Why you must define who you are, then find people to challenge you respectfully’ Dan Horrigan, playwright & director

Here I  interview Dan Horrigan who is an award winning writer and director. He has written the play Unrelated in which I was one of of his four cast in at The Drayton Theatre, London, a Sky Or The Bird production (Oct 2013) and is currently (Feb 14) directing and working on his new play.

Since Unrelated I asked Dan to update us on what he has been involved in.

Since Unrelated I have been working with Hannah Kaye on my new play Still I See My Baby. Selected scenes from the play are currently being shown at Theatre503. Alongside this I have been developing and directing Danny Whitehead’s play Happiness, also at Theatre503 – it’s a double bill. We play there until the 22nd of February. It’s been an absolute pleasure, and we’ve loved sharing the work at Theatre503 with gorgeous audiences.

I enclose here a review that tells you about the show. The reviewer saw Unrelated and wanted to see what we were doing at Theatre503. He includes an interview with Danny and I where we share thoughts on our process.

Dan had initially written a play that won an award and performed at the Landor Theatre and then Critical Stage helped him to pursue writing. He talks of the importance of having someone saying ‘Yes we like this, we see something in this, this works’
“It is wonderful when writing works and then goes into the hands of a director and then the cast’.
‘Confidence (..as a writer) is not something you have when you are young, you either have a lot of it and you blast your way through or you are not sure you have got it right, especially when you know there is a lot of good stuff out there. But you must try, you must keep trying, that is what I have learnt’

I asked how Dan felt seeing his work finally being on the stage. He says trust is the crucial ingredient. He met Tom Latter ,the director of Unrelated, and he trusts him and his approach to working with writers and actors, “he is very good at it”. On talking to Tom about his work “he unlocks lots of question about how dramaturgically it works” and then the writer can focus away from the characters and onto the birds eye view on what the story is and how it works. He then can let go and trust the director and actors.
‘Ideally there is a resonance created on what the writer has put onto the working page and the director and then the actors, their psychology, their humanity, their personality and that hits through the direction and resonates with the page. You don’t want to feel it is flat in any way. You need the rehearsal to lift it.”

Horrigan doesn’t tiptoe around social and moral issues in Unrelated. He plays one against the other to conjure predicaments and plot twists that shock and delight the audience in equal doses. SASI

The structure of the play is clever and unpredictable. The Stage.

In the capable hands of the cast, the four characters are absorbing, complex and, most importantly, convincing. The Stage.

I asked Dan where the idea for Unrelated start. He talks about putting value on things everything we do, we always question what we do and can we put pressures on it, can it withstand the pressures. Dan has been a teacher for 5 years and he sees a lot of good and bad things, indeed the character Martin in Unrelated is a teacher gone from high ideals to using prostitutes and beyond.
“We are all looking for our best kind of life and these ideals under pressure, and how they warp have ended up as the main themes in the play. You individually must be strong about what they want.”
He talks about how important it is to finish work.
“You have to show a lot of determination to finish something. Its very easy to wonder if what you are doing makes sense to anyone at all, is this furrow I am ploughing worthwhile?. However even this has a value. You want to share work and you want that contact with others people’s response to the work, this is a collaborative game and to complete the work it has to be staged performed and seen by an audience”.
It is hard to know where the original idea came from, as there were lots of facets. He understands now where it came from but not when he started. Sometimes you can be very clear on your process, sometimes it comes through the doing.
“Do you start with the premise or do you find the premise through doing the work? Both are valid” and he has done both ways, producing very different work.

Dan recently directed a play ‘Happiness’ by Danny Whitehead with great reviews.
Happiness

He now likes to have other directors to direct his own work. His first writing mentor says ‘You write like a director’. You have to define what that means to you. Confusion as to others people’s ideas is only helpful in terms of what that means to you. Dan used the example of me; as a singer, an actress and a musician and people wonder how you can do all those things. They want to know what you really do, and put a hat on you. Dan says you have to be a good judge of yourself and that everything has a natural progression and you will get better. Acting and writing you can do at any age and as soon as you learn the basics you progress, storytelling starts at a very early age it is an intrinsic part of being human. Dan produces a lot of work of actors who write as they understand the grammar of the stage. Maybe there is a point where you say you stop something but mostly as with acting you grow, change and get better.

I say, having produced, written, acted, sung and directed the band, it is about the energy you need. It is very exhausting from press to then getting on the stage. You can do them all but it is time.
Dan says ‘You have to keep doing to keep better.’ I say how I love the luxury of just being an actor. Dan says the only person as an actor you are responsible for is yourself, your health and your open creative reality, it is a very pure energy.
He notes my very different ways of being with different characters on stage (based on the relationships between the characters) , that transformation has to go through the director and actors. When he writes his words, he doesn’t know what that contact will be live on stage between the actors
I ask about how he feels about as an writer being involved in casting. He feels it should be part of the casting process and the writer should be asked.

Writers only have instincts and you cast those who you feel where their instincts are closer to what you have connected to, where there is a connection and a spark to what you have written on the page and that feeling of connection with the director. They did not use a casting director but did ask casting directors for recommendations, which s indeed how I came to being in Unrelated.
They had their understanding of the characters which had been built over a few weeks, obviously the actors had to be professional in their approach and understanding of the text and then they went for the best in the room.

Dan is incidentally doing a MA Creative Writing at Drama Centre, where all the three other actors Emily Tucker, Tom Futerill and Taniel Yusuf trained, it is just me that didn’t 😉

He loves learning the structured learning process and he really enjoys the company of other writers and directors, He enjoys it when it’s a bit feisty, it’s a great way of staying on your toes and being open to creative ways of doing things. He loves allowing things to happen, he never compares the way others are doing to how he would do differently.

I ask about the battle to get the work done. Dan says it is really important to define what you do for yourself and then find and build partnerships with people who understand you. Be really clear, even through conflict, to define in your own terms what it is you do and find people who understand that and challenge it respectfully and keep going.

I ask Dan about writing film scripts etc but he is working on his next play which is on its fifth draft. He doesn’t have a wish list but he does know what he needs to do next, and do it well and then go on to the next thing.

DAN HORRIGAN is the winner of the Critical Stage playwriting award for Once Was Home, produced at the Landor Theatre in 2001. His play Face The Camera And Smile, produced by Writers Avenue at The Rosemary Branch, The Pleasance, and Soho Theatre, was shortlisted for The Kings Cross Award for New Writing 2009

“Sky Or The Bird”  Production of  a new play by Dan Horrigan  ‘Unrelated” and directed by Tom Latter in which I am playing Rachel.  It runs from October 1st to the 26th, Tuesday-Fridays 8pm, Saturdays at 7.30pm at The Drayton Arms, 153 Old Brompton Road, SW5. We are getting some very good reviews for both the play and the 4 hander cast.

Broadway world on Unrelated

If you like this you may find the following podcasts and interviews interesting:

Richard Thomas ‘Jerry Springer’ & Aletta Collins on creative success

How to be a published writer: Marysia’s Podcast with Jason Hewitt

How to be a successful working actor: Marysia Podcast interview with Ken Collard

Q&A with Dennis Kelly, writer of Matilda, Pulling & Utopia

Richard Bean: One Man Two Guvnors: How & why he writes Pt 1

Lessons learnt from Timothy West, how to play Lear 3 times & surviving bad directors

James Purefoy: Speaking Shakespeare & how to be a successful actor

About Marysia and Love Your Creativity
I blog at least three times a week on creativity and techniques to get your art on.
Whether you are a musician, an actor or a choreographer I endeavour to make https://loveyourcreativity.com is a place to come for inspiration and motivation.

<div><strong><strong>Post 60 of Dream, create and make money in the arts</strong></strong></div> <div>This is a <a href=”https://loveyourcreativity.com/Topics/series-on-becoming-a-successful-creative/”>series</a> of blogs for you on how to dream up, build, market and sell a creative event, gig, festival, book launch, cabaret night, exhibition of rude plastic cupcakes or whatever creatively inspires you. It is time to create and put on that play about your family, a series of drawings about hedgehogs, the album you have talked about making or the short film you always wanted to write and make. You can read the series in order <a href=”https://loveyourcreativity.com/2013/05/03/how-to-be-successful-dream-create-make-money-in-the-arts-1/”>Part One</a> or just pick and choose a topic that interests you.</div>

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