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Emilia Teglia chats about On The Line
Writer and Director Emilia Teglia has developed On The Line with members from Camden’s Action Youth Boxing Intervention. It performs at Stanley Arts in January and VAULT Festival in February, and we caught up along with her to search out out extra.
Tell us a little bit about On The Line. What can audiences anticipate?
You’ll be hanging out with Tia and Kai, lifelong buddies who’ve grown up on the identical council property. They’ll chat to you about that mad day they skipped college to go to the brand new schoolmate Sienna’s mansion – as a result of “someone’s got to check it ain’t just Tik Tok filters” – and the way their lives modified ceaselessly that day.
On the Line is a Gen-Y play. It’s fast-paced with twists and turns, wit, deep themes, banter and emotion, and all instructed in modern London slang. It’s rapid and trustworthy. It’s a bit like scrolling via your Instagram feed nevertheless it’s actual. It’s based mostly on the true experiences of a gaggle of younger individuals from Camden’s Action Youth Boxing Intervention.
On The Line offers with quite a lot of socially related themes. Can you give us some perception into these and the significance of sharing them?
It’s about rising up on the backside of the social ladder while having to barter life-long loyalties, household values, aspirations, and handed-down generational trauma. It’s additionally about the true boundaries to social mobility, the complicated experiences of people behind the statistics. In Camden, like in different areas of London, the wealthy and poor hole is widening however is just not uncommon to see a pupil from a really rich household sitting subsequent to a pupil residing in poverty.
The consciousness is painful. Armani*, an outspoken sixteen-year-old woman residing in an overcrowded scenario, put this plainly through the writing course of: “Our school is basically a prison for poor kids with the random children of famous leftie actors or Labour politicians.” Her brother Tyrese*, who has ADHD and a historical past of gang affiliation, talks about a few of the richest streets within the borough. His eyes sparkle as he describes the flashy ‘whips’ (vehicles) and the ‘cribs’ (homes). Then he will get gloomy. He says: “this level of rich makes me feel sad. There’s people who’ve got too much, and we got jack.” All that is in On The Line, verbatim.
You have a wonderful promo picture in your present – it actually caught the group’s eye right here. How did the design come collectively?
I’m glad you might be curious concerning the picture. People say it makes complete sense after watching the play, so I’m not going to present too many spoilers.
Like the remainder of On The Line’s artistic course of, the design developed collaboratively. We wished to indicate the ‘fish out of water’ essence of the story and on the identical time the grit and the harshness of Tia and Kai’s background, in addition to their playfulness. For the photograph, I approached Paul Grieve, a road photographer that has a expertise for capturing defiance, humour and tenderness in his portraits of on a regular basis individuals. That was necessary as a result of we additionally wanted to convey the superb friendship between the 2 protagonists and their ‘one front’ in opposition to adversity. Props have been lent by buddies and sourced by our superb Assistant Stage Manager Andreea Pieleanu. We shot on Chalcots Estate in Camden, the precise setting of the play. Our main actress Giorgia Valentino, who can be an extremely gifted portrait photographer took the headshot of Zacchaeus Kayode which ended up within the remaining picture. Then Max Batty did the magic along with his graphics. Max has been designing Odd Eyes Theatre’s posters and guide covers for the previous ten years and was instantly on board with the idea and aesthetic. It takes a village…
On The Line has been touring round colleges and we’ve seen some nice suggestions. How has that been, and are there any variations between enjoying in colleges and enjoying in theatre venues?
Huge variations! To start with, theatre audiences include a very totally different perspective. They’ve purchased their ticket and are decided to have a great time, a return on their funding. They’re straightforward. They reply, react, droop disbelief instantly and get misplaced into the world of the play.
In colleges, we’re enjoying to teams of youngsters who’ve usually solely skilled theatre as a part of their statutory training: they’re by some means compelled to look at it: it’s not a alternative. So that’s already setting their perspective otherwise. They sit down, legs stretched, arms crossed or of their pockets, wanting unfazed with a ‘show me what you’ve bought’ type of perspective. And then they hear the language, they begin to get the story, the acquainted Drill and R&B tunes come up, they get the jokes. You see them begin leaning ahead, elbowing one another, laughing, gasping, and so they can’t get sufficient of it. Teachers flip to the low reaching college students to ask the that means of a few of the phrases. It’s all in London slang – lastly one thing they’re masters at.
Most importantly, college performances are adopted by Odd Eyes’ Creative Debate workshops. The college students have an opportunity to tell us what they consider the problems within the play and develop scenes and quick performs based mostly on their response to the story and on their private expertise. Some of their tales go on to be developed professionally, and that is how On The Line was developed.
Finally, what’s subsequent for On The Line and Odd Eyes Theatre?
More theatre and college excursions and a display adaptation of On The Line. The movie shall be one other nice alternative to contain younger individuals within the rewriting course of and as solid. Funders, producers and colleges concerned about partnering with us, get in contact!
*Names have been modified to take care of confidentiality
Our due to Emilia for taking the time to speak with us. You can discover out extra details about Odd Eyes Theatre on their web site.
On The Line performs at Stanley Arts on Thursday 19 January (tickets and information) and VAULT Festival on Saturday 11 February (tickets and information).
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