Tommo, our New Works Associate, plays a key role in discovering, developing and championing new writing for our stages. Find out more about the work he does and what new work means to our theatres...

What exactly is ‘New Works Associate’?

Great question! It’s not a title that all buildings have.

Basically, it covers two key components of creating new work for our audiences: finding and developing new plays (i.e. being a dramaturg), and facilitating professional development opportunities for the artists who make them.

What does a typical day look like for you at work?

A day usually involves some (or all) of these things:

reading a script– whether a draft of something we’re producing or developing, a new play by a writer we’re developing a relationship with, something sent over by a colleague or agent, part of an application for one of our artist development pathways, or a pre-existing published play that I might use as a teaching tool
giving dramaturgical support to a writer– whether in a workshop, meeting, or as written notes
planning and running a session for one of our writers’ programmes(YEP Writersor thePlaywrights’ Programme)
liaising with agentsabout a commissioning agreement, or an R&D that we’re producing (R&D is ‘Research & Development’ an early stage where artists explore ideas)
supporting artistswho come to us through our various development pathways (e.g. Seed Commissions, Supported Studio, Open Submissions, the projects we run with our Associate Companies, etc.), or having a general meeting with a local writer who’s interested in what we do
seeing a show(if I’m lucky!).

There’s definitely some stuff I’ve missed out, but this is a pretty good indication.

What does ‘new work’ mean to you, and how to you see it fitting in with the Everyman & Playhouse’s mission?

Okay buckle in, because it’s a long answer and we’re going on a journey through an over-extended metaphor…

For me, the most exciting theatre is made by artists whose creative antennae are tuned into whatever’s causing some kind of disturbance in the air – the thing that’s fizzing and crackling, building up a kind of atmospheric pressure. When they charge their work with that energy, the play acts as a lightning rod, focussing it into the theatre and electrifying the audience.

But atmospheric pressure is always in flux: ‘lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice’, etc. So how can theatre fulfil its promise to electrify – to spark something powerful in our minds and hearts – if it’s not changing as well?

I don’t think it can – and that’s why new work is so vital.

That might come from an original new play, a fresh interpretation of a story I already know, or a distinctive aesthetic choice – maybe all of those things! – but it all comes back to the work somehow activating a new pathway for that charged connection between me and the world.

A jolt of surprise and newness might also come from something as simple as seeing yourself represented on stage for the first time, of realising that maybe theatre isn’t the boring, stuffy and ‘edifying’ thing you’ve always thought it is. A very basic thing to say, but new work is one really important way that we can make sure that audiences see their world reflected and refracted through our programming.

For us as an organisation, there’s such a clear mission to make sure that Liverpool’s audiences get that experience. The Everyman & Playhouse, individually and as a combined organisation, have always been vital conduits for making sure that Liverpool’s audiences can find themselves on stage – from the stories we tell to the accents on stage, the artists we work with and the conversations they want to have.

Finally, we know that theatre has historically privileged some voices and experiences over others, or pigeonholed and othered those who are somehow outside that established norm. How can we confidently say we’re making theatre for our community if the artists we collaborate with aren’t always representative of it?

Without new work, how can we fully engage with our present? How can we say loudly and clearly that culture needn’t always be filtered through the same lens? How can we redress the balance of our canon, and make sure future audience can find themselves within it?

Big ambitions, for sure. But every ‘great play’ was a new play once.

What are your visions for the Writers’ Room?

I want it, basically, to be what I didn’t know where to find when I was starting out: a space full of the most extraordinary contemporary plays and classic canonical works – alongside works of theory by some of our most trailblazing practitioners – all freely available to curl up in a corner with.

And I want it to be a creative space for freelancers: somewhere warm (that isn’t your own bed) to work without feeling compelled to buy endless £3 coffees – somewhere you can meet to read a play out loud with a few peers, without having to host a group at your flat where you’d be worrying about your pass-agg housemate or that weird smell.

Somewhere you can encounter work, ideas and people who you may not otherwise have done.

I also want the script library to be in alphabetical order, and stay that way – but I think I have to let go of that dream…

How do you support an artist when a piece isn’t working yet?

Not to duck the question, but there’re as many answers as there are elements of a play!

Whatever happens, support has to respond to the artist, project and stage of production process (something not working during an R&D is very different to it still not working after three previews!).

The brilliant Suzanne Bell (who used to work here) talks about dramaturgs as ‘keepers of the flame’, which I’ve always quite liked. It means that part of the role, when something isn’t working, is to bring artists back into contact with the thing that inspired them to make this piece of work in the first place – to reconnect with that initial spark and source of heat, and see whether that can illuminate the problem we’re grappling with.

In practice, that could be anything from filling the room with post-its and big paper to hash out loads of different possibilities over many hours, to just making them a cup of tea and asking a few questions until something clicks into place.

Artists almost always have the answer in themselves, even if it’s obscured – so the role is often just about creating an environment that can bring it to the surface.

How do you reach artists who don’t already see the theatre as ‘for them’?

This is such a massive question!!

First off, a lot of this work is being done by our phenomenal Young People & Communities team: they’re tireless in carving out new and substantive opportunities for people to start thinking of themselves as artists, and feeling that they have a creative home with us. They’re properly incredible, and feed into my work in all sorts of ways.

Personally, I often collaborate with our Associate Companies on targeted programmes of work designed to reach artists from specific demographics or lived experiences – so recent examples might be the Homotopia Writers Award, the Talawa Seed Commissions, or Graeae Beyond.

Things like Open Script Submissions can also be important: you don’t need to know anyone in the industry, or have done a fancy degree – you just need to send us your play, and we’ll read it! Writers of all experience levels send work to us that way – it’s incredibly egalitarian.

So partially it’s about how we communicate all the ways that you can meet and work with us – about fostering a culture that’s as open and transparent as possible, so that opportunities are visibly meritocratic rather than about who your aunt went to uni with or whatever.

And more broadly, I suppose it’s also what I was saying earlier about the work we stage and how we talk about it – because artists are also audience members!

(I realised theatre might be for me when I discovered that it wasn’t all just posh people wanging on in some drawing room, probably in iambic pentameter – it could also be irreverent, thrilling and contemporary, and could speak directly to my own experiences.)

So we just need to inspire people with a varied, vibrant and ambitious programme on our stages, and have clear routes and available opportunities to progress professionally after that!

Easy, right?

How do you spot potential in a new idea or early-stage script?

With a script, the starting point for me is voice: is there a distinct perspective, approach to the form and/or use of language – is there a vision and an energy to the work that grabs me and won’t let go?

The Walrus Has a Right to Adventure, which we did last year, is a great example of this: before the play has even started, Billie (the writer) gives a performance note that basically says ‘This play has got massive animals in it. Good luck’. The moment I read that I was like Okay let’s GO!)

Beyond that, the idea’s got to be expansive – I want a play to really take me somewhere.

I’m looking for scale of story or character journey, for heart connection and humour, for complexity of thematic interrogation and the sense that a writer is asking deep and profound questions that they may not know the answer to – and for something unequivocally theatrical that tells me why this thing demands to be experienced live.

All of that is just a pretentious way of saying: does it stick itself in my heart and mind? does it draw me into a world that I’m sad to leave? does the thought of showing it to our audiences make my skin prickle a bit?

If any of those are a yes, it’s got potential!

What does Liverpool/the city region mean to you artistically?

I’d only been to Liverpool once before I got this job, so my relationship with the city is still relatively young.

There’s so much I could say about what sets Liverpool apart from other places I’ve lived and made or seen work, and how that affects the way I approach this role – but maybe the clearest thing is just to say what came across most strongly when I got here…

Now this is pretty reductive (!), but my immediate impression was that Liverpool’s artistic identity could probably boil down to ‘big heart, big laughs, f*** the Tories’ – and that’s basically what the city means to me artistically!

It might not be the most nuanced or dramaturgically sound distillation of a whole city’s artistic identity, but it’s served me okay so far…

LIVERPOOL AND MERSEYSIDE THEATRES TRUST LIMITED

1 role available