Despite having assigned roles within the theatre company, we hadn’t created the company itself at this early stage. Thus, we began discussing a variety of components that we knew were key to establishing a strong, coherent company. These included; an ethos/mission statement, company name, logo and a code of conduct that each member of the group would be expected to adhere to.
Eventually, The Pin Hinge Collective was born.
One thing that very quickly became clear, was that we wanted to create a company that celebrated individuality within our shows. We regularly drew upon the ‘anthropological nature’ of human beings and what shapes us as individuals. We often discussed what it is that defines us and how we are affected by our surroundings and upbringing. In many of our preliminary sessions I was responsible for running ‘material generating’ exercises that helped us to form and develop ideas.
In one session, I used an exercise that I had learnt during a workshop lead by playwright Rob Drummond, he called the exercise ‘Building worlds’. During this rehearsal, we made significant developments in creating a narrative/plot line for our piece. I explained to the team that they must spend five minutes continuously writing, simply answering the question “Who are you?” as this question related to our company ethos. Once they had completed this task, I read out each of their stories. Some consisted of true events, some were made up, some followed a narrative, whilst others just consisted of random thoughts.
What was striking was that nearly all of them touched upon our aspirations within life. However, this did not just refer to success and wealth, but towards our aspirations and expectations of love as well. This was a key moment for us, as it was at this point that decided that our show should focus upon storytelling. We were curious about the topic of ‘love’. We wanted to investigate how each of our experiences and understandings of it differed. Thus, we continued to develop upon the idea with further exercises that drew out answers based on our own beliefs.
