2. What does a day in the life of you look like?

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1. Tell us about you – what motivates you?

Other people. My company is run collaboratively which means we create our shows as an ensemble and also make company decisions collectively. This is a challenging and intensely satisfying way of working. My colleagues provoke me in all sorts of surprising ways! Having other people around to generate ideas with in the rehearsal room and to manage the practical side of running a company means I am continuously asked to consider different view points and find answers together. It is not always easy, but I have learned so much about theatre making through this shared process. For me it is about putting the work first, over ego or personal doubt, and finding a voice together. I am constantly learning.

Then, in a larger sense, the world we live in. Theatre is simply my response to some of what I observe and feel around me. And when audiences come along and share in what we have created, showing such understanding and joy, it is a truly incredible feeling.

Teaching students is also a very motivating aspect of my life. The students’ questions and courage make me want to share all I can and challenge them just like I have been challenged so far in my theatrical education. It is wonderful to be able to exchange my findings with their refreshing energy and varied outlooks on the world.

2. What does a day in the life of you look like?

Well, being a freelance performer and running my own theatre company means no day is ever the same! When I am touring a show, the day will probably be dominated by traveling, teching and performing. Another day might be completely different- I could be on a shoot working on someone else’s project, which can be a lovely change of rhythm and way of creating. Many days are focused on administration, meetings and general ‘faffing’. I enjoy the flexibility of working my own hours from home or perhaps in a cafe. It also means I can meet up with other freelancers, who often have similarly random schedules. Then in my free time, I love to be with friends, read, have dinners, see shows, go dancing – all these activities are very important to me too!

3. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?

This question is so difficult! People sometimes say it’s very courageous to get up onstage and perform, but actually for me that can be one of the easier parts of my life! I love it. Moving to Paris to live alone and study at Jacques Lecoq Theatre School was definitely a very intimidating and brave move for me. And I am so glad I made that choice as it was a great adventure and has helped shape who I am today. But I also think my true moments of courage have been when I have allowed myself to be vulnerable and completely honest both in my professional and personal life, and being able to say words like ’I need help’ or ’I love you’ have all been part of this!

4. What does Balance mean to you in your life?

For me, balance has a lot to do with accepting what is. If I feel like I need to address the balance in how my days are spent and change something then generally I have the power to to do so, but if I don’t want to or feel I can’t then it is really about embracing the moment. It is good to remember that actually the world won’t fall apart if something doesn’t happen when or how I’d like it too- I am not that important, no one is! Life is a journey not an end point and I am enjoying the ride!

5. Who is your role model and why?

My mum. She is a one of the wisest women I know and has always been a source of inspiration for me. She came over to the UK from Ecuador many years ago and works as an oncologist in Bristol. She has affected many people’s lives through her wisdom and kindness, and is strong, courageous role model. A great deal of my strength and values come from her. My mum’s support of my choices has enabled me to study, travel, move abroad, set up my own company and ultimately find my own path, even when it seemed uncertain.

6. What’s the most inspiring thing you’ve read, seen or done in the last month?

Well, I spent the last month of August performing my show Jurassic Park at the Edinburgh Fringe festival and, while I was there, I saw some very inspirational theatre shows. One of these shows was a piece called K’rd Strip: A Place to Stand by a New Zealand based company Okareka Dance. The show is based on Karangahape road, a red light district area in Auckland, and the male prostitution scene that surrounds it. What it inspired me most about this show was that it felt very honest, relevant and brave, as well as totally unique and unapologetic in its form (a blend of cabaret, drama, Māori dance and comedy). The piece had me laughing one moment then with tears streaming down my face the next, and I love shows that achieve this dynamic! But the whole month at the Edinburgh fringe was a very inspiring and humbling experience. I met many brave companies and individuals putting on all sorts of work. If you haven’t been, I recommend checking it out

The post Maria Askew, Superbolt Theatre, Discusses Collaborative Working appeared first on The Quarter Club.

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style” – Maya Angelou

Being self-employed or working as a creative freelancer can be an intensely satisfying way of working, but it can also be difficult, uncertain and isolating. Not being a full-time employee of an organisation can mean you find yourself lacking structure, stability and human support. Yet having a flexible schedule and doing something you are truly passionate about is a luxury that not everybody is able to have, even if they wanted to. My work has exposed me to many environments, people and ideas I would never otherwise have experienced. It has demanded that I be brave, resilient, confident and adaptable. Here is my advice on satisfaction and work based on my discoveries so far.

BE USEFUL

Identify ‘being useful to others’ as a key motivation in your work and place it at the heart of what you do. You can interpret this in countless ways and apply it on a variety of levels. Take the time to consider why you are doing what you are doing and reflect on its impact on others. Sometimes being useful might actually mean not doing something that has negative repercussions. Assuming responsibility as part of a collective humanity and contributing positively to others locally and/or on a global scale can help you to develop a sense of purpose that makes challenges worth overcoming and keeps you motivated. Being useful can help counter negative feelings such as those of futility or emptiness common to society today and is key to developing a sense of deep-rooted satisfaction.

SHARE

Approach your work with a philosophy of collaboration over competition. This might seem to contradict aspects of the education you have received or the capitalist structure you work in where emphasis is often placed on individual success and financial competition, but the notion of “every man for himself” has proved deeply problematic, perpetuating wealth inequality and leaving many people feeling isolated and unsupported. By transcending this notion it is possible to find yourself navigating a kinder, more provocative and ultimately more productive shared space. Reach out to other freelancers and people in your field, meet them for coffee, chat through ideas, work on projects together. Share your own plans, concerns and revelations generously.

Evidently, if you make your plans known, you are far more likely to meet people who want to collaborate with you. Being open rather than fearful or overprotective of your own projects can help you to be calmer and more enthusiastic about your work, and give you a sense of being part of something larger than yourself. Sometimes you might feel like you don’t fit into standardised ideas of how you are supposed to work and live (you are not the only one with this feeling, we are more complex than a statistic or a character in a Disney movie), and it is through speaking out and offering alternative narratives that over-simplified perceptions can be deconstructed. Sharing your story might make a huge difference to someone else who has been struggling. Supporting other people’s work will lead to people supporting yours. Sharing and collaborating can combat feelings of loneliness and leave you feeling more excited, inspired and satisfied.

LIVE WELL

Your professional life does not exist in a vacuum (and with freelancers especially the lines between when you are working and when you are not are often blurred) so for complete satisfaction it is helpful to consider your overall outlook and lifestyle beyond that of your work life. There is a lot of advice out there on living well, some of it very useful, but take care that the opinions of others do not make you feel anxious about the way you are living your life currently. It is easy to criticise ways of life that differ greatly from our own, but everyone’s circumstances are different and what works for one person does not necessarily apply to someone else. You will figure out what works for you.

Ultimately, learning to accept what is, regardless of your level of success or life situation, is a great way to ensure long-lasting satisfaction. I am not saying you shouldn’t care about things or try to initiate change (go for it, be passionate!), rather it is about finding a calm, accepting state from where everything else can unfold. If you can live in the present and embrace the reality of each moment then you will not be relying on external factors, people or achievements, in order to feel complete. They will be adding to your enjoyment, not controlling your well-being or giving you your sense of self.

There are some good books and apps out there that can help you to mediate your way to this point and simply being aware of this idea can be helpful. You are not defined by your work, so cherish every moment, whether you are doing laundry or holding a loved one. Take care of your body and be physically engaged, remember you are not just a walking brain. Leave enough space in your schedule for a good night’s sleep (but if you can’t sleep don’t worry about it- it is still totally possible to nail an interview / give a great talk/ perform a show on 0 – 4 hrs). Discover new people and places. Be curious and brave in your explorations. Have meaningful conversations. Have times when you don’t check your phone. Learn to enjoy being by yourself. Read. Spend time with the people you love, the people who revitalise and inspire you. Do things because they are fun. Laugh.

The post Maria Askew On Satisfaction and Work appeared first on The Quarter Club.

Hello, arty-farties! COOO-EEEEE! Oh you’re looking so ‘now’. That scarf wistfully draped around your shoulders, your vintage hat at its jaunty angle. Darling. You’re just. MMM. You know? Oh sorry, haven’t got time to read this because you have twelve jobs and 48 unpaid freelance projects on the go? Sweets, honey, you must be ex-haaaauuuuusted.

Luckily, in your spare time you get to hang out in low-budget watering holes, like your house, and have one-way conversations with minor acquaintances like this:

‘Alright? What do you do then? Oh yeah? Bit of this, bit of that? WHY DON’T YOU GET A PROPER JOB, YEAH? LIKE ME. YEAH? I BREAK ROCKS FOR A LIVING, AND WHAT? You people. Expecting ordinary, hard-working, ordinary, law-abiding, ordinary hard-working taxpaying law-abiders to dish out taxes to fund your contemporary dance interpretation of the effect of capitalism on the disenfranchised youth of modern Britain. You make me sick. Sick to the very core of the existence that I have no intention of attempting to understand. GOOD BYE.’

Or something. But look. Listen. Look. You’re thinking, go away, I’ve already read everything on The Guardian about how our generation is aimlessly floundering but we can blame it on fat cats. Or thin cats. Just basically loads of cats so whatever just stop it now. But the cats are simply not at fault here.

So answer me this, ye dreamers, ye thinkers, ye farting-arounders.

Let’s say you had to get that day job to get by, and we understand and you’re doing well and good for you. But there’s a problem. Oh god. Turns out, right, annoyingly, you’re like totally good at like a buttload of stuff, and want to do something with that repertoire of whatever it may be – writing, acting, designing, persuading – the thing you know deep down is what you’re meant for. Are you going to ignore it when it tingles deep in your brain in the night time? Are you?

Perhaps, and fair enough. Surrounded by people who think anything creative and interesting and worthwhile that is summat to faff on with till you get started on your ‘actual’ career, you wonder what the point would be. Fine, and whoever’s telling you that can get on with it. We know full well they’re probably the sort of person who says things like ‘I don’t watch television’ and ‘I don’t read’ (yes you do and WHAT THE HELL). Michael Owen has seen eight films. I’ll just leave that there for you.

So, everyone knows painting a picture can’t restart a heart. And it doesn’t pay for a monkey butler either. But if we’re honest, there’s not a fat lot of point in surviving that life-threatening illness, nor is it worth earning all that dosh, if there isn’t something worth living for.

Must your ‘day job’ become your be all and end all? Says who! But why! Must your mortgage-and-bills work eat you alive? Rise up! Stand tall! Should your dinner party conversation be reduced to which of the A-roads will be an absolute *nightmare* with those new traffic lights? Are you the one with the story that ends with ‘and then the HEAVENS just OPENED! AHAHAHA!!!!’

If you’re like me and you do a money job plus multiple non-money creative ones, you’ll notice how each half of your life becomes the lesser half depending on your environment. Now, I have landed a day job I do enjoy in academic administration. Good for me. But holy Jesus it took some days of boring my arse off to get here. This included years of robotic PA work whilst studying. Here’s a week that didn’t happen, but let’s pretend.

Monday. Type numbers into computer for reasons. Write poem on smashed iphone about the shame of existence.

Tuesday. Managing Director requests 25 cans of Coke Zero (not Diet Coke, that’s for fat girls), five identical white shirts and a selection of legumes. Attend seminar analysing the implications of performance reconstruction at The Globe. Feel parts of brain disintegrating.

Wednesday. Have a fight with a manager about who left a fan heater on in a meeting room. Think about Tolstoy, how I have no intention of ever reading Tolstoy, and what this means for my shameful existence.

Thursday. Pay £8 for a salad. Fulfil all notions critiqued in poem about shameful existence. Download mindfulness app. Ignore mindfulness app.

Friday. Telephone Lord Farquah-Farquahson’s PA, ask her to deliver the fur hats to the lake house. Consider all other career options available in life including, but not limited to, breaking rocks.

And depending on who asks, I say, ‘Oh yes, I work at Oxford University, fnarr’ and theatre is the postscript, even though my most recent roles have been as an assistant director on an outdoor King Lear, and a dramaturg with the Young Vic (for the love of it, for the experience, and yes – for free). And in the theatre world (whatever that is) I’m an assistant director and dramaturg and script reader and writer plus all the other million things I have tried on for size, but I suppose I work at a university aswell. So what the hell am I? A freakish indecisive freaky mutanoid creature freak?

Well, I hope I’m not so different to any other girl in their mid-twenties who knows how important, and how difficult, it is to live a life well-balanced: affordable and productive in equal measure. And I too live in the hope that pushing forward in unpaid creative work will eventually yield enough experience for a paid job in something productive, useful, valuable – where ‘value’ does not mean ‘money’.

Here’s a cheerful closing thought – the consistent trudge towards untimely death. What do people remember on their deathbeds? What will you? Grim, yes, but make yourself wonder for a second. Will it be how fulfilling that spreadsheet completion was in 2008? How that nice car made you realise your self-worth? Or will you think about what you didn’t do because you couldn’t make the time, or because you were scared about having two lives at once? How scared are you now, at the end, knowing you didn’t fulfil that potential?

Don’t be afraid to balance those two sides of yourself – you won’t make a half-arsed job of each, I promise. You’ll be more than the sum of your parts. If you work hard, and aren’t afraid to ask for help, you could start being the very thing you’d like to go and watch, read, see and feel in the arts. Now stop faffing about on the internet you lazy mare. There’s work to be done.

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1. Tell us about you – what motivates you?

People are fascinating. If you take the time to speak to someone on the street for longer than five minutes, you are 90 per-cent likely to find out something really interesting that will stop and make you think. I’m motivated by human beings and their complicated – but sometimes beautifully simple – stories. I think if we all took a little more time between the skinny lattés and Twitter updates to stop and talk to each other, the world would be a much better place. We spend too much time in our own heads and I think it’s tragic, so I guess my motivation is the desire to share, learn and celebrate.

2. What does a day in the life of you look like?

Not particularly exciting! I get into work at about 8.45 (apt time for stress-free porridge making in the kitchen)  and the first thing I do is log onto The Female Lead’s Twitter(oh god – how did I become one of those girls?). It’s a bit pathetic, I know, but Twitter has been a really key tool in spreading the world of The Female Lead and has led to some pretty hefty connections for The Female Lead book too. I’ll usually have a scout around for stories about amazing women or newsworthy female issues and schedule them to be tweeted throughout the day. Oh and Google Alerts too – they’ve been an unlikely blessing! The working day varies depending on whether I have any interviews book in or events to go to or if there’s a piece I’m working on. I am lucky enough to be invited to lots of events filled to the brim with inspiring, kick-ass women so if there’s something on I try my best to go. You never know who’s stories might be on offer… Otherwise it’s chasing women to take part in The Female Lead book – which is much more time consuming than it sounds! Most of the chasing and scheduling has to be done in the afternoon, and sometimes later into the evening as most of the women we deal with at the moment are U.S. based.

3. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?

I’m definitely not much of a dare devil – even small lifts make me nervous. I guess leaving a very large news corporation and international publishers to begin working on a relatively new start-up was the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. Having said that, I’ve never looked back for a moment and I’ve never been happier.

4. What does Balance mean to you in your life?

Balance is being able to enjoy each and every aspect of your life to its full extent. I’ve always found that if one aspect of your life is off kilter and taking up too much head-space, it tips the scale and trickles into the other areas of your life. Work hard, stay late, do overtime but stop when it makes you unhappy. Life’s unfair, random and, to be honest – can be pretty shit – so you may as well enjoy the few things that are under your control.

5. Who is your role model and why?

How long have you got? I have about 10 million! I would say my amazing mother Simmons who is obviously the most remarkable woman in the world, but that’s painfully unoriginal so…

Our founder, Edwina Dunn is a very special woman. Not only has she achieved a huge amount in her career and fought her way up in the male dominated industry of data science, but she is absolutely dedicated to using her position to helping the next generation. Her passion for encouraging young people to achieve their goals is infectious and her enthusiasm spurs me on to believe that we have the power to drive a worthwhile change. Not to mention the fact that she is honestly one of the kindest and most generous women that I have ever met. Oh, and she’s a great provider of sweet treats for the office – which always helps!

6. What’s the most inspiring thing you’ve read, seen or done in the last month?

Sometimes, I have days at work when I think, “surely this can’t be my job?”. A few weeks ago, I had one of those days. I heard Michelle Obama was making an appearance at a girls’ school in East London so last minute, I managed to wangle my way onto the press list. Not expecting to get anywhere near close to the action, I thought I may aswell pop down for an hour and see if – at the very least – I could sneak a tweet out of it.

When I was shown my designated seat with a clear view of the stage, I couldn’t quite believe my luck. Low and behold, out came FLOTUS from behind the curtains (accompanied by the scariest friggin’ mafia-style security team EVER), and I was transfixed. Speaking with such honesty, devotion and conviction, The First Lady explained to a room full of teenage girls, in one of the poorest areas in London, how they could set about achieving their dreams. Although Michelle’s face (and mightily toned arms) was a mesmerizing sight, what I really couldn’t take my eyes off was the look on the girls’ faces as they watched one of the most powerful women in the world tell them that they were “brilliant, beautiful, intelligent, talented” and ultimately held the key to the success of the next generation. I felt my toes tingle as I watched something flicker in each and every one of those girls, almost as if a switch had gone off and suddenly, all the doors were open and everything was possible. It was the most inspiring and thrilling event I have ever been privileged enough to attend and I pledge to support FLOTUS forever.

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