FIVE YEARS OF THIS BLOG!  

My blog has served me more as an aide memoire or diary than an interactive blog inviting comment and discussion.  Over the last year I've explored the option of having a website or self-publishing some of the essays I've written, particularly those composed during Lockdown. Unfortunately the cost of living blows these options out of the water. 

Firstly technical help is imminent  in tidying up this blog so titles of posts are evident on the home page. Such as my more detailed CV accessible in the April 2023 post below.  

Secondly help at changing the domain name. I have done so much work on later life academically, in my writing (Age Queer)  and through  performance  (Artivist in a Box). I have so many other directions I want to go in. 

The last year has seen me:-

 In two  supporting artist roles in local filming via Phoenix Casting of the blink and you'll miss me kind,  Also playing a dying woman in a University of Bristol student film, Evenescent Nexus, for which the highly professional young film makers raised the money to pay the cast.  

Spending much time on immensely rewarding trustee duties for Travelling Light Theatre. 

Being an Open Mic impresario (?) for fundraisers at Cafe 5 (Bristol Refugee Rights) and at the Dark Horse (Travelling Light's Big Give Challenge). 

Enjoying improv workshops at the amazing Wardrobe Theatre

Seeing great theatre here in Bristol.  

And finally researching and writing my  script for The Benefit. The first draft has been completed and excerpts have been performed at the above Open Mic events.  

 

JO CROSS PROFILE

 

MORE DETAILS ABOUT MY CURRENT WORK AND A FULL C.V.

JO CROSS   e.mail:  jecross19 [at] yahoo.co.uk  mob.: 079756565473

 

I am a Bristol based actor, writer, activist,  para-academic and drama workshop facilitator. I identify as she/her and am proud of my east London background.

AN ACTOR:  Theatre Training (Guildhall School of Music and Drama)  followed by Theatre in Education training at City of Birmingham College of Education. I spent some twenty years teaching in East London (South Hackney and Kingsland Schools). I continued to develop my  theatre skills at Chat’s Palace Community Theatre  in Hackney.

2006 – 1017 I worked as a freelance education facilitator working for Bristol City’s Museums, Galleries and Archives, also developing  actor/character led schools’ workshops at the Red Lodge, Blaise Castle and MShed.

2021-22 I  was employed as an actor on “The Creative Histories of Witchcraft”, a collaboration between Will Pooley of Bristol University’s History Department, playwright Poppy Corbett and poet, Anna Kisby Compton.

WHAT I CAN DO:  Develop and deliver bespoke drama workshops across the age  range  for collaborative/ developmental purposes.   Below part of a drama workshop I delivered at Trinity Centre Bristol, exploring ageing and identity:-

                   

Play the part of an older woman -  so long as it’s not a stereotype!   

With Rebecca Braccialarghe in “How Many Things Can You Think About” 2021 Café 5, Easton.

 

A WRITER:  2021 saw me awarded support from Theatre West for my script “Age Queer” under their Arts Council funded, Zooming Ahead scheme for Women Writers.  A Zoom performance was followed up by a live performance at  Bristol’s Trinity Centre last year.

                                            

Feedback:-

From Heather Lister   : That was wonderfully moving, funny and inspiring (from the P.O.V. of someone 70ish!!) I enjoyed all the performances; it is beautifully written, original and ingenious in many ways and I cannot think of any ways in which I think it could be improved. I'll look out for a future performance. Thank you!

From James Peries   : Very much enjoyed the detailed history of the early 80s for the characters; all felt very true.  Established very strongly the history, activism, and engagement that gets negated when older (in others' eyes). 'Elders' recruiter being a funeral director in his day job a good twist!  Decline of Norma at the end was strongly written and acted.  Thank you. 

From Jean Cooper Moran   : Jo's 'Age Queer' play was a superb idea, with realistic and robust themes, humour and a touching friendship between these chippy characters. The actors all jumped into character immediately; the PO's monologue at the beginning was gripping. The dramatic sequencing and dialogue were true to life and held our interest throughout.  Bobby Sands was a tragic theme, and foreshadowed Nora's own last act as a 'refusenik' - great phrase.  I accepted the use of sadism in the earlier scenes pointed up the internal conflicts of being gay, and the terrors and rewards of joining that community. My brother would have identified with Alan.  Brian the happy lanyard was a well acted and telling character.  God save us from the 'home' at the end of life...

 

2021 I wrote (within three weeks!)  “How Many Things Can You Think About (When You’re Lying Under an Immigration Removal Van)” for Odd Lot Theatre, this performed as a fundraiser for Bristol Refugee Rights at Café 5, Easton.

Current project.  A show for solo performance, working title The Benefit.

Elevator Pitch:   In this gothic  satire on human frailty – and the art of tailoring - a  black gentleman’s  overcoat passes through a turbulent, 20^th century, European  city attracting a random  mix  of owners along the way.  Who gets to feel the benefit of this most universal of garments and who’s left out in the cold? And what purpose does our coat serve when it surfaces in the 21^st century?

  

WHAT I CAN DO:   Develop script for a variety of media.  Serve as ‘writer in the room’ on projects as they develop. 

 

AN ACTIVIST AND PARA-ACADEMIC

I have kept this simple blog going for the last, few years.  A progression from my doctorate and building on my concern for the subordination of later life in U.K. society, my experience of spending most of my life in multicultural Hackney where I raised my dual heritage family and myself being a ‘child of the 60s’ appalled at the monocultural assumptions about older people.

  

                                                                                                                        

  From my ‘Artivist in a Box’ performance in Broadmead Galleries 2022.

My doctorate was in Applied Aesthetics:  how cultural diversity can best be understood through our everyday, aesthetic lives; the sensuality of the  very stuff that defines who we are, this being particularly important as we grow older.    

WHAT I CAN DO Advise on or  review  representational practices, whatever the media, which include older people.

Devise and deliver drama / storytelling workshops using artefacts of any type for the purpose of exploring their aesthetic worth and  significance to a project.  

OTHER ACTIVITY –

I keep updating and expanding on my skills base attending Meisner and improvisation workshops, script writing workshops (recently with Matt Grinter) community theatre workshops with Acta under their Elevate scheme and recently workshops organised by Bristol Old Vic’s Ferment team.   

 I have served as  the lead on Bristol City Council’s  DIY Artists' Network Equality and Inclusion sub-group, as a Theatre Bristol agent  and am a trustee of Travelling Light Theatre.  I am a member of the actors’ union Equity,  Diverse Artists’ Network and Bristol Old Vic’s Artists’ Forum. 

 

THE BLACK OVERCOAT

 

Myself and Rebecca Braccialarghe, as respectively Hecuba and Cassandra, given yet another lease of life in an early draft  of The Black Overcoat. As captured in this image I am  feeling the cold. 

                                             

Another rehearsed reading for our summer slot at our spiritual base – Café 5, Easton Bristol. I hastily adapted early script for the above to fit Richard Worsnop’s theme of War in Times of Love. 

But ‘The Overcoat’ has been a brief working title.  Yes, I am profoundly influenced by Nikolai Gogol and Wolf Mankovitz’s brilliant play “The Bespoke Overcoat” and the relevance of both to anticipated fuel poverty in the U.K. 

There’s potential in this but I am mindful of Gecko Theatre’s recent interpretation of Gogol’s story. The Overcoat — Gecko (geckotheatre.com) I am also aware of the near universal association with the Shelby gang in Peaky Blinders.  And, relevant to Richard's theme, this image of a young Russian man wearing his grandfather's military overcoat on the subway, the back inscribed with anti-Putin slogans.  (A link needed for this). 

A future title might be“Bespoke”, given the connotations of the word.    A counter to the mass-production of warmth which we take for granted whether it’s a new boiler, an anorak or a duvet.  Anyway this is on the back boiler and the script as such has been fun to develop thus far. 

The Overcoat in my script is a character, speaking in verse:-

THE OVERCOAT:  Before you jump to conclusions,

Let me tell you,

I’m a cut above. Superior.

My origins on the back of a fat, greasy sheep,

But the very matter of my being  universal. 

Soaked, swivelled, stretched,

Flung folded, rolled and re-worked

into existence.

 Courtesy of J & J Crombie, Aberdeen.  

 

First the swift caress of the tailor’s chalk,

before  a brutal  intimacy with the very latest treadle machine.

 Courtesy of Mr. Isaac Singer.

 Second, the  tender tickle of the tailor’s needle and the exquisite pull of the waxed cotton.

Third,  a  communion  between myself and yards of  blood red satin lining.

Tiny stitches, a gentle   nibbling as we merge,

masculine and feminine.

 A  fusion.  Of sorts.

And four fittings!  Yes, four! Moulded and massaged over the broad shoulders of the man who

will never pay for me.

 Never pay for me to protect him from winter’s bite.

 Never, from this moment in time, mark him out  as a man of considerable means.……  

Never.      

(and further on in the script)

THE OVERCOAT: Don’t forget I’m superior.  A cut above.

A work of my  tailor’s art.

And you’ve taken me for granted for decades.

On the ample backs of kings and generals,

Prime ministers and presidents,

Or day and night on the shrunken frames of men

In Round-ups,

Labour exchanges,

Marches or

Remembrance days,

No  poppy  on my lapel

Just a grubby, pawn ticket.

Take care when you unpick my stitching,

Take care when you deconstruct me. 

– I can’t be discrete –

AGE QUEER in ARTIVIST IN A BOX

  Bristol's multi-talented storyteller Kabbo Hue Ferdinand  Kabbo Hue Ferdinand | Facebook organized an amazing festival in March:The_Altered_Festival in the Galleries Shopping Centre in Bristol. This was intended to highlight the strong relationship between local artists and political activism.  This took place in a former large scale shop unit now occupied by an organization called Keep Art It.   

Artivist in a Box was a sealed off area in the shop window used as a performance space with microphone and outside speaker so you could be heard by the shoppers passing by.  Joined by good friend and fellow member of Odd Lot Theatre we jumped at the opportunity to showcase our work.  I performed a spoken word piece "Oddly Enough" from (heavens) 2020 and then some  monologues from Age Queer.  

The intention here was obviously to provide passers by with food for thought and if possible to do a bit of canvassing once I'd finished.  I did get some audience!  So once Andreea had performed a very moving piece she'd written about Ukraine we went off for a cup of coffee.  Something I realise, now I'm writing this, is a taken-for-granted activity not available to the Ukrainian families Andreea had drawn our attention to. 

Live Rehearsed Reading of Age Queer

 

 My first experience of organizing a rehearsed reading. I learnt a lot!  Big thanks to my actors: Alan Coveney, Tom Cuthbertson and Poppy Germaine and my director Ellie Chadwick. Publicity and images below.

               The Graffiti Room, Trinity Centre, Trinity Road, Bristol BS2 0NW.   

                                          Thursday, January 20^th., 7.00 p.m.

‘I want to be age queer by rejecting not my age but the fixed meanings that people assign to it, the roles and stereotypes that I decline to abide by.” (Applewhite, A. 2019:43)

Sickened by institutional ageism in U.K. society, a sociologist  explores age queerness through the lives of Alan, an architect and gay man and Norma, a barmaid, occasional sex worker and later in life, an artist.  He  guides us through the formative, political events and settings in 1980’s London that shape their  world-view, individuality and which ground their ongoing friendship.  The play takes the form of an ethnography,  the sociologist  alternately intruder and provocateur within the action, or guide, critic and narrator outside it. 

The play considers whether Alan’s  and Norma’s radical, sensual pasts inform their resistance to  the ageist stereotyping and challenges to their autonomy they face  in later life.  Is being age queer a viable identity?    

The play runs for approximately 1hr. 20 mins.

[This script was supported by Theatre West in 2021 under their Arts Council funded, Zooming Ahead Scheme for Women Writers  Theatre West - What (theatre-west.co.uk)]

Some images (thank you Andreea Brown and Rebecca Braccialarghe)

I wish I had booked longer, allowing time for a proper Q & A rather than asking audience to scribble comments on the back of the programme sheets. However some good and useful feedback:-

Really enjoyed it, lots to like, very engaging. Thought the framing of the 1981 year / era worked well.  The images were very emotive eg. Bobby Sands.  One of my favourite bits was Brian the well meaning Silver Quester / Funeral Director. Some of these bits of dialogue were hilarious and highly accurate insightful. Think this could be developed further. Excellent writing.  Characters seemed very real.  Liked the use of props eg. toys.  Liked how Norma’s hunger strike linked back to Bobby Sands.

 

Script was beautiful, almost poetic.  The flow of the story was good.  I was able to keep track very easily.  I felt the scene at Mark’s house could have been put further towards the beginning to prevent the back and forth.  I cried at the end.   Truly captivating.

 

 I feel that it took shape and told a story in an imaginative, funny and moving way. The actors did a great job of it, I thought the young woman (Penny??) was really good - very focused, intensely human and likeable, great to watch on stage - they all did well, I thought.

I thought the scene at the door of the lockdown residential home was strong and got me all emotional - it portrayed the sense of powerlessness on both sides of the door with raw clarity. The loss of identity with that awful night dress!

 

Things that worked: Scene with 2 characters and charity worker in the café.  80s scene with brother of the artist who owned the flat.  80’s scene with policeman and Bobby Sands poster.

Things I found  challenging; Not sure about the sociologist too much telling and not enough showing?  Personally found the ending very sad but maybe that’s the reality!

 

Verbal comments:  The play highlighted how much age, as in later life,  is neglected in society and nobody takes account of how different we all are.  One audience member made reference to relatives whose lives  were reflected in the play.  How accurate the care home setting was. 

 

ACTORS’ feedback:  What about Norma and Alan being played by actors in their late thirties who might better capture both ends of the age spectrum in the play?

There’s a need to clarify the degree to which the sociologist objectifies his research subjects, Alan and Norma and the extent to which he empathises with them.

+ a very useful debrief session with Tom Cuthbertson giving me more thoughts for clarifying the script. 

 

 

 

 

Odd Lot Theatre at Cafe 5

 

 

Much of July  has been spent developing Odd Lot Theatre’s “Odd Soiree” at  Café 5 here in Easton, Bristol.    Here’s the programme:-                                      

ODD LOT THEATRE AT CAFÉ 5  July 17^th

             A fundraiser for Bristol Refugee Rights   https://www.bristolrefugeerights.org

1.      Space 1. Devised by Tom Hayes

2.      Space 2.  Written and performed by Andreea Brown.

3.      ‘How Many Things Can You Think About…..?’  A very recent and provisional  response to contrasting events this year:  the solidarity of Glasgow residents in preventing two of their neighbours from removal by Immigration officers and the brutal treatment by Border Force staff of E.U. citizens arriving at U.K. airports for legitimate reasons.  Verbatim accounts of this treatment are drawn from articles in the Guardian newspaper.  

[The suitcase in this performance belonged to Liz Cashdan’s  grandfather, Elias Trilling who was a refugee from Russia in 1917. It then travelled around the world with her father, Samuel Trilling.  Liz was named Elisabeth after her grandfather.]

4.      Incident at the Frontier, 1938.  Written and performed by Liz Cashdan.

5.      The Right Thing A retired couple stumble on the realities of today’s world. At a doorstep press briefing Toby responds to criticism of their response.  Written and performed by Richard Worsnop

 BRIEF INTERVAL

6.      Monologue from Age Queer written and performed by Jo Cross. This script is supported by Theatre West under their Zooming Ahead scheme for women writers Theatre West (theatre-west.co.uk)

7.      How Long And Odd 9 Minutes Are written and performed by Rebecca Braccialarghe.

This  links patriarchy and a need for change to events including George Floyd’s murder and community resistance to immigration enforcement raids

8.      Supernova  written and performed by Andreea Brown, from her forthcoming anthology.

9.      I Come From the Cut - written and performed by Poppy Jermaine from the perspective of Alex Groves, a character featured in Odd Lot’s forthcoming project: R.I.P [Working Title]. This poem was inspired by Robert Seatter’s poem I Come From. 

 

 

We all needed the boost that developing this show gave us and we benefitted from rehearsing at WildCat Studios off the Gloucester Road.  After all this time it was fantastic to be working face to face.  Or almost!   Liz Cashdan could  join us via Rebecca’s laptop and  Tom Hayes rehearsed his Under Van Man role via mobile phone. 

A reminder, given the length of time between blog posts, Odd Lot Theatre is a multicultural and importantly, an all-ages inclusive professional company.

We raised £120.00 for Bristol Refugee Rights.  Hopefully we can put “How Many Things Can You Think About…? on a more formal, research and development footing.

 

Age Queer Final Reading

 

                                                                                             Image:Theatre West

 Much of  Spring this year has been spent on the Age Queer script.  I could not have chanced on a lovelier group of people while attached to Theatre West’s Zooming Ahead Scheme. theatre-west.co.uk  Dramaturg Bea Roberts, Artistic Directors Ann Stiddard and Alison Comely  and Alan Coveney, Noni Lewis and Gareth Kennerley the actors delivering the final reading on June 14^th by webinar.  Here are some of the comments posted afterwards:-

‘ Loved this script! Very moving, and very authentic. Congratulations and good luck!’

‘Such a wonderful script! Love how you've structured the scenes to play with the passing of time.’

‘That was wonderfully moving, funny and inspiring (from the P.O.V. of someone 70ish!!) I enjoyed all the performances; it is beautifully written, original and ingenious in many ways and I cannot think of any ways in which I think it could be improved. I'll look out for a future performance. Thank you!’

‘Very much enjoyed the detailed history of the early 80s for the characters; all felt very true.  Established very strongly the history, activism, and engagement that gets negated when older (in others' eyes).  Decline of Norma at the end was strongly written and acted.  Thanks.’

….and I was grateful for critique to help me develop the script further:-

‘I liked the way you structured the piece a lot, though I think there might be more room for thematic continuity from one section to another? I’m not sure I totally understood the gesture - But I did really enjoy it.’

‘I enjoyed the play and think it has a great relevance.  I just think it lost its way slightly in the middle.  I would like to have known more about the characters in middle life.  Nicely done though.’

Currently, the script runs  for approx. 1 hour 15 minutes as read and sticking to the brief (as originally set by Theatre West).  Whether I have a production opportunity or not, I need to develop some of the scenes, refine the dialogue and so forth.  I’ve been mulling over how Norma’s and Alan’s middle years could best be illuminated.  

Thankfully the reading was recorded.  This  has helped me develop  an article/essay explaining more detailed thinking behind Age Queer which I hope will be published online or at least on this blog.  This is intended as a starting point for discussion, workshops and the like. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1000 Witches and Other Stories

 

A busy start to 2021. This began with online rehearsals for “1000 Witches”, the title given to the ongoing (I hope) Creative Histories of Witchcraft project. Creative Histories of Witchcraft – France 1790-1940 (wordpress.com) 

This had been  suspended throughout the first year of Covid but thankfully revived just before Xmas.  We did an online performance in February, working as best we could with props arranged around our laptops.  Quite an experience.  I had one ghastly moment, when there were some 60+ audience members awaiting the start of the play and I had somehow been cut off from the Webinar.   It would have to be me.

All told an absolute privilege working with Dr. Will Pooley of the University of Bristol History Department, the playwright Poppy Corbett, the poet, Anna Kisby Compton, the Director Ellie Chadwick and these formidable  actors: Esme Patey-Ford, Tobias Weatherburn, Alan Coveney, Matthew Bulgo and Nicola Burnett-Smith. Nicola  also composed an amazing score and a song for the play.   

Second up I was awarded professional support  by Theatre West to develop “Age Queer” under their Zooming Ahead scheme for women writers. Zooming Ahead Writers.pdf (theatre-west.co.uk) This has just begun and I am currently developing a second draft under the auspices of dramaturg, Bea Roberts.  Bea has also introduced me to a  range of new writers I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading.

 I also loved Bea’s own critically acclaimed play, “And then come the Nightjars”.  And Then Come The Nightjars – Bea Roberts An account of an older, Devon, dairy farmer, Michael,  the traditional affection and relationship he has with his herd and its horrific cull due to foot and mouth disease. That this event unfolds through Michael’s relationship with his vet and friend, Jeff makes the piece all the more affecting.    I loved it because firstly, the experiences of ageing farmers or indeed country men and women  are so rarely  depicted.  Secondly because my late father, as an agricultural auctioneer,  would have instantly recognised Michael and empathised with him.

I have a Twitter account but regrettably do not tweet myself.  It serves to keep me abreast of positive initiatives in anti-ageism activism around the world.  Perhaps this UN report due out at the end of this month will shake things up in the U.K. The will is there but not the action. 

Kicking off a global conversation about ageism: launch of the first UN Global report on ageism (who.int)

 Finally Odd Lot Theatre's "Odd Stories" features a new work every Friday evening.

(6) Odd Lot Theatre Company | Facebook  

So proud of everyone.  

Odd Lot Theatre Company

 

Despite autumn seeing us going into a second lockdown, we have been as productive as restrictions have allowed. 

Here we all are via the medium-of-no-choice:-

The summer months resulted in seven, short, socially distanced films on the theme of “Odd”.   A three minute compilation of these was submitted to a Documental Theatre project as “Odd Stories: New Narratives on the Trajectory of Life”.   Our first foray into the public domain! http://documentaltheatre.co.uk/

Then another opportunity.   A big thanks to Diverse Artists’ Network for providing an amazing evening of entertainment on 16^th October at the Centre of Gravity Art Space. https://www.centreofgravity.uk/timetable.   Andreea Gheorghe and myself were delighted to be included in this. We performed extracts from the above, including:  Rebeccca Braccialarghe’s “Odd, Odd, Odd” which perfectly  captures  our ethos; Liz Cashdan’s evocation of lockdown in her “Passover 2020,  Andreea’s “Friday Night” and my “Oddly Enough”.   

It was a great evening,  albeit a strange experience performing again. This was all a bit last-minute and I know that all the other “Oddments” as Liz calls us, would have enjoyed it as much as Andreea and I did.    I felt it was so much easier to communicate directly to a live audience rather than to a camera and   I have a lot to learn in that respect. 

All told though, these last few months  I have been  so, so grateful for  the hard work undertaken by  Andreea and Poppy Jermaine in pulling us all together film and technology wise.   Also Liz Cashdan for charging our creative batteries on a regular basis with her writing exercises. And of course Liz, Louisa Fearnley and Poppy for taking on the business of Zoom hosting over the last few months. But a thank you to every one of my Odd friends for helping me keep body and soul together this year.

And we have a Facebook Page!    https://www.facebook.com/OddLotTheatreCompany.  Currently this features our DAN performance and Rebecca's wonderful "Odd, Odd, Odd".  All our  films  will be posted there shortly. 

Our current work in research and development is “R.I.P.” (working title) directed by Poppy.   The action revolves around a contentious, community mural commissioned during Covid restrictions in a provincial town.  The message of the mural is mysteriously subverted by graffiti on a regular basis drawing together the competing perspectives and experiences of local residents and tradespeople.  All this is likely to be filmed rather than live performed.   

I continue work on “Age Queer” – or the more likely title - “The Queering of Age”,  inevitably to accommodate the Covid experience.