Assistant Director - When You Pass Over My Tomb @ Arcola
Organisation: When You Pass Over My Tomb by Sergio Blanco, at the Arcola Theatre
Looking for: Assistant Director
Fee: £2000 (all inclusive) £2850.41
The job: To assist Daniel Goldman on When you pass over my tomb, a brilliant new auto fictional play for three actors by Sergio Blanco. The play is an intellectual, fizzy, metatheatrical exploration of love and death, literature and legacy. Its reference points are Frankenstein, Bethlem Hospital, Dignitas, Romeo and Juliet, the mythic history of Uruguay, the destruction of Notre Dame, Superman, and medieval weaponry.
Who we are
Arcola is producing this show, in association with Run at it Shouting. A leading off-West End theatre, Arcola is based in Dalston, Hackney. This project will rehearse at Arcola and the production will be taking place in the Main Studio (196 seats). Arcola previously co-produced Thebes Land, which won the Offie for Best Production and ran for nine sold out weeks over two runs.
Sergio Blanco is a Paris-based Uruguayan playwright. He is currently the most performed living playwright in the Spanish language and over the past 5 years, his plays have been translated into 17 languages and performed in 30+ different countries.
Daniel Goldman is an award winning director, translator and playwright. He is Sergio’s translator into English and the director of Sergio’s previous two UK premieres; Thebes Land (Off West End Award winner - Best Production 2017) and The Rage of Narcissus (Off West End Award winner - Best New Play 2020). This is their third UK collaboration.
Job Specification
We’re looking for an assistant director who is already directing on the Fringe / in Off West End theatres. This is because they may be asked to run rehearsal sessions when Daniel is absent, lead on warm ups, note the show during the run and more.
We’re looking specifically for candidates who have
- directed at least three plays on the fringe / off west end / Edinburgh / drama schools.
- a strong international practice and interest, i.e. can demonstrate experience working on contemporary international plays and/or contemporary international plays in translation
- experience leading on vocal work or movement work.
No previous experience of assisting is required.
The contract is for up to 25 days work. How that’s worked out will be determined with the chosen candidate.
It’s important to share that the play tells the story of someone planning and executing an assisted suicide. We wouldn’t want anyone to take this role on, if they found this material hard to be with.
Key Dates
Conversations to begin in October
Rehearsal dates: w.c. 8th Jan - 3rd Feb
Production Week (3 days): w.c. 5th Feb
Performance Dates: 8th Feb - 2nd March.
Press night: 12th Feb TBC
To Apply
We want to hear about you as a director, not as an assistant. What interests you as an artist (three sentences), what sorts of plays you like working on (give us a couple of ideas), what is your style or approach when working with new writing (five sentences max), and please also tell us about one show you’ve seen recently that you admired from a directorial viewpoint and one reason why (again three sentences max). NB. It doesn’t have to be an international show.
Please feel free to send your response as a single-sided A4 document (but can and probably should be less), as a 2-minute video, or as a 2-minute voice note. We don't want you to spend hours on this. It's just to get a sense of who you are and what you're into.
Please also send us
We are committed to equal opportunities for everyone and actively encourage people with different backgrounds to apply for this role. Given the international nature of the project, we are particularly keen to receive applications from candidates from an international background and/or who are from the global majority. We encourage artists from all other underrepresented groups to apply, including candidates who live with a disability, trans or non-binary candidates and working-class candidates.
Process:
Applications must be submitted by 6pm on 19/10/23.
Please send your application to production@arcolatheatre.com with subject title WYPOMT ASSISTANT DIRECTOR (YOUR NAME)
We will then invite up to four people to a zoom interview led by Daniel Goldman and a member from the Arcola production team. These interviews will take place via Zoom at a date tbc* and will last 20 to 30 mins.
*Daniel is about to become a father and so any further recruitment schedule is dependent on when his baby arrives / he gets enough sleep to conduct a proper set of interviews.
Equal Opps Form - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezgSk_Fkv8YmOsW4DW0DukUgwcujX7SF1Vy_uNAdREx1uU1w/viewform?usp=sf_link
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