Jenny Worton

Jenny Worton

19 March 2007

Biography

Jenny Worton graduated from the University of Nottingham in 1998 having set up a new writing company called Pounds, Dollars and Cents. Whilst working at The Churchill Theatre in Bromley, she produced four new plays with her company at the Edinburgh Festival and on the London Fringe. After starting a writers’ group and local playwriting competition in Bromley, Jenny moved to the Bush Theatre to work as the Literary Assistant. She then spent a year in the Script Department at the National Theatre covering the Literary Assistant’s maternity leave, before working for the next four years in a freelance capacity. During this time she worked for Max Stafford-Clark’s Out Of Joint Theatre Company as the Literary Associate and ran workshops for directors and writers for a variety of companies including The Young Vic, The Old Vic, and The Stephen Joseph Theatre. In 2002 she became the Literary Manager of the Tricycle Theatre but continued her freelance work as a selector for the National Student Drama Festival. For Radio Four Jenny has abridged Dario Fo’s autobiography and written a short story for broadcast. She judges for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award and is Chair of the board for theatre company Tiata Fahodzi. Jenny now works full time as the Artistic Associate at the Almeida Theatre.

Interview

Interviewer:
Jenny, you’re the Artistic Associate of the Almeida Theatre and I am just wondering what drew you to the concept of a chain play and why would the Almeida want to embark upon such a risky endeavour?

Jenny:
Yes, it is quite a risky endeavour (laughter) isn’t it? I think the idea behind it is that we wanted to create an evening which would feel like a once in a lifetime experience that would seem like something that if you weren’t there on that one particular night you would never have the opportunity to experience it again.  I think that was the excitement behind it and the more that we talked about the idea, the more that we felt it embodied what the Almeida was about and we wanted to celebrate that as much as possible.

So, it’s based on writers, which is absolutely something that the Almeida is committed to, to its new writers and the six writers are all commissioned by the Almeida.  But it’s also about the nature of theatre I think and the immediacy of it and the risk – I mean we’re in the business of making live art – we don’t make tv and we don’t make film and that creates a particular dynamic between an audience and performers and to extend that to the writers as well I think is very exciting.  So the idea that the writers were getting into very much the same situation as the performers seemed very exciting to us, and also we hoped it would create a very eclectic and unusual evening and, again, that is very much what the Almeida is about and what we try to present in our programme – a mix of different kinds of theatre and something that appeals to everybody.

Interviewer:
Absolutely and I think that is what is going to draw lots of people to come and attend the event and see it.  But with the links, have you read all of them?

Jenny:
Yes, I am now in the privileged position of having read them all.

Interviewer: 
And have all of the writers read each of the links?

Jenny:
No.  Some of them have, but depending where you are in the chain you might naturally have read the ones ahead of you but if, for example, you are the first writer, like Roy, you might not necessarily have read the ones after you.  So we have kind of left it up to them to choose if they want to read them or if they just want to be surprised on the evening. 

Interviewer: 
And having read it…is it what you expected it would be?

Jenny:
I think no probably not actually in lots of ways, but in a rather wonderful way what happens is – and I hope and believe this is what the audience will experience -because the writers have brought something which is so idiosyncratic to each piece, to each link and what they have done is, they’ve actually created quite a coherent whole, but at the same time you really feel the voice of the individual writer and I think for anybody who comes to the Almeida and has seen any of these writers before, it will really be fun to try to pull out, to pick out of each one who’s written it.  So they very much embrace the idea of and very much put forward who they are individually in each of their links and I think that has been really, really fun.

Interviewer:
And what happens now, what’s the next step.

Jenny: 
Well, it’s Friday today and we’re go into rehearsals next week on Tuesday, so all of the actors will gather on Tuesday morning with Tom Cairns, our Director, and then we close the doors to the rehearsal room and we keep our fingers crossed and we can’t wait until the following Friday!

Interviewer: 
Well, best of luck!

Jenny:
Thank you.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the interviewees and are not necessarily shared by Coutts & Co.

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