Taking part in National Theatre Connections, directors are presented with the exciting opportunity of working on new and specially commissioned plays. This year, the Lincoln Young Company is proud to explore the creative talents of Simon Armitage with his provocative play, Eclipse.

My role within the production company is that of Shadow Director, helping our Company Director, Martyn Horner-Glister, with the creative vision of the piece. Myself and the other Shadow Director, Robert Clarke, have taken turns staging scenes independently, and come together as a team to evaluate our ideas. I think we’d all agree that having three people contributing to the conception of the piece has been as challenging as it has been eye-opening; I can better the collaborative effort that goes into staging a play, but at the same time, struggled to maintain a harmonious vision for the piece between us.

Taking on a more senior role has thereby offered the opportunity to appreciate the massive impact the director has on the overall outcome of the work produced. And as a result, it’s made me step back and consider my own directorial style in relation to my previous experience with the company as an actor. Directors can be intimidating figures and so I believe any good director should approach each actor as an individual, thus breaking down the barrier between them. In my experience, being able to freely communicate with the actors has been essential to creating a safe space for them to intimately explore their character and develop a creative dialogue with the director.

The text of Eclipse also offers an interesting mix of challenges for a director. Although it’s a play written for young performers, the language and tone require a mature approach. Martyn Horner-Glister met Simon Armitage at the National Theatre Connections’ Directors’ Weekend. Armitage stressed that although the play is not based upon any real events, he was inspired by a story in the press in which a girl disappeared within a small, close-knit community. Presented with this real life story, it feels like there’s a lot of pressure to treat Armitage’s play with respect and maturity for the tragedy it poses.

Armitage uses long, embellished monologues from each character to communicate the moment when our main character, Lucy Lime, just seemed to vanish. Monologues can be a challenge for any actor, let alone a director, to establish on stage in a compelling way, especially when it’s arguable that today’s audiences expect spectacle and scale. One of my responsibilities is to make sure the actors are able to understand the work they have been presented with, and often this can mean sitting with actors deconstructing the text so that it becomes more approachable and less daunting. I’ve even found that running lines using bizarre, unconventional exercises such as using different accents or with exaggerated delivery can make the actor more comfortable to play with the interpretation of their character, as well as keeping the rehearsal process engaging after they’ve read the same monologue a hundred times.

Overall, there is a feeling that this is Lincoln Young Company’s most daunting project to date. We’re all being pushed out of our comfort zones to produce the best performance we can for our first extended run at our home theatre, Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, and debut performance at the Curve Theatre in Leicester. Furthermore, on a personal note, there is the added pressure that this may be my third and final year with the company. This drives me even further to create a compelling, intelligent and overall blast of a performance. So watch this space for exciting discoveries in the creative process.

Eclipse is playing at the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre from 8-10 March. Eclipse will then be performed at the Curve Theatre Leicester in May 2016, dates TBC. 

Kyle Richard Lee Higgins is a third-year drama undergraduate with a love of all things arts related, currently undergoing his degree at the University of Lincoln. Throughout his life he has always undertaken challenges from performing within the Edinburgh fringe festival, to amateur, semi-professional theatre. He is a dedicated writer and hopes to continue this throughout his life.