“ ...Scottish theatre; still very white, middle class” The Skinny talks to co-founder of The Workers Theatre, Sara Shaarawi, about the company’s phenomenally successful Kickstarter campaign for artists of colour in Scotland Interview: Amy Taylor
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hen we speak to Sara Shaarawi, in what turns out to be her first ever interview, her Kickstarter campaign, Megaphone, a new residency for artists of colour has not just hit its £11,000 target, but exceeded it. At the time of writing, the donations were still coming in, with the campaign exceeding £12,000 by the time it closed. “I’m still half-shocked, half-super excited, half-terrified...” begins Shaarawi, when asked how she feels about the reaction to the crowdfunding campaign, which she describes as “overwhelming.” The campaign will fund residencies for three artists of colour, which will run from April-June 2017 and include mentoring sessions, plus a £2,500 bursary. Originally Shaarawi’s idea, Megaphone is the first project from The Workers Theatre, “a new theatre cooperative that supports radical performances and theatre” which was founded by Shaarawi, poets Katherine McMahon and Harry Giles, writers Dr Poppy Kohner and Henry Bell, and was fully funded within weeks. Created to amplify the work and voices of writers and theatre makers of colour in Scotland (hence the name Megaphone), the project aims to better reflect Scotland’s changing cultural makeup on the national stage. Or as Shaarawi puts it, the cooperative sat down and went, “OK, Scottish theatre; still very white, middle class, what can we do to change that and what kind of performances do we want to see?” The decision to turn to Kickstarter over other arts funding options, such as Creative Scotland, was because of one important thing: time. As Shaarawi puts it, “the thing about institutions, is that they just talk. All they do is talk. They get really interested, they get really excited, and they’re lovely individuals, they’re like, “Yeah, let’s do this!” It could go on for years, they could go on talking for years and it just amounts to nothing. “I felt this was really urgent, especially now, with everything that’s happening in the world, and everything happening in Scotland. Particularly in the arts with The Arches gone, and there are all these gaps and resources are becoming really, really limited, and every time I chat to someone, it’s “We’d really love to do this, but we don’t quite have the resources to do it.” Megaphone is a response to not only the time an average funding application takes to be
approved, or declined, but also the number of resources in Scotland at the moment. According to The Workers Theatre, immigrant communities in Scotland have doubled in the last ten years, but the Scottish theatre industry remains a mostly white platform, with the voices and experiences of artists of colour not being represented. The premise of Megaphone is simple: if we give more artists of colour both the opportunity and the resources to share their stories on stage, it will make the theatre more accessible to other underrepresented people. “I don’t know many artists of colour, I know they’re here, I just don’t know where they are,” explains Shaarawi. “And this is one thing that really worked well, where people are just sending a text and going, ‘I’ve got this friend, and they’re struggling to find work. When’s this call coming out?’ I’ve got different people that I’ve never heard of approaching me, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so cool, I never knew you existed!’” Originally from Cairo, Shaarawi came to Scotland in 2011 to study a Masters degree in European Theatre at the University of Edinburgh. It was a chance meeting at A Play, A Pie and A Pint that put her right at the heart of the Scottish theatre community, when, during a conversation with the playwright Jo Clifford, Shaarawi learned about Òran Mór’s upcoming Arab Theatre season, which led, in turn, to a chance meeting with the playwright, David Greig. “He thought I was an English student,” laughs Shaarawi, “...and I said, no, I’m a theatre student, and I could just see, like, immediately, he was like, what, they didn’t tell me you could do theatre! But he knew of people who’d done the same programme as me in Egypt and he said, this changes everything, I need you! I need you! He ended up casting me and that changed my life, it changed everything.” Now a well-established artist in the industry, Shaarawi is keen to give a helping hand to unknown artists of colour, and weeks later, she is still blown away by the positive response to the crowdfunding campaign. “It’s been great, it’s really really, really been overwhelming to see the amount of support we got, it’s fantastic.” The results of Megaphone will be presented at The Workers Theatre Weekender in the Glasgow Glad Cafe from 9-11 June. workerstheatre.co.uk
Sara Shaarawi
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Review
Ask Auntie Trash:
I R Disappoint Ever been disappointed in life? Trash is a theatre critic, she knows all about it Illustration: Stephanie Hoffmann
Hi Trash, I’ve had a couple of setbacks recently. Some have been bigger than others, but they’ve all hurt in their own way. As someone who, for want of a better description, regularly destroys other people’s dreams with her reviews, how do you deal with disappointments? Thanks, I’m not bitter, honest!
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ey my bitter friend, Awwwww, it sounds like you’re having a bit of a bad time at the moment. I mean, why else would you contact a perfect stranger and mention my habit of utterly decimating the dreams, lives and hopes of others? I don’t know if a review of mine has ever made someone reconsider their career path, because as much as I hope for hate mail, it never comes (where is it? Oh, hate mail, how I long to receive and frame you on The Skinny’s wall). In all honesty, I hope I never have, but if I have ever written something that made you quit, I am very, very sorry. Anyway, disappointments are like an arsehole; everyone has one. Disappointment is a universal thing; you didn’t get that job you wanted, the play you’d really been looking forward to turns out to be a heap of crap, the person you like reveals their true colours, it happens to us all. What matters is how you decide to deal with the disappointment, because you cannot let it define you. Rejection is horrible, it hurts like hell, but it is not an excuse to hide yourself or your work from the world. Whenever I face bone-crushing, soul-destroying disappointment – and believe me, it happens more than you would think – I do this wonderful thing: I allow myself to feel how I’m feeling. That’s a groundbreaking bit of advice, I know, but some
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of the worst advice I ever got was when I was going through a break-up, and someone close to me insisted that it was best if I didn’t give my ex the “satisfaction of knowing that I was hurt.” This is a terrible thing to say, because what they were really saying was that I shouldn’t feel the way I was feeling because it was an inconvenience to someone who wasn’t even there! Your feelings are never an inconvenience. Never believe that by expressing how you feel in a healthy way that you are making life hard for other people. You will only make yourself feel worse, you will suffer for longer and it leads you to believe that your feelings are worth less to everyone around you. This is not true. Whenever I suffer a setback, I go with the flow. If I feel like crying I’ll have a proper howl into my pillow, or even better, my friend Ann, who has let me cry on her numerous times and has never complained. If I’m angry, I’ll go somewhere and scream, or break something inconsequential; buy lots of plates, you can always buy more. Sometimes just getting up and moving around, like going for a walk, or dancing (hurling myself around the room with no real majesty or purpose) to the angriest, angstiest music that I can find, does the job. I’m not saying all the bad feelings go away overnight, but it gives them less power. One last thing, some days you will feel bad, some days you will feel good. On another day, you may feel like how you did at the beginning, but never fear, this is only temporary. This too shall pass, the sun will rise again, tomorrow is a new day. I will find you and destroy you. Much love, Trash the Redeemer Got a problem? Email trash@theskinny.co.uk
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