Phelim McDermott reported recently…

It’s amazing but it is now five years since I first dived into Open Space after reading Harrison’s book. At that time I had never been to an open space event had no idea what it looked like but knew it in my bones.Since then we have done Devoted and Disgruntled 5 times and done one in Scotland, one Brazil, one in in NYC and one in Newcastle will be doing another one In Newcastle in the coming months. Been asked to set one up in LA etc.. its become a growing community of people who are devoted to theatre and want to use the fuel of their disgruntlement to change.

I remember that the thing that really inspired me to read the book in the first place was Harrison’s intro saying OS belonged to everyone and would never be certified/owned/contained etc we should all just do it. It reminded me of my own feelings about Impro and its relationship to the many attempts to categories, teach, quantify it. In the end Impro just was and would appear where it wanted. It also reminded me of Robert Le Page’s advice to “Mummenchance” theatre that they must “Give away the recipe.” He was referring specifically to the recipe for their squidgy changing putty like masks. But he meant this as a wider metaphor to look after our own creativity. We must gift the recipe not guard it.

In this spirit here’s our fifth annual report on the state of people who are passionate and responsible about theatre. The event is an annual 2.5 event on third day we reopen the space for whatever people want to still talk about and do.

So here’s the report and here’s a visual representation done from the report by wordle which i love. It’s a big theatre word sitting in a nexus of other issues! I think it gives a better feeling representation of the event than the report.