Dramaturg, HYDROPONIC

Hydroponic developed as an artist-centred project aimed at broadening the forms of dramaturgical support available to culturally diverse playwrights and performance artists. Based at South Street, Reading and funded by Reading Borough Council and the Arts Council, South East, the programme of work was devised and delivered by myself as dramaturg in collaboration with writernet.

Rethinking how work can be created and developed on its own terms, independently of the commissioning process, Hydroponic began by modelling new developmental processes and routes to production for culturally diverse artists. The programme fostered

• peer-to-peer learning among participating artists
• the strengthening of work through sustained critical engagement
• exposure to wider theoretical and practical approaches to the craft of playmaking
• input from a wide range of industry professionals

Performance workshops and ultimately production were made an integral part of the development process, integrating artists into the industry and promoting effective routes to production.

In the first phase of Hydroponic,four playwrights were commissioned to take a play from initial concept to first draft. Provided with analytical tools to reflect on their process and enable continual revision in group and one-to-one sessions, they engaged with input from industry professionals, a curated programme of master-classes and an intensive floor-based dramaturgical process. The four plays showcased through public readings at South Street, Reading and at Soho Theatre were Four Seasons by Linda Brogan, Thirteen Months by Dawn Garrigan, Roscoe Powell by Anita Franklin and Shah Mat by Nirjay Mahindru. All four writers took risks and were innovative in their practice, with Linda Brogan, for example, going on to develop her use of live action and puppetry in her next play, Black Crows (Clean Break, 2007).

A second phase of Hydroponic shifted to providing one-to-one dramaturgical support for a wider range of play-makers, and enabling production as the active element of learning and development. Rap poet Jonzi D and dancer Jane Sekonya’s Ivan was produced at Sadler’s Wells (2006), David Hermanstein’s Safe at the West Yorkshire Playhouse (2007), Dipo Agboluaje's For One Night Only and Rukhsana Ahmad’s Letting Go at the Oval House (2008), and Ronald Fraser-Munroe’s The Resident at South Street (2009).

The strong outcomes of Hydroponic lay in supplying artists with the critical tools to trust in their own practice.