So we have come to the end of our Wildcard Full House programme and we just want to take the time to really drive home, for the people at the back, how inventive we were to come up with such a clever and equivocal name…
WILDCARD FULL HOUSE
Wildcard Full House
W F H
Working From Home
Working from…
Home, yes -
‘Cause of the lockdown?
No, the first one!
Everyone get it? Great. Now I can lay it to rest and endure more sleepless nights trying to plan something even better for the next programme. What will they think of next?!
No, but in all seriousness. These past 6…7?…8?!! months have been the most bizarre, horrendous but also unifying months any of us have ever encountered. We at Wildcard have been unbelievably lucky to stay open and thriving throughout this tricky time and our hearts go out to the many theatres and theatre companies that have had to close for a while; BUT WE WILL BE BACK, bigger than ever, when the time is right. For now, hold tight everyone and let’s ride this (2nd) wave together.
I want to cast your minds back to March, when we launched WFH. Our aim was to keep artists connected to their craft and the industry, and to enable creatives to learn another skill through lockdown. What we didn’t anticipate was - as well as the ‘connecting people to their industry and craft’ bit - how much we found the programme connected people to each other. It is mad to think that all over the world there have been people logging onto this Zoom software thing, that nobody had ever heard of before, and almost always successfully (give or take a few wobbly Wi-Fi’s and struggles to find the unmute buttons) connecting with a whole new group of creatives every couple of weeks, and no two of those people were in the actual same room! Call me old-fashioned, but I for one am baffled.
This year should be all about looking forward: To the future, to better times, to times of hugging and high-fiving without immediately getting heart palpitations ‘cause you’ve run out of hand-sani, and to times of being in cram-packed theatres, clubs and tubes (yes even tubes!) once again, and loving. every. minute.
But before we do… let’s take a trip down memory lane and look back over WFH to see what we actually did and how many of you wonderful people out there got involved in it all!
“WOW EM I HEARD SO MUCH ABOUT THIS WILDCARD FULL HOUSE MALARKEY. WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT?!”
Well, thanks for asking. I’ll bloomin-well tell ya…
10 Free Online Workshops with:
Zia Ahmed, Oladipo Agboluaje, Emma Dennis-Edwards, Tanika Gupta, James Graham, Patrick Hughes, Anna Jordan, Dierdre O’Halloran, Paul Smith, and Simon Stephens, who delivered the most varied, inspiring and soul-warming workshops.
Through these online workshops we engaged a total of:
850 participants.
Pay-What-You-Can Weekly Acting Workouts
(4 times per-week)
facilitated by Olivier Award-Winning Director Donnacadh O’Briain.
Through these PWYC Workouts we engaged:
Over 2000 participants (and still counting).
An open call-out for written scripts.
The winning playwrights received £100, a fully paid rehearsed reading & follow up sessions to improve the script & project’s prospects.
With the open call-out we:
Received 97 entries. Selected 4 plays. Engaged 234 audience members and employed 18 artists.
An online sharing of ELECTROLYTE as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival.
Electrolyte had 3,275 views with 1,754 unique views.
It was the most watched show during the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival’s Online Programme.
A 12 episode Podcast series covering a range of topics including: financial support for artists, an insight into how regional venues are adapting to survive & a Musical Theatre series.
The podcast episodes have had 758 unique downloads, and have been downloaded in 13 countries… including 50 times in the USA!
SHOW YOURSELVES, WHOEVER YOU ARE.
So if you add all that up you get… a shed-load of incredible creatives supporting each other, keeping active, learning, listening, embracing, educating and helping us spread some of that sweet Wildcard love.
OR
7,232 people engaged online from March - September 2020
To those who watched, listened, wrote, acted, participated, directed, produced, re-tweeted, shared, laughed, cried, emailed and everything in between, we thank you. From the bottom of our hearts.
It has brought us so much joy feeling connected to you all throughout this time and we hope it has done you, too. We are still here planning away behind the scenes on what’s going to happen next, so for now - stay safe and look after yourselves and others over this next month. And do keep in touch! But no actual touching OKAY? Good.
Emily Stott
Founding Member
SCENE/CHANGE@_scene_change_
