Guest Blog: Rebecca Dunn - “So what's next?”

Rebecca Dunn writes a Guest Blog for West End Frame about her journey as a founding member and co-Artistic Director of Fluff Productions. She plays Pamela in their latest show, World Enough And Time, which runs at the Park Theatre (Park90) until Sunday 13th April 2014. 

Rebecca Dunn

From as early as I can remember I dreamt of Hollywood. There was a brief flirtation with the idea of teaching when I was about four but as soon as I became aware that acting was a ‘thing’ and people did it as a job, I was obsessed with the mission to convince my parents to put me on the stage. 

Thankfully they resisted my pleas to, “Please get me an agent!” (I had already cast myself opposite Macaulay Culkin in many a movie in my mind) which was clearly a good call as I am desperately sensitive and, at that age, couldn’t have coped with the rejection involved. The fact that I came home and threw myself on the sofa, a mess of hysterical tears when I was nine, having been cast as the Narrator in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory in the local drama group rather than my desired role of Veruca Salt, says it all I think. 

However I never envisioned myself as a producer and indeed never set out to be one; it's just kind of happened by default. Fluff emerged from a group of us recent graduates from Drama Studio London wanting, quite simply, to put on a play. Many of us were still without agents and seeking to showcase our talents - but in the main we were just eager to be doing something creative.

I had come across Be My Baby by Amanda Whittington in the Royal Court bookshop and this began our journey. We asked Andrew Neil, one of our drama-school teachers, to direct it. Not only did he agree but he wrote us another fantastic all female piece, Snapshots, to complement Be My Baby and form a double bill. It was more successful than any of us had imagined. Not all of us got agents, but what emerged was something far more valuable and has gone on to shape my career and my attitude to the business. 

We quickly became aware of how unusual it was to be an all-female group and that there was real need for more female roles in the theatre. With more and more people turning to us in the bar at The Old Red Lion after the show and saying, “So what's next?” we quickly decided to continue producing new writing for all-female casts. None of us had any experience or knowledge of producing so we very much learnt ‘on the job’. Andrew Neil played a crucial role in setting us on our path and we gained hugely from his wealth of experience. We sought advice wherever possible (still do) and worked collaboratively to bring the shows to production. 

I have recently been really pleased to see a re-emergence of collaborative theatre, with actor-lead theatre companies popping up all over the place. Although, in the main, we received a huge amount of support when we started out with Fluff, there was also an element of theatrical snobbery surrounding the notion of the ‘actor-producer’. People would ask if our shows were vanity projects, and whilst I would never deny that a certain amount of the drive came from our desire as actors to be performing, I’d argue there are many ways we could all have done that without putting in tireless hours of commitment and money into our projects. Staging our own shows was never the easy option that’s for sure! 

Our overriding desire was to create something new. The National Theatre was begun by a bunch of actors, but somewhere along the line someone came along and decided that to be a director you needed an English literature degree, to be a producer you needed to be a businessperson, and mixing these things seemed not to be encouraged. I slightly wonder where this left the actor. The other day I met a young, recently graduated female actor and she said, “I feel like as actors we’re taught to be a bit passive”. I found that really depressing and just hope that it is changing. 

What I have learnt from the bumpy road of being an actor-producer has been invaluable to myself personally, and as an actress. I believe our collaborative approach has seen only benefits in the quality and development of our work. For us all, it has opened up the world of this crazy business and introduced us to other avenues within it. A couple of years ago my co-artistic director, producer and best buddy, Emily Jones, decided to leave acting behind but did not wish to leave the industry. She made a positive change in direction, is now a successful casting director and loving every minute. 

Clearly, undertaking multiple roles can be highly stressful and sometimes it feels as if you are splitting yourself in two. The demands of being an actor differ greatly from those of producing; they take two very different mindsets. I’m quite good at changing hats, but I can see that it would not be for everyone. We have generally been fortunate to work with extraordinarily supportive people. It has been particularly critical to work with directors who empathise with the demands of the actor-manager and who value this kind of creativity rather than see it as a hindrance. I try to discipline myself that once in the rehearsal room I am an actor and nothing else, but it helps to have a director to remind me and make sure production issues are saved for post-rehearsal or referred to the other producers. Teamwork is vital. Emily and I, for instance, complement each other in that I am generally a whirl of unstructured ideas and thoughts and she, with her natural efficiency, will organise that into some kind of coherent plan of action.

There are times when I wonder where my career would be if I had put as much effort into my personal acting career as I have into Fluff, but I can say now that I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I have always been better at working hard when others are relying on me rather than operating just for myself. I am still an actor first and won’t deny that I dream of the day when we can afford to hire in an external producer, but we will always be very hands-on.

2014 marks our tenth anniversary. We began this year with the fantastically successful Fluff Shorts project where we teamed up with No More Page 3 for a play-writing competition and staged the three winning entries at Park Theatre. World Enough and Time, by Sarah Sigal and directed by Justin Audibert, opens at Park 90 at Park Theatre on 19th March. It’s a piece that is very important to us and have been developing with Sarah for many years. The play explores women’s relationships to power and politics in Britain in 2013, 1936 and 1646. 

In interweaving three narratives from different time periods, the piece demonstrates the diverse ways in which women have found their voice in times of political change. It also marks our new venture into working with young people. We are planning a number of workshops in schools talking to 12-15 year olds about politics, feminism and their relationship to, and engagement with the society in which they live. Our aim is to encourage them to become more engaged with politics and the wider world decisions affecting them. This will serve as a foundation for an education programme for the company, something we are very excited about. 

So we enter our second decade ever growing and keen to take on new challenges and continue creating new work, discovering talent and, it is to be hoped, encouraging the emergence of further female-led theatre. Although my childhood Hollywood dreams are yet to be fulfilled, I can look back at my ten years as an actor with no regrets!

Rebecca Dunn

World Enough And Time runs at the Park Theatre (Park90) until Sunday 13th April 2014.
Please visit www.parktheatre.co.uk for further information and tickets.

Photo Credit: Karla Gowlett

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