Yep.

I’ve become the owner of a theatre company. I’m not sure how this happened but it has. It all started with the little suggestions from the fans following Monstrous, along the lines of “that was great, please do more” but I suppose the idea properly came from my childhood best friend who works for Barclays who said “You know, if you did this for charity I could get you a donation and profit match what you give to charity”. Add in a little nagging from the Monstrous cast and BOOM! Monstrous Productions was born.

So, what exactly is Monstrous Productions?! Well, we’re a Cardiff based theatre company who solely perform Pratchett adaptations. We’re funded through sponsorship and investors and all of our profit goes to Alzheimer’s Research UK. Our next production will be Carpe Jugulum in June 2013 (possibly ‘Going Postal’ - will keep you updated). I’m going to hold auditions for all of the South Wales area; anyone who has the time to rehearse twice a week from March until June is welcome, I’m hoping to get all ages and backgrounds.

At the minute we not only have the Barclays deal but some funding in the form of sponsorship from Cardiff University too, who I work for. Alzheimer’s Research UK was the obvious choice of a charity, as obviously Sir Terry himself is a patron, but also because I work alongside the Alzheimer’s Research team in my office. I’m hoping this will be great publicity for them and raise awareness of their study.

As the play is so far away I don’t really have to think about that yet; first comes funding! We’re throwing a fundraiser on the 14th June; it’s going to be the Ankh-Morpork Market and we’re inviting people to have stalls selling vintage and hand crafted goods (hopefully with a slight Discworld theme!). We’re also looking for local businesses to donate to a silent auction. All the profits of this will go into the fund (have had to set up a company bank account, its all very official!) and then Barclays will match it for ARUK; so they get an initial donation next month then a much bigger one next year.

Its all a little bit strange though. A few months back I started this blog because I had the chance to direct one Pratchett play and now I have a company that specialises in them. I can’t really say I intend to stay on past Carpe Jugulum but I’d love to hand the reins over to someone else, to keep Discworld productions going in Cardiff.

Here is the facebook group for Monstrous Productions; Please join if you’re interested in helping, auditioning or just keeping up to date with what we’re doing.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/296932487060197/

Yes. It’s true. I’ve just purchased myself the script for Carpe Jugulum. Which is, of course, another Pratchett.

I’ll be completely honest; at the minute I’m trying to source some funding (to the tune of £2,200) to independently put on Carpe Jugulum at Cardiff’s Chapter Arts centre in June 2013. There was talk of Barclays funding this but I’m still waiting to hear and I’m keen to confirm some cash so I can book the venue! So today, whilst I am supposed to be working I will be contacting local companies looking for 1 of 3 things; 1. An investment that gets returned after the end of the play and the profit goes to Alzheimer’s Research UK. 2. Funding in full and the total proceeds go to Alzheimer’s Research UK. 3. Partial Sponsorship.

In any scenario money is going towards Alzheimer’s Research Uk, a charity that Sir Terry is a patron of. I also work alongside the Alzheimer’s research team at Cardiff University and I hope that the play would be a good chance for them to advertise their research as they are always in need of volunteers to participate.

Now, I can’t say this will definately go ahead as it all rides on the money but I have a very keen team behind me, Amazon’s sales of ‘Carpe Jugulum’ must have increased fourfold since I first mentioned it to the Monstrous guys. A lot of them would be on board for this next project which makes it all the more exciting. We’re thinking of calling ourselves ‘Monstrous Productions’.

I’m quite happy with the idea of doing this independently. As much as I appreciate the support and funding (and actors!) I got from Act One there were also many restrictions and issues with access to the funding. It’ll be nice to start a show knowing the funds are in the bank account when we start, being able to book my own venue and being able to hold auditions for the whole of Cardiff, not just the student population. It also takes out all the politics of the thing, not worrying about overlapping publicity and whose toes need to be not stepped on. Of course, I do hope that Act Oners will want to be involved, which is why the rehearsal time will run from March to June- after the end of Act One’s season and before everyone goes home for the summer!

So, today, whilst I’m sat in my office and meant to be working, it’s time to get finding some funding! If you have any ideas of businesses that would be interested in investing or sponsoring us please let me know!

You’d have thought I’d have a lot more free time now but it appears that I don’t! Although life is considerably less stressful and substantially more boring post-monstrous.
I’ve been meaning to update this to let you know how it went and hopefully I’ll get chance to upload a review or you’ve seen the comments on the forums.

Feedback is all very positive and from the people that matter; the Pratchett fans. They loved it! They really appreciated the little touches I added in for them and it meant the world to me.

We had good audience numbers; around 115 for every night except Saturday. We always knew the Saturday would be difficult, especially the matinee, because of the rugby but I didn’t realise it was also comic-con that weekend so all the true geeks were there!!

I’m going to share some of the performance pics with you and I’ll quote some of the tweets we had about it. Was amazing to search twitter after every show and see all these strangers saying great things.

And we had an absolute blast doing it. Show week was so much fun. Our first audience was brilliant, real hearty laughers and I think the cast really saw how funny the play was. They just got better and better from there, playing up to the funniest bits and having lots of fun with it. I sat anxiously at the back each night, after fussing over everyone’s hair and make- up, revelling in the fact that people were laughing at my play!

We had a few mishaps, some dropped moustaches, some missed entrances but nothing major. As is tradition there were some great pranks on the last night; pictures replaced with rude pictures, newspaper articles containing abuse, amusing props planted in people’s rucksacks… That sort of thing! Was very entertaining to watch the cast attempting to keep straight faces!

The after party got a little emotional. One of my favourite parts of the whole process was giving the awards. I decided an award for each cast and crew member and made them each a personal card with message. Got a little teary doing some of those. There were also gifts for the cheesemongers; flaming cheese badges from Kidby’s website. Beautiful. Then there were gifts for me!! :D most touching was my photo album containing photos of rehearsals, backstage and even one performance. Everyone had written a personal message in it and I still get choked up now.

I’m not saying it has all been positive and stress free but I wouldn’t change it for the world. I have had the pleasure of working with the greatest bunch of people, some of who I now consider my closest friends. And as the fans are asking; is this the end of the blog? Will there be more Discworld plays to come? I say keep an eye on this blog and you may just see some news…

I really hope you enjoy the photos and quotes from audience members.