one of them being teamwork. It is teamwork that I think the past couple of weeks have been all about. None of us have been successful alone, we’ve all ridden the wave together and from show to show, we have been there for one another. Albeit no team is perfect and I’m sure everybody in our motley crew has something they want to improve on in 2020 (I definitely do) but the team you celebrate is the one that’s there with you through the late nights, tough days and moments of victory.
In summary, although life would certainly be easier if there was barrels of time between productions, I don’t believe that the Artz way is to take the easy way out, instead it is to take each challenge as they come, work your hardest and ride out each wave however difficult that may be. But the Artz way is also to never do any of that alone, instead it is to do it as a team, who always have each others backs – no matter what!
– Joe
Just some of the photos of the Artz Team coming together in its various configurations over the past few weeks.