GOING OFF SCRIPT – An Interview with Thunk It Theatre
Theatres in the UK have been dark for almost a year now. 2020, really was a terrifying time to graduate, and even more so if you were planning a career in the arts.
But from the pandemic, Becky Lennon and Jules Risingham set up Thunk It Theatre, still determined to use theatre and workshop settings to connect creatives. Against all the odds, their creativity and ability to adapt has seen them make it a success.
I caught up with the two friends and co-founders to talk taking theatre online, setting up a theatre company and Flares, which I should tell you is an 80’s nightclub in York.
So in your own words, what is Thunk It Theatre?
Jules: We call ourselves a collaborative theatre company. It’s all about bringing as many people in and getting involved, community, making sure everybody has the input that want to be involved in it.
Becky: We go by the three Cs – Collaborate, Community and Creativity. So that’s like the main ethos of Thunk It.
It’s interesting you say community straight away. How do you think having a community around you has impacting launching a theatre company?
Jules: It’s made it so much easier.
Becky: More enjoyable cause you’re getting that fuller experience as a creative delivering it. It’s just nice to have a group of creatives around, rather than just be, just us two making all the decisions. It makes it a fuller approach rather than it being too stressful. It’s really great.
Jules: Also if it’s just me and Becky, it kind of just becomes two people’s perspective on the world. We want it to be coming from everywhere. Rather than just us two, cause that would get boring after a while.
You both graduated from drama school in a pandemic. What was it like coming into the arts at that time and how did your experience play into what you did after graduation?
“I couldn’t have done it without her!” – Becky Lennon, Thunk It Theatre
Becky: The honest answer is it was awful. We started planning Thunk It in the February. Then, myself and Jules were writing dissertations, doing final projects.
Once uni was done it was like, ‘oh now what? We have this idea. We can’t see each other. We can’t see anyone else. The whole point of what we want to make is that we’re bringing people together. How do we do that?’
It felt really daunting and really stressful and scary. It turned into some sort of crazy amount of adrenaline that then sparked so much. We were really lucky, I think, that myself and Jules are quite like that. We’re very logical thinkers.
Jules: We were both obviously in our final year and so this build up had been coming. You need to know exactly what you’re going to do the second you graduate, otherwise you’re going into an abyss.
We got to that point we were like ‘we’ve got a plan. It’s going to be great’. Then it happened and it was just like, ‘so we need to wipe the whiteboard and change everything we we’re doing’.
Becky: I think, in the long run. It’s helped us to develop is what I would say.
Jules: It really gave us kind of a kick to learn how to properly adapt and now when we do things, we need Plan A, Plan B, Plan C to the Z. It does work now and we do have a good system which is probably caused by graduating in a pandemic.
Do you think having each other helps?
Becky: I couldn’t have done it without her! Honestly, looking at solo theatre companies I have no idea how they do it. It’s just having someone else to bounce off.
We don’t sugar coat things anymore. If somethings not working we’re like ‘scrap that, move on. Lets do something else’. It’s got a much easier relationship professionally ‘cause we always tell each other, ‘yeah that’s bad’, ‘we can’t do that’ or what can we do better.
Jules: It’s great because we both have such different skill sets, that kind of complement each other nicely. So when we’re doing things there’s always one of us that’s able to like oh yeah, I enjoy doing that and the other one is like I hate doing that and the other way around.
You guys have done a lot over the the past few months. I wanted to chat about your project with Kyra Women, ‘The Bad Bored Women of the Rooms’. How did that project come about and how have you made it work online?
Jules: We saw about this project that Wonder Fools were doing call positive stories for negative times where they had gotten these five incredible writers to make these five wonderful pieces in response to the current situation.
We saw the little prologue for the ‘The Bad Bored Women of The Rooms’ and were so excited. We were like ‘this is perfect’ and straight away Becky was like, ‘I’ve worked with this amazing company called Kyra’. They are incredible.
They are just the best. They’ve been so lovely. So welcoming. So excited to have more creativity and more exciting projects, it’s been wonderful.
Becky: We have a bit of a motto at Thunk it which is ‘If you don’t ask you don’t get’ which is one thing that the pandemic has taught us. You’ve just got to be a bit cheeky and go for it.
At the point we approached Kyra we had only delivered the five day prompt challenge and our chatter series. We just rang them, and we were like here’s the honest truth, we think it would be good. Luckily Sam, the lady we got in touch with, is a creative herself and was like Yes! We must bring this in.
They’re such an amazing organisation. They champion women. They provide so much support. They’ve been really helpful like progressing thunk it as a company as well as letting us work with their members who are an actual delight.
Jules: You can be having the worst day on a Thursday and then we get to the Kyra session and we just come off and we’re just smiling at each other on zoom. That was so lovely and it always is so lovely. Just amazing members and an amazing team at Kyra.
Becky: You come away just feeling like so much buzz and so much joy and the script’s amazing. The playwright is incredible. Everything about that project just makes us so happy!
“Every time it just brings us so much hope and happiness” – Jules Risingham, Thunk it Theatre
I also wanted to ask about your workshops connecting over 65s with 16-21 year olds through letter writing?
Jules: It’s part of our common ground project the intergeneration project. We thought we’ve got to do something that is going to bring people together a little bit and get people actually talking to each other again.
We hoped that we’d be able to bring loads of people into a room and get them some tea and some biscuits and get them just to sit and chat. Actually, doing it online, it seems super daunting at first but it’s just been really nice to see people connecting
Every time it just brings us so much hope and happiness and connection and all the good things that we want right now.
Becky: We’ve worked with Helmsley Art Centre, York Mind, that have been so incredibly helpful to get to those people that want to be involved.
We ran two workshops independently with the different groups and then we had a mega workshop, we were calling it. It was a big event and we brought them all together.
The feedback for the groups being like we didn’t realise how much we had in common with the younger/older generation. They were like we’ve found some really interesting stuff out. For example, we sent them to a breakout room and they came back in and it was like everyone in this room is choir singer.
With it being online, we could connect across the whole county, the whole country. We had one lady from Amsterdam join.
How important is theatre’s role in creating community?
Becky: I think there’s so much potential. With our project, we noticed that quite a lot of the 65+s either couldn’t access the zoom or just didn’t want to. We created an activity pack version of the workshop to send out. We had people send those back who had been like it’s been something to do in my day.
We’re still creating those connections. It might not be the same level of it but I think it still has a big potential but obviously tech is sometimes a big barrier for people.
How have you both managed your time with part time jobs, other projects and Thunk It?
“People are so much more helpful and want you to succeed more than you think” – Jules Risingham, Thunk It Theatre
Jules: It’s definitely been a learning curve. We still have days when we’re like it’s been a while since we’ve had you know a breather so you know, lets get a cup of tea. This is why I love working with Becky, cause we can have that nice switch between right we need to focus on some work to right lets chill.
It’s always so important for us to communicate with each other. We sit down on zoom and we go through the week. Then we can work around it.
Becky: It’s so hard though, cause like as well as Thunk It, we both work at a few similar jobs at the same time. We do have a bit of freelance work but not as much as we would like but we’re really lucky to have some.
We’re really bad at it, I’m not going to lie to you. We really police each other. This where its good with being friends because we can be like, ‘you need the day off’.
I think being honest about that as well, that we’re not perfect at it. We’re not very good at balancing it and that’s not a good model. But unfortunately, that’s the way it is right now.
Can we talk a little bit about setting up a theatre company, what that process is actually like?
Becky: There is a lot. Setting a company up is not as simple as you think it is. I think the main thing is that there are so many legal structures for organisations that you don’t even think about.
We would say, charitable not for profit organisational aims, however to become those types of organisations there’s so much admin, paper and work and extra people you need on your team. We really struggled finding a legal structure that fits what we run but enables us to get funding.
We basically didn’t know what to do, so we consulted a lot of mentors that we have in the industry. Another company called next door but one and their artistic director, he kind of showed us the ropes of kind of this is what you can do.
It was very kind of chicken and egg, so like we couldn’t do one thing without the other thing, so we had to bite the bullet.
This lady called Jane at York CVS which is like, an organisation for non-profit groups in the city and you can get like free advice and support. She basically went through everything. Sent us all the policies that we need to create and how we create them.
Me and Jules looked at it like, ‘oh god, so much to do’, but then she supported us the whole way through, checking we knew what we were doing.
Jules: People are so much more helpful and want you to succeed more than you think they are. We’ve gotten these massive responses where they’re really trying to help us and make sure that we understand.
Hopefully in the future we can return the favour for someone else, or to them. It’s really nice that businesses, even if they’re like the same as what we want to do it’s nice to build that kind of community. We help each other.
What are you proudest of achieving with Thunk It Theatre?
Jules: So many little moments and it’s not even the overly professional stuff like, obviously we were excited when we got to put a little LTD next to our name.
Honestly the proudest we’ve felt is when we have been doing workshops for a while and suddenly one of the participants really comes out of their shell or they really enjoy, or they really engage. And it’s just such a beautiful moment.
You just feel this overwhelming sense of pride that you’ve brought a little bit of joy or excitement into someone’s life. It’s just really exciting.
Becky: I think it is the small moments. Yesterday we were in the York Press, which is my Grandad’s newspaper that he loves reading and it’s like ‘oh my god my Grandad’s going to see me in the newspaper’.
When we read feedback forms, I find it really hard to not cry. Knowing that’s not just them saying it, cause we’ve seen it happen in front of us. Where like five weeks ago you wouldn’t even come on the camera and now you’re like actively trying to engage with us. It’s just very overwhelming so that makes me very proud.
What are you looking forward to about live theatre coming back?
Jules: So much. I can’t wait to be in a rehearsal room and being able to bring biscuits for our actors and say take a biscuit everyone.
Becky’s always saying I wish we could print stuff out and put it on the wall and look at it and feel that so much. Looking at it on a computer is just not quite the same. It doesn’t have the same gumption.
But just being able to hug people. I want to give Becky a hug. Everyone we work with a hug.
Becky: I’m really excited for the commute to the theatre. Having that walk to wherever we’re going to rehearse and then having that time to digest what we’ve just done.
I don’t like it online. It’s so much better to have things. And just the vibe of a theatre helps bring energy. It’s really hard when you’re working with people’s home environments.
I’m a big fan of like going for a hot chocolate break or a bringing a little take away hot chocolate to the rehearsal room, just having that little treat.
Jules: And that separation. Like when you’re working in your home and you’re sleeping in your home, it messes with you in so many ways.
And beyond theatre, what are you looking forward to after lockdown?
Both: Flares!
Becky: Going to Flares
Jules: Going to Flares dance floor.
Becky: Getting dressed up in fancy dress, with the whole squad and going to Flares on the rubix cube dancefloor.
Jules: We want to boogie. We want to be listening to come on Eileen in our free cowboy hats we got with our drinks.
Help us keep the City Girl Network running by supporting us via Patreon for the price of a cheap cup of coffee- just £2 a month. For £3 a month you can also get yourself a Patreon exclusive 10% off any of our ticketed events! You can also support us by following us on Instagram, and by joining our City Girl Network (city-wide) Facebook group.
Written By Lauren Waugh
