Creation Theatre Company

We're Oxford's largest professional producing theatre company, specialising in site-specific inventive theatre in extraordinary locations.

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Will the real Toad Hall please stand up?

Ever wondered where author Kenneth Grahame got inspiration for the picturesque setting of The Wind in the Willows? When it comes to the infamous grandeur of Toad Hall, it’s not so clear. In fact, at least three local estates claim to be the residence of our dear Mr Toad.

“Rounding a bend in the river, they came in sight of a handsome, dignified old house of mellowed red brick, with well-kept lawns reaching down to the water's edge.”

Mapledurham House 

Mapledurham House is a 12th century house and farming estate on the banks of the Thames in the heart of the village of Mapledurham. The estate, with its church, watermill, golf course and team rooms, have been a popular setting for films and TV programmes such as The Eagle has Landed, Ms Marple and Midsomer Murders.

Mapledurham is close the town of Pangbourne where Grahame lived for several years and EH Shephard’s illustrations of Toad Hall for the original edition of The Wind In The Willows bear a striking resemblance to Mapledurham. It is also believed that the nearby Quarry Wood is the setting of Mole getting caught in the storm and is rescued by Ratty.

Hardwick House

Formerly the site of a Saxon house owned by the de Hardwick family, Hardwick house as it stands today is a Tudor mansion which has been described as a “magnet of the literary community” in the early 1900s. Grahame was a regular visitor to the house and it is believed that the character of Toad is a loving caricature of his friend Sir Charles Day Rose, who bought the house in 1909. 

Like Toad, Rose was a lover for fast cars and would often don his motoring goggles to go for a ride. The garden was also used by Henry James as the setting for The Portrait of a Lady. Rose’s family still own and live in Hardwick today, with Sir Julian Rose claiming the title of “only milkman in England with a title” as he milks his own cows and makes deliveries to the tenants on his estate.

Fawley Court

Our third Toad Hall is Fawley Court. Located on the border of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, the house on the edge of the waterfront perfectly resembles the description in Grahame’s novel. Repurposed as a decoding facility along with Bletchley Park during WW2, it was later used as a boarding school and was finally bought and restored by Aida Dellal Hersham in 2008.

- Izzy

References:

Mapledurham House - http://www.mapledurham.co.uk/

Mapledurham House History - http://www.mapledurham.co.uk/maplehurham-house/

Mapledurham House: The multi media manor- http://www.visitmidsomer.com/mapledurham-house-the-multi-media-manor/

Hardwick House - http://whitchurchonthames.com/Hardwick%20article.pdf

Mr Toad and Wind in the Willows country - https://www.simonseeks.com/travel-guides/mr-toad-and-walks-wind-willows-country__118722

Fawley Court - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-14110256

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Everything You Need to Know About Being a Creation Intern

When I was a child, my granny took my cousin, my sister and I to see a show in the Creation Theatre mirror tent. I was amazed by the innovation and beauty of the space and the incredible performances. I fell in love with Creation and would go on to see many of their productions over the years that followed.

So when I was 17 and applying for universities to study Marketing, I jumped at the opportunity to work with Creation as a Marketing Intern for two weeks over the summer. In this short period, I worked on social media, publicity and front of house for Alice at St Hughes College. My tasks ranged from scheduling tweets to blow-drying a costume which got drenched during a particularly rainy performance. By the end of my internship I had received my A Level results and off I went to study Marketing Communications at Bournemouth University.

Inspired by my time at Creation and my passion for musical theatre, I began researching a career in arts marketing and when my placement year rolled around, it brought me back to the Oxford and Creation.

Starting in July, I returned to work as a Marketing Intern on a new production of Alice and have not stopped since. I've been given the chance to get involved in all sorts of exciting projects and have learned skills that I'll be sure to take with me once I'm gone.

So, from one of their longest running marketing interns, here are the 5 things you should know if you’re considering an internship with Creation:

 Creation is flexible

The team at Creation understand that time is precious and are always willing to be flexible. You can commit however many hours you have to spare in confidence that there will always be a job to get stuck into when you are available. As the internships at Creation are unpaid, this allows me work around my part-time job and still get the most out of my internship.

Creation is years of experience

The team at Creation have years of combined experience in every aspect of producing theatre. From casting to finance, advertising to transforming venues, you will have the opportunity to see how a small team can really make things happen. As someone who has been studying marketing theory for the last two years, it has been fascinating to see it put into practice in such wacky, interesting ways.

Creation is hands-on

Not only do you get to learn from watching the best, the small team at Creation means that you won’t be stuck making tea and coffee but will actually gain valuable skills which could help you in your chosen field. When you start at Creation, you’ll be asked to write an introduction about yourself, your interests and what you’re looking to gain from the internship. The team will then use this to tailor your experience, making sure that you get hands-on jobs in areas which really interest you. I came to Creation terrified of answering the telephone and now 3 months later, I have not only single-handedly ran the box office for a week but managed complicated group bookings and ticket exchanges over the phone. That’s what I call character development!

Creation is teamwork

Creation will teach you important lessons about teamwork. The way Creation communicate with their fans may seem effortless but social media posts, e-flyers and print could be the collective work of as many as 5 people! Everything is a collaboration to ensure that all “t”s are crossed and “i”s are dotted, so you should never be afraid to ask for help.

Creation is…creative!

Whilst working at Creation your opinion will be welcome and valued. Everyone has something different to bring to the team and there are no stupid ideas. Whether you’re great keen copywriter or have a flair for paper mache there’s something for everyone.

 For more information on Creation's internships, click here.

 - Izzy Penhallow

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“Are you there, Moriarty?”: A  Victorian evening’s entertainment

With A Christmas Carol coming up, we're feeling very Victorian here at Creation. To get a sense of Dickens' world, we've gathered up a few Victorian parlour games, perfect for both these long winter evenings and Mr Fezziwig's Christmas party.

Blind Man's Buff

A great game, though make sure you clear a space! One player is "It", and blindfolded - they have to catch another player.

(The game was originally called Blind Man's Buff, with the word buff used in its older sense of a small push. At some point, the name Blind Man's Bluff came into use).

Are you there, Moriarty?

A game for two players (and several amused spectators)

The players are blindfolded and given a rolled up newspaper, then lie on their fronts, head to head with a metre or so gap between them. The starting player says "Are you there, Moriarty?". The other player, when ready, says "Yes". The starting player then tries to hit the other player with their newspaper, by swinging it over his head - after their attempt, it's the other players turn.

Once hit, you're out and someone else takes your place.

The Minister's Cat

No newspapers involved in this one! All players sit in a circle, and the first player describes the minister's cat with an adjective beginning with the letter 'A' (for example, "The minister's cat is an amazing cat") Each player then does the same, using different adjectives starting with the same letter.

The game is featured in the 1970 film Scrooge - have a watch.

Reverand Crawley's Game

Who the Reverand Crawley was and how he created this game has been lost to history, but his legacy is this excellent. game for eight or more players 

Stand in a circle, and then hold hands with two people, but not with the people on either side of you, and not both hands with the same person. This creates a huge human knot. Working together you have to untie the knot, by stepping over each other, crawling under people's arms, climbing through gaps etc - all without letting go of the hands you're holding.

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The view from the DSM desk

My name is Lucy and I am the Deputy Stage Manager (DSM) for this year’s production of A Christmas Carol. My role is very varied, which is one of the reasons I love it, and no two days are ever the same. It requires me to co-ordinate all the aspects of a theatre production to ensure the successful delivery of the show.

My job starts even before rehearsals do, organising schedules, creating props list, attending production meetings and doing everything possible to ensure we are as ready as we can be for the first day of rehearsals. Once rehearsals start I work closely with the actors, the director and the rest of the creative team to organise all the elements that need putting together to create the production. For a Creation show this includes brilliant music, stunning dances, amazing costumes and beautiful sets. I will sit in the rehearsal room noting down everything that happens into ‘The Book’ which is the master copy of the script containing all the actors’ moves and technical cues. I also create rehearsal notes to send out to the creative and production team every day to inform them of any developments in rehearsals that need acting upon.

During rehearsals, along with my Assistant Stage Manager (ASM) the amazing Judith, I also source all the props required for the show.  For A Christmas Carol this is going to mean hunting for some festive treats, period furniture and I’m sure a few Dickensian surprises. We hunt for our props from multiple sources up and down the country and even at times from international sources; if you saw Alice in the summer then you may be surprised to discover that the little Alice puppet came all the way from the Ukraine. Anything we can’t source we make ourselves which includes all the paper props - there is certainly a huge collection of these required this Christmas.

We then go into technical rehearsal at the brilliant North Wall Arts Centre and this is where we add all the technical aspects to the production. I will run the tech rehearsal with the Production Manager where we work through the whole show from start to finish adding in all the costumes, set elements, sound and lights, and create the final version of the show ready for opening night. It is a real collaborative effort between everyone involved, and is a lot of long days and hard but rewarding work seeing everything come together.

Once the show is open, I ensure that every performance happens just how it was designed to, so that every audience member gets the best possible show. I am positioned right at the top of the auditorium to give me a clear view of the stage (I also have a screen connected to a camera to see any parts I can’t see), and I operate the lights and sound for the show. I also coordinate all the others parts of the show including entrance and exits, flying elements, trap doors and anything else the show needs. I work closely with my ASM, the venue technicians and the cast to ensure everything runs smoothly, everyone is happy and everyone has a brilliant show.

This is my fourth Christmas with Creation and I am very excited about this year’s show. I cannot wait to bring such a traditional festive story to life but in the unique Creation way. I love the way they can mix together the traditional, the modern and the unique - if you saw last year’s Snow White and Other Tales from the Brothers Grimm you’ll know what I mean by unique! Put all these elements together and it creates the perfect mix of fun and delight and that is just what you need at Christmastime.

[creationtheatreoxford]

My Time at Creation Theatre Company

Creation really does feel like a second home to me. I attended my first workshop at the age of eight. It was ‘Shakespeare in a week’, and my first ever taste of the Bard. We put on a production of Romeo and Juliet where I, after requesting the part, played Friar Lawrence for the sole reason that my younger brother was called Lawrence. Luckily for me, I have since developed a more thoughtful way of choosing characters to play. That workshop was so incredible, I realised that I never wanted to stop going to Creation, and so I haven’t.

I have been in the Monday 8-10 and 14-16 groups, the Saturday 11-13 group, and am now one of the members of the first ever Creation Youth Company. I am coming towards the end of my ninth year with Creation, and have been taught so much by these workshops. From chorus work, to animal studies, to stage combat, to accents, you are always discovering new techniques every term. Every Drama Club leader I’ve been taught by has been absolutely incredible, and always bring a new and exciting way of acting to each term. At Drama Club, you put on a whole range of stories; I’ve performed in Shakespeare plays, classical works of literature, Arthur Miller pieces, and some more contemporary shows.

Having been able to vote on which play we want to put on is also a great touch to Drama Club, as it gives the Drama Clubbers more control over the piece. Drama Club has also introduced me to the people I would now call some of my closest friends. However, throughout this time I haven’t just attended workshops; I have also performed in the Christmas Youth Chorus, volunteered front of house, and taught as a Drama Club assistant for three years.

The Christmas show I was in was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which was also the first time I had ever been in a professional production. The experience was so incredibly valuable and amazing. We had two months of intensive rehearsals before performing a month’s run. My most memorable moment was being the first person onstage as a young child caught in the London blitz, and I can still remember the butterflies I felt while waiting in the wings to be the person to set the whole run off. When I look back on my time in the Youth Chorus I think of the chair and prop room at the back of The North Wall that became the home of the Youth Chorus for that month, and all the passive aggressive post-it notes the different groups left each other regarding shared costume! To me, it seems wrong to go to The North Wall anytime out of December because I associate it so strongly with Christmas, and when I go back to volunteer as front of house I can’t help myself feeling a little sentimental.

Front of house is also one of the strangest, and most rewarding experiences I have had. Every time you go to volunteer you don’t know what to expect. A personal favourite of mine is the time I was a fairy-like extra for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and had to skip and leap down the pavement in the centre of town in broad daylight once the audience were able to catch a glimpse of me. This was when I had the rather embarrassing moment of mistaking some members of the general public for audience, and started skipping away merrily in front of them to realise I had just made a complete fool of myself for no reason. The costumed front of house roles are particularly fun, but the out of costume ones are also amazing, and being able to see the show as many times as you want is always a bonus.

Finally, my work as a Drama Club assistant has also been very rewarding. It really is a huge honour to be able to teach the same Drama Clubbers, and see their acting skills develop, over a number of years. Having gone through the experience they are going through now, the only thing I can hope is that in nine years time, they will look back on their time at Creation Drama Club with the same fondness I do. Judging by the amazing Drama Club leaders I have assisted, I am certain they will.

Sadly, my years at Creation Drama Club are coming to an end, and the piece the Youth Company are currently devising is the last Creation Drama Club piece I am ever going to perform in. However I am certain that this won’t be the end of my Creation journey.    

- Freya

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“How did you hear about the show” Or, what influences a marketing strategy.

When you buy a ticket or a workshop through our website, a little questionnaire asks how you found out about the event. There are a lot of options to choose; eflyers, our website, posters, letters, leaflets, listings, press – all of these are various strands of our marketing campaign.

It used to be that the majority of bookings were taken over the phone, where our Box Office team would ask each customer how they heard about it. Customers frequently tell you what’s prompted them to book at that moment as well, making it nice and easy to document.

(Full disclaimer: this is very much still an essential element of our Box Office. I, however, am lousy at asking. I promise now that I will endeavour to be better at it). 

However, the rise of technology (coupled with Creation not having a physical Box Office to book at) has seen a shift in booking patterns. In 2016, 58% of all transactions were put through over our website. Here, you can just choose not to answer this question, leaving us in the dark about why you booked.

Here at Creation, we often base our marketing on the idea that the average customer needs to be reminded of the show an average of five times before booking. The way they get reminded can be varied, from driving past a banner to seeing a Facebook ad, we keep nudging our audiences in as many ways as possible. With limited resources, we want to build the most efficient strategy - not knowing what prompted our audience to book makes this harder.

When assessing our sales casually in the office, we frequently end up using anecdotal evidence. A customer who lives in a village where we’ve just done a school’s drop books their family in for a Christmas show – we assume that hooray, schools drops work! When a Friend of Creation books online, we can assume it’s off the back of a newsletter or Friends Update.

This anecdotal evidence does end up shaping our marketing strategy. We know that we can reach a much wider audience over social media, and over the past few months have focused a lot more on developing our social media (read Arts Marketing: A Critique for more information). However, we don’t know whether we’re barking up the wrong tree. Certainly, with social media you can immediately see audiences react yet you have no idea whether that Like or Retweet translates to a sale. 

In the physical world, marketing through printed items like banners have their strengths - primarily which it allows artwork to be recognised by people on a daily basis (and surely driving past the words “A Christmas Carol” twice a day every day must have some subconscious impact). However over the past year, a lot of our banner campaigns in Oxford have been thwarted (including the one which was cut down from a Creation team member’s own fence). In Banbury, we’ve had more luck, though the local paper suggests that authorities will soon turn their scissors to banners too. 

What then is the next step?  

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to answer that little question.  If you book online, let us know how you heard about the show. Let us know which banner you saw, or where you picked up a leaflet from. If it’s a Facebook post, comment on it saying you’ve booked. If you really liked an eflyer we sent, reply to it and tell us (seriously, this makes our day!).

Promise to do this for me, and I promise to be better at asking those Box Office questions.

- Maddy

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A guide to taking children to the theatre

Twenty years of making family theatre has taught us a thing or two about what makes for a fantastic experience for adults and kids alike. Here are our top tips:

Pick the right show. There’s a real range of shows on each Christmas including pantos, those geared towards under-fives, and quirkier productions designed for a slighter older audience. Theatres will list a suggested age range for their shows and if you have any doubts call up their box office and they’ll be happy to advise you. Pantos are great cultural institutions that all children should see, but don’t habitually book tickets for the panto every year. Non-panto family shows provide all the excitement you get with a traditional panto but with a greater emphasis on high quality storytelling.

Read the story before you go. Whether it’s the full book, a synopsis provided by the theatre or a simple Wikipedia article, gaining exposure to the story will help your children to engage with the show.

Don’t be afraid to talk to your children during the production. You might not be very popular if you do so loudly, but quiet whispers to your child to help explain the story and demonstrate your engagement with the show will aid their concentration. If you seem disinterested or sneakily look at your phone then your child will lose interest too. 

Take snacks along with you, or buy a snack in the theatre bar. Don’t worry if your choice rustles when you unwrap it or your child crunches loudly - provided you’ve not selected to take them to see Titus Andronicus most of the audience will have children with them and won’t mind.

 Allow plenty of time to get to the theatre. Parking at most theatres can be tricky. Children will pick up on a frantic, stressed parents which can lead to them feeling negative about the whole experience. Toilets can be scarce, so it’s always worth getting there in time to use the loos first. 

The theatre’s ushers are your allies and saviours. If your child can’t see over the person in front or is scared of a character in the show let them know. Most theatres have booster seats or cushions they can provide to help smaller patrons see and we’ve gone to lengths to introduce children to the actors in between scenes so they can see how lovely they really are.

If you have a child with special needs look out for Relaxed Performances. Most Christmas shows will have one where the house lights stay up, loud noises are toned down and a visual guide to what to expect is provided in advance.  

[creationtheatreoxford]

“Is it suitable for children?”/A discussion on family theatre

If you’ve seen our past few Christmas shows, you’ll know that they are bonkers, beautiful, anarchic and never really what you expect. However, to attract new audiences, we face a problem; “children’s’ theatre” and “family theatre” being used synonymously makes Christmas marketing trickier.

Children’s theatre is, unsurprisingly, a type of theatre created specifically for children. Within this genre you’ll find shows tailored for children from toddler age up until six or so. Across the country you’ll find companies specialising in these types of shows – our lovely Christmas venue, The North Wall, run a cracking takeover day with shows and activities aimed at children under eight (it’s coming up in October, do check it out).

Here at Creation, we don’t make children’s theatre. We make family theatre. What’s the difference, you ask? 

Family theatre is when you’re able to sneak a reference to The Silence of the Lambs into The Wind in the Willows – it goes over the heads of the smaller audience members but parents chuckle. Family productions are productions that are not afraid of scaring an audience when the story calls for it; not a Woman in Black type scare, but a “hide-behind-the-sofa-and-giggle-nervously” scare. Family theatre is a show where there is something for a seven year old to laugh at, and something for the grandparents to laugh at. A family show is one you could host a tenth birthday party at in matinee performances, but see grownups laughing away at an evening show.

To make family theatre you have to be aware that parents are people too, people who want to enjoy the two hours in the auditorium as much as their children do.

Many classic texts which have been designated as “children’s literature” are far more adult than their reputations suggest. Stevenson’s Treasure Island features one very complex villain and some to-the-death fights. The Wind in the Willows rhapsodises on Paganism and Nature. Fairy tales feature homicidal parents, bloodthirsty wolves, witches, curses, poisons, more homicidal parents, evil shoes, and people getting their comeuppance in very nasty ways. Yet all three of these have become magical Christmas shows – it’s about balancing the dark with the light, the horror with hilarity and engaging everyone in the auditorium with the story.

With A Christmas Carol as our show this year, we’re thinking about morality, mortality and all sorts of Victorian nastiness, the kind you’d find in a Horrible Histories book. A Christmas Carol is a story brimming with joy and good humour yet at the same time is incredibly dark - watching a man be confronted with his own sins doesn’t scream family Christmas outing.  Our production aims to show all facets of the book, balancing the humour and the terror as Dickens does (okay, so our version might be a tad more eccentric than Dickens’ original, but still, the balance is there).

When booking a family theatre show, it does all depend on the children in your party. As the success of Horrible Histories shows, lot of children like things a bit ghoulish (I certainly did), but then again, some don’t, and that’s okay. A great moment in all our family shows is when you see a child simultaneously hooked to the story but realising somewhere, deep down, it’s all smoke and mirrors. During last year’s Snow White, a six year old in our audience stayed back so we could explain how we used trapdoors to show Red Riding Hood getting eaten - the magic is still there, but it’s now attainable magic.

Let’s end by going back to Horrible Histories. The success of the BBC show proves that when creating something for children, don’t patronise them – humour can be both irreverent and intelligent, and children and adults both laugh.

 - Maddy

P.S Check out our guide to taking kids to the theatre - full of handy tips!

[creationtheatreoxford]

Creation Theatre Presents: Future Things to Come

Those eagle-eyed website watchers, avid e-flyer readers, and our super fans (you know who you are...) may have noticed that this year, we’ve started something new. There are two Blackwell’s shows happening this year, but they’re not made by us (The Faerie Thorn, The Full Bronte respectively). There’s a piece of new writing exploring Henry VIII, for two nights only in a brand-new venue. We’ve live-streamed a completely new adaptation of Macbeth, with just three cast members, across Facebook, for just three nights. What’s going on?

Over our 21 years of producing theatre in Oxford, we’ve grown steadily more ambitious, like Lady Macbeth, but less murderous. From starting with just one Summer Shakespeare, we’ve slowly added a Christmas show to our yearly repertoire...then a Spring show, then another summer show – fast-forward to 2017 when we have one Spring show, two summer shows and two winter shows (including a London transfer). Oh yes, we’ve definitely grown more ambitious. This growing ambition has been joined by an increased confidence in our abilities as a company to multi-task. Not just in an “I-can-answer-box-office-whilst-designing-a-programme/seating-plan/workshop” sense, but a “we-could-do-all-of-that-plus-ten-other-shows” sense.  The devil would struggle to make work for idle hands in the Creation office.

Speaking of offices – if, here at Creation, we owned a physical theatre/a permanent venue, we would definitely host other productions, no doubt about it. We love meeting other theatrically-minded people, we love seeing shows, and we love sharing our passion for storytelling and creativity. Not having a permanent venue has never stopped us embarking on grand plans before, so with that passion for stories and optimism in our hearts, we have started Creation Theatre Presents – a scheme in which we help bring other companies to Oxford and collaborate on new, smaller projects.  

Now, with all grand plans, there are several co-conspirators, namely Blackwell’s Bookshop. In 2016, following the success of Doctor Faustus (2011) and Jekyll and Hyde (2013), we launched our six-year partnership with the bookshop, with a five-hander production of King Lear. One key aspect of this partnership is that, whilst we produce one Creation show in Blackwell's every other year, we alternate them with bringing other, smaller companies in. We can share with them our how-to-create-a-stage-in-a-bookshop abilities, help them move the 120 or so chairs we keep solely for Blackwell’s shows, and do all we can to help them get their work seen by an audience who might not otherwise think about booking.

It’s so exciting being able to share this iconic venue with companies whose work we feel the Creation audience will enjoy and similarly, it’s exciting to be getting new visitors to Creation who come to us through these shows and companies.  

We’re also starting to explore the world of new writing, currently still rooted in the world of classic texts and stories. Take Playing the King, for example, our new piece to be performed at The Manor, Weston-on-the-Green. The play explores the lives of five individuals (Thomas Cromwell, Henry Fitzroy, Anne Boleyn, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth Barton) and how Henry VIII affected them.  Working alongside Olivia Mace (former Creation actor and facilitator), the cast have created the work through R&D sessions, as they did for the live-stream of Macbeth. This R&D approach is something we very rarely have time to use with our main productions; we’ve been able to explore text and characters in a very different approach than we usually take.

Or take Much Ado About Muffins (yes, you did read that right), a completely free, immersive show taking place for one day this Autumn, celebrating Banbury’s baking history and Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. When else would be we able to let our most creative, outlandish and downright bonkers roam free? That’s the joy of us creating our own smaller shows; we can take risks we simply can’t afford to with our main productions.

This doesn’t mean that we’ve abandoned our main productions. Oh no. If anything, they too are growing more ambitious; in the past year, we’ve tackled more modern texts and technology, transferred a show to London, revolutionised our Christmas seating, and are bringing one most popular Christmas shows outside of Oxford (oh yes, The Wind in the Willows will be in Banbury this Christmas, you heard it here first). We’re just pushing the boundaries of what Creation can do as a company, challenging both ourselves as theatre-makers and our audience as theatre-goers. To be honest, as we’ve been running for over twenty years, if we were unable to take on new projects, we’d feel a bit pathetic and have to hand in our theatre-maker badge.

With all this on our plates, you’d expect us to feel a little apprehensive about the future, especially as we’re still only a permanent team of seven staff members (plus one dog), receive no core funding and currently splitting our office hours over a fair few buildings across the county. Luckily, our ambition is made of sterner stuff, and we’re feeling pretty darn positive about the future – with so many exciting projects coming up, it’s hard not to be. All we ask of you as an audience member is that you share this positivity with us, and that you come and see the shows, whether big or small. We make all of our shows to be experienced by an audience, and for that we need you.

To keep to date with what we’re up to, sign up to our mailing list, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and pretend you’re in the room with us on Instagram.

[creationtheatreoxford]

Top Ten Things to do in Oxford in the summer

Messing about in Boats

An obvious choice, but Oxford is famous for punting for a reason. It's a great way to see the city, with far few pedestrians and the added danger/hilarity of falling in. There are lots of places to choose from (and we recommend reading Daily Info's guide before you set off).

G&Ds

All that punting can be thirsty work, but instead of your normal mid-morning coffee and cake, we suggest heading to one of Oxford's most famous foodie institutions - G&D's. With three locations to choose from, and a staggering number of flavours to pick between, it’s an essential part of a trip to Oxford.

(For King Lear in 2016, they came up with a themed frozen yogurt, featuring raspberries for eyeballs - it was far more delicious that it sounds!)

Museums, Museums, Museums

We are spoiled for choice when it comes to museums in Oxford. From classical civilization in the Ashmolean to modern art at Modern Art Oxford, there’s something for all culture vultures to get their teeth into.

If you want to get into the mood for Alice, then make sure you head to the Natural History Museum to see the Dodo (plus, it leads on to the Pitt Rivers Museum, which is one of the most interesting anthropological collections in the world...and there are shrunken heads).

Green open spaces

Once you've walked around the museums, you'll want some air. And again, there are so many places to choose from. In the city centre, head to Christ Church Meadow (free entry), or the Botanical Gardens (£5). If you want to venture further afield, a trip to Port Meadow or Shotover Park - make sure you bring your sun cream.

Picnic in the Parks

A blanket + a hamper + University Parks = a lovely lunchtime in Oxford.

Outdoor Swimming

When it’s hot, there is nothing like some outdoor swimming. Hinksey Open-air Pool makes for a lovely trip out, or if you’re feeling a bit wilder, have a swim in Port Meadow.

Walk to a Pub

Pubs. Where to start?! Oxford city centre has some wonderful pubs, but if you want to earn your Pimms, pick a pub you can walk to!e  The Victoria, The Perch, The Isis Farmhouse, to name a few, are all a lovely walk away from the city centre, across meadows and along the river.

Bike ride

Fancy living like a local? Any true Oxfordian would cycle everywhere if they could (and they frequently try!). Having a bike allows you to head further out o the city - if you’re feeling trendy, hit up Cowley and Iffley for amazing food and dancing, or if you want a nice cup of coffee and some good charity shops, head to Jericho and Summertown (or brave the Headington hill!). 

Oxford City Council has recently launched a bike hire scheme, and it’s worth having a google to see what the local bike shops are offering. 

City of Dreaming Spires

Oxford is known as the City of Dreaming Spires for a good reason. Climb up to the top of the Saxon Tour of St Michael at the North Gate or Carfax Tower in the city centre, and see the city from above. And if you fancy food and drink with a view, stop by The Varsity Club or the Ashmolean Rooftop Terrace.

See a Creation Show

Not that we’re biased, but we’ve saved the best for last. A Creation show is the perfect activity for a summer’s evening in Oxford. This summer, head to the University Parks to see Alice; a classic Oxford story in a classic Oxford venue.

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Feedback for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2017 in Clapham.

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“To ‘usher in’ is to offer a revelatory experience”

Hey, it’s not a dreaded Monday as its Creation Theatre blog time! I’m pretty sure that you were looking forward to it all week! All the joys of Mondays are below….

Anyway, it’s one of the volunteers (Josie) talking, taking over the whole blogging thing from Lucy or Maddy for one week. I started volunteering in the summer of 2016 after attending Creation’s Drama Club since 2012 and LOVED it since! The first show I have ushered is A Midsummer Night’s Dream (the non-static one that you, Clapham and Oxford wanderers, MUST watch this summer!). If you are in Clapham, it is open right now and finishes on 30 June before it moves to beloved Oxford, so get booking!

If you saw this A Midsummer Night’s Dream (aka Dream) production last summer, you probably saw me sitting suspiciously next to a random car park at 9pm wearing a purple raincoat….yes, I’m that weird! Besides, I’m so excited for you to come to see this again (and myself too!). The best thing about this play is that the audience get so up-close and personal to the actors (which some people I know wouldn’t like the idea). However, it really does help me to know what the actors are saying. You probably noticed that I’m profoundly deaf from birth, so it’s really hard to see accessible theatre like this to my level of understanding. However, due to the actors being up-close and having smaller audiences, it makes it easier to see what Bottom and Flute (and the Wall) were practicing to perform and the conflicts between the lovers!

Volunteering means that I’m able to see as many shows as I like, trying to pick up what they say without going penniless! Volunteering also grows my confidence in interacting with other people with similar interests - I also have had a great laugh making new friends. I have also noticed some change in my health and well-being since I have joined Creation volunteering for better, maybe because I cycle to shows after show, but mainly because I have got that rewarding feeling that boosts my well-being and alertness (however bear in mind that I’m still not a morning person...).

The Christmas show Snow White and Other Tales from the Brothers Grimm was where Creation started to be awestruck by how much time I went to help. I got to wear some very nice aprons, enjoy some free popcorn and hang out over Christmas with some of the wonderful people from the Creation Team! One of the funniest moment as an usher is when someone asked me for an espresso; due to my lack of knowledge of coffee, I thought that the machine was broken as the cup was not filled. That was when I have learnt what an espresso is…. The show itself was warm, comforting and stunning by the fact the transitions were so fast and smooth. My favourite bit has got to be singing afterward like this ‘You look like a fish-a, and you’ll make a nice dish-a!’ and the mini Rumpstilstkien costume which was worn by Simon (if I have spelt that right). When you become an usher, prepare for songs to be probably stuck in your mind for months! (Six months time and still going...)

Due to my interest in Photography, I went EVEN futher with helping Creation by taking photos of 1984 (I recently performed it during Drama Club as Walton). And the photos did make to Creation’s Instagram account. Have a look and follow: @creationtheatre on Instagram, they’d love to say hello and reply to your messages!

Currently I’m also a Drama Club supply teacher for drama clubs in Oxford. I haven’t done much in this as I have only recently started in a desperate need for work! Hopefully, I’ll start in September, and to experience the children’s joy of acting and performing sounds alone exciting!

Due to that I’m talking about me volunteering for shows, what I really would recommend you is to volunteer a night or two (or maybe LOADS); either way it certainly makes a huge difference. Originally I was considering just a day but it then lead to many nights due to the rewarding experience I have had in the Creation Theatre atmosphere which is quite something else.

That’s all from me! Looking forward to seeing you this summer whether you will be enjoying the trip down the rabbit hole with Alice or at a treasure hunt for the couples or just having some fancy drinks in the University Parks!

- Josie

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“Woe to the land that’s governed by a child”: Arts Marketing and Political Change

Politics and theatre go hand in hand. Many of the world’s most famous plays have come out of political upheaval; from the Reagan administration during the AIDS epidemic (Angels in America) and the Bosnia war (Blasted) to the Red Scare (The Crucible) and the War of the Roses (Richard III), playwrights have used theatre as a way to express criticism or interpretations of a political narrative. From theatre as political propaganda, to arts funding – the two are linked in so many ways.

There is one other key impact that the political environment has on the arts, which is discussed far less frequently. Marketing is hugely sensitive to the political situation, and that’s what this blog is about.

Before I continue, I must say that I know that across the world, political upheaval has far worse repercussions than the impact on the sales and marketing strategy of a small arts organisation in Oxford. However, poor sales for our shows do have an impact. If we don’t sell well, our Education department suffers, a department which currently has ten children on fully-funded bursaries. If we don’t sell well, our next show suffers, meaning that we employ fewer people, and before you know it, another arts organisation bites the dust.

Although it seems somewhat flippant, the current Trump administration worked wonders for the marketing of 1984. Two weeks before opening a production about propaganda and re-writing history, Counsellor to the President Kellyanne Conway used the phrase “alternative facts”, actively defending a falsehood about inauguration attendance. Within four days after Conway uttered this now ubiquitous phrase, sales of Orwell’s 1984 had increased by 9,500%. Sales of the Creation production of 1984 also shot up – over seven days, we sold 51% more tickets than the previous week.

Of course, we capitalised on the Orwellian tone of Conway’s remark and the Trump administration. We rewrote some of our marketing copy to involved “alternative facts”, and created a forbidden literature display at Blackwell’s Bookshop (which also featured a window display based on the Newspeak dictionary, it was excellent).

However, despite the sold out shows, we don’t want a Trump government, and it is pretty disheartening to admit that some of the excellent sales came from a Twilight Zone-esque political situation across the pond. Here at Creation we would like, at the risk of sounding like a Miss World contestant, world peace, and a decent political landscape where the arts flourish, those who need help get help, the NHS survives and the cycle lanes in Oxford remain pothole free.

However, recent times don’t support this. It was a matter of lucky timing that we had a dystopian production running this spring. Political strife when you’re trying to promote a show which celebrates joy and laughter isn’t very useful.  

In 2016, A Midsummer Night’s Dream opened on Thursday 23 June. The day the nation went to the polls to vote on leaving the EU. In Oxford, 70.3% voted to Remain, and the Leave result shook the city. Oxford. People broke the age-old Southerner rule of not-speaking-to-anyone-else as they shared their sadness across counters in shops and cafes, at school gates and over fences.

That first week of the show, no one was in the mood to see a madcap immersive production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (and to be perfectly honest, that first Friday we weren’t exactly in the mood to market it). However, the first audiences loved the show. They came out saying it was the perfect escape from scrolling through Brexit-related newsfeeds, talking about how it made them feel so alive, so engaged and so happy. Audiences needed that feeling of being greater than the smugness, the chaos and the monotonous slogans that surrounded us in 2016. Sales perked up, and soon we had sold-out shows, waiting lists and a real sense that we’d created something which had meant so much to 3000 people, which had cheered them up and made them smile.

“Let’s bring the show back for 2017”, we thought “so it can get the sales it deserves”. However, our wills and fates do so contrary run and this year, our first London transfer is opening a week after the General Election declared a hung parliament, two weeks after a terrorist attack in the capital city, at a time when the national still feels as divided as it did last June. Marketing this summer will be a challenge, but bring it on.

If you’re looking to escape the relentless rolling clickbait articles, if you want to feel connected to your community, if you just want a laugh and a chance to be silly as a grown-up, come along to A Midsummer Night’s Dream this summer. When times are dark, you have to out where there's music and there's people, to keep your sanity. Life has a habit of going on, regardless of how unstable the world may seem. We can be politically engaged, sign petitions, exercise our democratic right to vote, and we can still have fun. We can fill our own world with the things we find life-affirming, and make it worth voting for.

- Maddy

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Who’s afraid of immersive theatre?

We’re currently 2.5 weeks away from opening our immersive/interactive/game version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream starting in Clapham before transferring to Oxford. 

The show ran last year to exceptional audience feedback and five star reviews. Even armed with the most amazing testimonials imaginable we are faced with the same challenge that hit our advanced sales last year – how do we convince people who don’t like audience interaction and active participation that they will enjoy it? 

Reference Mary and Richard, 60 something retirees and Creation regulars, also mildly anti-social introverts who despite Richard’s taste in shirts go to great lengths to avoid unnecessary attention being focused their way (I can say this as they also happen to be my mum and dad). Over the past nine years having resigned themselves to the all consuming job that is my working at Creation, Mary and Richard have realised that coming to see Creation shows is a possible way to see their daughter, or at the very least get a call 10 minutes after the performance has ended eagerly asking for a run down of what they thought.  

Now there were a lot of reservations expressed pre-Dream attendance “They won’t make us do anything will they?” but eventually they found an evening they could make, where of course, they absolutely loved it. When I say loved though, I mean really, really loved. The previous 12 months, really the previous two years hadn’t been the best for them but speaking to my mum after Dream there was an excitement and happiness in her voice I hadn’t heard in a long time. Other family members were eagerly encouraged to get tickets and this year groups of friends are being organised to come with them.  

If they weren’t the parents of the CEO though there is no way they would have booked tickets. So what do we do? How do we reach the many other Mary and Richards who are put off by the show’s interactive nature and find the word immersive terrifying? We have testimonials and are looking into if there are physical mailings we can post that might help to sway those who are unsure. A legitimate course could be to focus our efforts on the less reserved audience, but this seems such a great shame when we know the impact of this show is as great to those who start off unsure about it as it is to those who jump right in.

If I can be so bold as to ask, what persuades you to see a show outside your comfort zone? Is there anything that we could say or do to get you to take a punt on unusual concept? Tweet me @lucymaskew or post a reply with any thoughts.

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London Calling: Marketing in the Metropolis

Creation are on the move. Having reached the age of 21, we’ve packed our belongings up into a battered suitcase and are making that first move to London. The capital city. The Big Smoke. Off to seek our fortunes. Specifically, we’re going to Clapham, so only on the edge, but we’d like to think we’re pretty edgy too. 

Bringing a show to a new city is a first for us, and with it comes a new puzzle to solve - how to market a show to a completely new audience. In Oxford, we know who we’re marketing our shows to, and we have a pretty good idea of how we can market them. We know where the best online listings are, who the best person at the local press is to organise a preview, which companies can get us a good deal on print distribution, and most importantly, we know that people in Oxford want to see a Creation show.

Having been producing shows for 21 years, we have built up a reputation and a loyal fan base, without whom we’d have collapsed a long time ago. 21 years is quite a long time, over which we’ve built up a substantial mailing list for both e-marketing and direct mail campaigns. For an Oxford production, these lists would be our first stop on a marketing campaign as we know they want to see our work. As well as providing a source of potential bookers, these mailing lists allow us to track the success of any campaigns – there is something immensely satisfying about sending an email and watching the number of visitors to our website instantly increase.

Having a regular audience does not mean they’re always easy to market too, oh no. That comes with it’s own difficulties, but that’s for another day (or potentially another blog post). The task at hand is to sell to a new audience. We need to sell to the man on the Clapham Omnibus (or the man who’s queuing for the Omnibus, it stops right outside the theatre).

The biggest block to us is that simply we’re not known that well to audiences outside of Oxford. We don’t have a relationship with a national audience yet (this would be the point for a rant on the lack of national press coverage of regional theatre, but then I’d lose my train of thought). Without the troops to rally, we’re starting afresh.

Although the thought of selling a show to a new audience is daunting if I think about it too much, it’s also pretty liberating. Going into a production where the audience have no preconceived ideas about the work we do is really interesting; the Clapham production won’t be compared to past Creation shows but we have to make it a success so we can continue to take shows outside of Oxford - we’re in a position of having nothing and everything to prove. Like Edmond Dantès we’ve been able to reinvent ourselves. Not to such an extreme level as Dantès, only on “a reworking our design and copy” level, but it’s still pretty exciting (for more on reinvention, have a read of Theatrical Revivals Reviewed).

As we don’t have an actual theatre, we rarely plan marketing campaigns with our host venue (the folk at The North Wall Arts Centre and Blackwell’s Bookshops are exceptions here – a long-running partnership with both means we’re pretty good at sorting out eflyers and brochures with them). Being based at the Clapham Omnibus for two weeks this June means we can give them all of our print to distribute, provide them with copy for their mailing lists and hijack their social media for a while.

However, getting a physical presence out to Clapham is far harder quite simply as we are physically not there. In Oxford, we can cycle out to town to do poster drops, sneakily put up banners and corex boards, drive around the county taking leaflets to primary schools and generally chat to people about how great the show is on a weekly basis. Yes, we may have tied an eight-foot banner to the Omnibus last week, but what we need to achieve is a constant outpour of marketing materials. Once rehearsals start and we’re on site more, this will be more achievable, but for the meantime we’re finding other ways to sell the show.

The internet is the way forward. We’re revamping our social media at the moment (see Arts Marketing: A Critique for more information), so have been bombarding local businesses with content; sharing, @ing and hashtagging has certainly helped us spread the word. And that’s the crux of the matter.

Fundamentally, word of mouth sells this production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, more so than any other show we’ve produced before. To get that word of mouth, we need those first few performances to have a healthy audience number.

Seeing open-air Shakespeare is not hard in the UK, and there are countless versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream happening across the country this summer. Why the people of London should see this version is the message we’re trying to get across. This production is unlike any other you will have seen, but primarily you should see it simply for the craic. It is such an entertaining show, a show that unabashedly celebrates having fun.

We need fun theatre, theatre which you can play with, theatre which makes an audience happy. If you agree, take that trip down the Northern Line to Clapham Common and give us your hands, if we be friends.

- Maddy

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Theatrical Revivals Reviewed

It’s a very ephemeral style of work at Creation Theatre Company. Having spent £100,000 on a production which rehearses for four weeks and runs for five weeks, we then pack up everything, wave goodbye to our actors -“so they depart, with a smile and a nod, and we miss them, and feel resentful.”

We weigh up whether we have need or room to keep props and costumes (we definitely don’t have room), leftover programmes are recycled and for months to come we find ourselves quoting shows to each other in the office. Sometimes we break even, sometimes we don’t, but the show will end regardless, and we immediately start work on the next one. It’s an odd business model.

There is something astonishing in that. How a company which receives no core funding can stay alive on such a model (especially one which requires the UK not to have a rainy summer) is baffling, yet we do it. There is also an emotional impact to it. Some of my favourite moments in the theatre, whether as an audience member or as a staff member watching in the wings, is when I remember how fleeting it is. Knowing that everyone involved, from the actors and stage management to the producers and the FOH team and all the administrative people, have worked for months to create something beautiful which only a certain number of people will ever get to see is wonderful, if somewhat bittersweet.

But sometimes you can’t just let a show go.

Revivals are in at the moment (not the zombie kind, though supposedly zombies are in during times of austerity). We’re talking about theatrical revivals – a restaging of a theatrical performance after a show has closed (for a brief discussion of revivals in the UK, make sure you check out this week’s podcast). For Creation, that means we bring back the same title, the same artistic team and the same script. This summer, we’re doing it twice – reviving Alice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Why revive a show? Fundamentally, the rule of revivals at Creation is to ask “can we make it better?.” There have been shows in our history which people frequently ask whether us to revive.Take 2013’s production of Henry V, staged in Oxford Castle. This show was loved by audiences - however, there is no way we can think of to improve that show currently.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was equally loved. Audiences loved it, press loved it and we loved working on it. Despite this, we knew during the original run that there were elements of the show that we could develop. The video content, for example, could have been delivered more effectively. Following the success of our tech-heavy 1984, we are now far more confident with what we can achieve with it. In the office, we can’t go a week without someone opening a sentence with “In Dream, it would have been great if we...” With these improvements and changes, we can make a far slicker show, improving the audience experience and raising the production values.

These changes can also lead to productions taking on a different meaning when revived. In 2007, Gari Jones directed his adaptation of Hamlet in Oxford Castle, and in 2016 he directed it in the University Parks. Both productions were grungy, stylised and anarchic, but the stark black-and-white design of the 2007 production mirrored the bleak castle surroundings making the political threat within the play more apparent, whilst the beautiful leafy (if slightly duck filled) surroundings of the Parks made the 2016 Hamlet’s soliloquies on Man and Nature more powerful and fundamental to the impact of the production.

Sometimes shows don’t get the audience they deserve, which we can improve on in a revival. Spending last summer in the University Parks for Hamlet proved how good a venue the Parks are (not just for sheer aesthetics, but for audience footfall). Not wanting to risk a rainy summer, we knew our summer production should be weatherproof, and soon we had plans for a Big Top. The late Victorian circus style immediately brought Alice to mind, and before you knew it a revival was planned. A weatherproof production of Alice seems only fair; the original run took place during the summer of 2015, which was the coldest and wettest summer for three years. 

As the need for a weatherproof venue suggests, there is also a financial aspect to revivals. Dream 2016 opened the day of the Brexit vote; the results of the vote stunned Oxford, and the following gloom hugely impacted on our audience numbers for a couple of weeks. Yet 99% of the audience when surveyed said they would come back. The final two weeks of Dream were sold out, with customers on waiting lists almost every night, despite the quiet first two weeks of the production. To ignore the people who pleaded for a ticket and take a gamble on a show we feel less passionately about would be ridiculous.

To many of our audience, these shows seem recent (Alice was 2015, whilst Dream was 2016) but things change. We’ve done seven shows since Alice opened (and when Alice opened, of the seven current members of the Creation team, one was on maternity leave, one was temporary, one was part-time, and two didn’t work for us). Like the shows, we evolve; our strengths as a team, the shows we want to make and the approach we take to our work changes. For those who saw these shows before, come back and face these ch-ch-changes, and to our newer audience members, come and enjoy two shows that we love.

- Maddy

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Arts Marketing: a critique

Or more accurately, a plea for help.

A typical Creation Theatre show costs £100,000. That includes a director, actors, lighting, sound, costumes, fight directors, venues, festoons, chairs, battered suitcases, designers, tiny metal houses, puppets, and everything else that you witness on stage. As a regional company who receives no core funding, we aim to breakeven at the end of each run; to do that, we need to make sure that as many people see the shows as possible.

Marketing is a costly and frequently ineffective business. On average, we spend around £8,000 on the creation and distribution of printed media per show – posters, leaflets, postcards, corex boards and banners come into our office and out into Oxfordshire constantly. Although a small number of these leaflets reach our audience directly, we spend both time and money covering up coffee shop walls with posters and posting leaflets through doors across the county, in the hope that it might land on the doormat of someone who will then book the show. The decline of print media in general doesn’t help – paying for a leaflet insert in a newspaper just doesn’t have the same impact nowadays.

We don’t want to spend our time and money making things that we know will, eventually, land in someone’s recycling bin having not been looked at. Frequently we’re guilty of recycling boxes of print that have been left unused during the course of a show’s run (after using them as doorstops and small tables for a while). 

We’re fed up of the waste of paper, the waste of time, and the waste of money.

So, how do we combat this? Well, social media is the answer. You, dear reader (or Twitterer/Facebooker/blogger etc), are the answer.

Boosting the trailer for our 2016 production of Hamlet on Facebook for the grand sum of £30 meant that the video reached 49,044 people. That £30 accounts for 0.375% of our leaflet budget.  

 A tweeted photograph during our 1984 run reached 13,340 people, almost double our emailing list.

When we ask fans of our Facebook page to share a video, we can reach over 4,000 people in less than 24 hours.

The more we do by social media, the less we need to spend on our marketing budgets. We can channel that money into our shows, creating bigger and better theatre.

Social media campaigns allow us to understand our audiences. We can see the reach of any online campaign by just clicking on Analytics; this information allows us to build more efficient campaigns and fine-tune our marketing, making sure that our resources are used effectively. Leafleting houses sadly is less informative...

How can you help? Let’s get connected – follow us on Twitter and Instagram, like us on Facebook, and if you’re feeling formal, find us on LinkedIn. Retweet us, share us, comment on our posts, use those little emoji reactions on Facebook that I sometimes click on accidentally. And please, don’t be passive - do ask us questions, “@” us, tag us in posts. If you talk to us online, we’ll talk back.

If you’re not a social media type, but still want to help out, please spread the word the old-fashioned way – talk to people. Tell your family, friends, neighbours, and colleagues about us. Local arts organisations need people like you, people who are enthusiastic and passionate about theatre and storytelling - we know that word-of-mouth can transform a show’s sales far more than a leaflet ever could.

So please, share this, and spread the word.

- Maddy

p.s. if you like your blogs a little more vlog, you can see Creation Chief Executive Lucy’s take on this on our Facebook page