Karen's creative work, reflections and project news
Booking small UK community venues has taught me more about making a show than most marketing plans ever have. Here are five lessons from village halls, booking clerks and the person who actually holds the key.
The early dark changes what kind of work feels possible. This winter I am not fighting the season — I am making a smaller, quieter plan and trying to finish one modest thing well before the year turns.
There is a minute before a small show when the room either says come in or says nothing at all. This is a practical, slightly opinionated look at signage, ticket wording, quiet corners and the awkward bit before the lights go up.
A November clear-out of the noticeboard above my desk turned into a lesson in creative curation, guilt and the difference between a possibility and a project. Here is what stayed, what went, and what I am still deciding.
I spent a wet Tuesday morning pinning flyers for our next work-in-progress night, and learned more about being seen than any dashboard has taught me. A local look at noticeboards, torn corners and the humble A5.
For years I treated following up as the embarrassing bit of creative work — the needy cousin of making the actual thing. Then I nearly lost a collaboration by being polite and waiting. Here is what I have changed, and the low-cringe scripts I now keep in a note on my phone.
Someone once offered me a room, an audience, and no money, and described it as an opportunity. I said no, felt sick for an hour, and then learned something useful. Here's what to ask before you reply, the scripts I actually use, and why the guilt isn't a moral signal.
I once put on a full evening of theatre for £50 — and no, it didn't look like it. Here's the actual receipt, the charity shop rules I swear by, and the free tech that quietly does the heavy lifting. A practical, mildly obsessive guide for anyone making something from almost nothing.
Taking an unfinished piece to a village hall is a peculiar kind of bravery — and the most useful thing I've done all year. Three genuinely surprising takeaways from a night of borrowed chairs, digestive biscuits and honest feedback, plus what changes in the next stage of the project.
There is a particular sound a kitchen table makes when you clear it in a hurry — and for me it has come to mean the start of something rather than the end. A few notes on making creative work from a pine table in a small UK flat, plus some prompts and an open invitation for your own kitchen-table projects.