news and media
perform
ance announcement :: 6th March 2012
It’s time for another Love Club! This will be my first and last of 2012 as far as I can predict. It’s just worked out that way. It’s a little like losing my job. Funnily enough the theme of this Love Club is: International Unemployment Day. And God knows this year I won’t be celebrating alone. So join me and a smattering of other local artists and wordsmiths for a cheeky, gleeful evening of thinking, drinking, and laughing at The Arches. Click here for more.
upcoming event :: 27th February through 3rd March 2012
In December just before jetting off to celebrate my birthday in an exotic locale I got a call from the right honourable David MacLennan concerning the 250th Oran Mor show. He invited me to join a raft of other artists (many of whom took part in the event he organized at the Scottish Parliament as part of the NTS’s Staging the Nation season.) The aim of the project wasn’t clear, we just knew it was about Rousseau, the Enlightenment’s poster boy and author of the 250 year old text “The Social Contract.” Over a month this group, including myself, produced a large amount of material that is now being formed into a cabaret that will play at Oran Mor for a week: The Jean-Jacques Rousseau Show. Get your tickets quick – you won’t want to miss it! Click here for more.
performance announcement :: 24th, 25th & 26th February 2012
I have been working with performance artist and musician Iain Campbell F-W since New Year’s on a performance featured at this weekend’s Episode 2, the second installation of Arika12. This annual event collects thinkers, makers and tinkers to speak to and present work around specific questions. Episode 2 is founded in questions of subjectivity, identity, and the impossibility of authenticity. How to create in postmodernity? How to stay positive/productive in the cosmic void? Well, we’ve got a couple of ideas: “Only Your Pre Formance Is Cult.” Day tickets and festival tickets are available!
media :: 27 January 2012
The recording of December’s Staging the Nation event at the Scottish Parliament. This collection of historians, playwrights, directors, and theatre makers presented what they knew/desired/ aspired to produce in the way of political theatre. It wasn’t a debate as much as a celebration. As ever I brought a healthy dose of ambivalence and self interest (take a wee peek at 55:20)
performance announcement :: 15th December 2011
I will take part in a National Theatre of Scotland event all about political theatre in Scotland, its history and its future. I’m presenting a short reaction on the topic. Check it out if you’re free: http://stagingthenation.com/scotland-and-political-theatre/
performance update :: 25th November 2011
I will be taking part in the next Arches Scratch Night on the evening of November 25th, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available at the door. This is an evening of experimental and new work from 3 Glasgow-based artists. Don’t miss it, the chat afterward is worth taking a peek at what is happening in independent Scottish theatre!
upcoming event :: 19 October 2011
I have just confirmed that I will be hosting the feedback following the next Crossing the Lines, an experimental Scratch night event at the Arches. I have participated in Crossing the Lines previously as a director, taking existing play text and reworking it in a different theatrical vocabulary. I look forward to seeing what the artists directing scenes this time get up to and will get a conversation going between them and the audience. Check it out on November 3rd 2011 at 7:30 p.m. £3.50 (inc. a glass of wine.) Tickets available at the door.
media :: 18 October 2011
I have been asked by the National Theatre of Scotland to contribute a short blog to their website that charts my experience as an artist in attachment. I open the blog with a little introduction and hope that in the coming months I can explore some of the ideas operating in my work, some of my frustrations working full time while making work, and how the performances I have coming up turn out. Check it out here.
media :: 6 September 2011
A nice online article about the NTS attachment programme for emerging artists from Northings, a website dedicated to the arts and culture in the Scottish Highlands and Islands.
performance announcement :: 7 September 2011
On October 8th I will be performing a new spoken word piece for an afternoon Love Club at Tapa Bakehouse in the Southside of Glasgow. This even is being planned as part of Bungofest, a collaboration between The Arches and The Strathbungo Society. This event will also feature popular Arches regulars, including the fabulous Arches Community Choir. The theme for this Love Club is International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction. This will start at 1.30 pm. See you there!
performance announcement :: 27 August 2011
Join me on November 1, 2011 for proudExposur’s next Love Club, a quarterly event that brings a diverse group of artists to muse/rant/lament on a given theme. Hot on the heels of his successful event in July he is producing The Love Club: Day of the Dead. Glorious. Since most of my work is about death and decay I feel pretty good about announcing this one early. I can’t wait to present another performance piece and hope you’ll join me as I develop and experiment with some of the performance ideas at work in my latest piece for The Love Club and upcoming projects. To find out more click here.
performance announcement :: 17 June 2011
On the 4th of July 2011 I will perform at the The Love Club, a performance event organized by proudExposure. This club’s theme is Independence Day. So, on that auspicious day I will celebrate my independence with a small spoken word performance at the Arches, 8 to 10 p.m. £4 at the door.
NTS artist in attachment :: 20 May 2011
Amanda has begun her year as an official artist in attachment to the National Theatre of Scotland. Included in her ambitions for the attachment is a period of focused writing on several new projects, a concerted effort to learn puppet building skills, and finally Amanda looks forward to a couple of development projects, both in association with NTS associates and a week dedicated to a yet-to-be-decided project of her own. This is a tremendous opportunity for Amanda as it will offer some financial support badly needed as well as dramaturgical and administrative support as she dives into her work. A huge thanks goes to Caroline Newall for speaking to Amanda about the attachment and acting as a cheerleader for Pony Pie when the NTS was choosing attachés. She looks forward to working closely with the crew at NTS as she gets the attachment underway – which has already happened! More soon…
performance announcement :: 9 May 2011
On May 25th 2011 @ 7:30 p.m. pony pie will present a piece at Crossing the Lines, a collaborative event between the Arches in Glasgow and Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland. This event will feature other Glasgow-based theatre makers who’ll interpret a selected contemporary text from a living playwright in whatever way they like. In a “scratch” format, these short pieces will collectively reveal new and exciting ways to stage traditional written play scripts. We’ll be working on a selection from the imaginative playwright Debbie Jones.
For more information on the event or to book tickets click through to the Arches site. Check On the Hob… (the pony pie blog) for more details as the performance approaches.
media :: 4 May 2011
A few weeks ago Gareth Vile, the theatre editor at The Skinny, approached pony pie about their funding strategies for the September production of “How Keanu Reeves Saved the World.” His inquiries and subsequent article follow a string of arts funding news, first the torrent of announcements from the Arts Council England who making cuts large and small across the sector “down south,” and announcements by the Scottish arts funding body Creative Scotland.
Check out the article for our feedback to Vile’s questions and how we fit into a growing number of companies producing without public subsidies. It also begs the question: where will we find money for the next project?
