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Helen Barrett Bright Ideas: Jack’s Play
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your play?
My name is Jack. I'm an actor and a theatre maker. I applied with the idea of producing my first ever play that I’ve written, and I hoped to get some financial backing to help with that. The project is called Memories of the Marshland. It is a play exploring the relationship between physical theatre, which is typically a very kind of visual medium, and visual impairment, and both of the main characters in this play are blind. The provocation was, is it possible to make a highly visual physical show with blind performers?
What inspired the play?
It does come back to my cystic fibrosis in some weird way. During COVID-19 when I was self-isolating for the best part of two years, I think for the first time in my life, I felt a feeling of loneliness.
I was kind of wrestling with it for a while and thinking about how you don’t have to be alone to feel loneliness. I think from an artistic perspective, I was feeling the world happening around me during that time and from that feeling, I began to recognise it in the earliest stage of my life when I was growing up in paediatric hospital wards because of my CF.
The pandemic was the window into recognising the loneliness that I experienced growing up and the sensation as a person with CF that sometimes the world can be happening around you; you can kind of exist in this pocket universe.
I was thinking about what other group of people could relate to that feeling and I got this brainwave that perhaps blind people feel that sometimes. I didn't know for sure so that's why I met creative voices from the visually impaired community. This allowed me to flesh out this idea and see if it's possible, or if that community can relate to this work in some way.
How do you balance your career with your CF?
I find balancing my career with my CF much easier now I’m self-employed and I can take things at my own pace, because CF is not a linear thing.
I don't always feel rubbish, but I don't always feel great. So there's kind of a flexibility there and acting can facilitate that. When you're on an acting job, it can be extremely intense. You're in like five day rehearsals, 9am to 6pm, and that's quite tough.
But I've always felt like the companies that I've worked with have actively tried to meet my access needs and I’ve realised myself that it's okay to have access needs. Whereas it was always a kind of dirty word when I was growing up.
I thought if I want to be an actor, which can be a competitive thing, I have to be like, ‘CF is not a part of me, it’s just an irrelevant thing’. But I've realised that I'm so much stronger when I acknowledge that CF is an integral part of who I am.
What are your future plans for the play and for your career?
In terms of the play, it's a little bit up in the air at the moment because nothing in the arts happens quickly.
It's quite a slow-moving wheel, but I can see more writing development happening. From that, I can imagine more people will see it and as far as the writing is concerned, we have, thanks to the funding, built a community of creative voices around the work, which means that something will happen.
In terms of my career in general, I would love to feel that producing this on a larger scale can springboard me into the eyes of other people. So I get to direct things that I don't currently know exist, and I hope that my name is brought into rooms that I don't know about yet. And already I'm beginning to feel that's happening.
As a performer, I hope that I get to do more brave and bold things. I’m currently working with Gecko Theatre and we're going to be doing a European tour at the end of the year. Gecko are the UK's number one physical theatre company, so as a person with CF, it's pretty awesome to be in such an athletic company.
I also have memories of growing up in hospital wards and I used to watch Gecko Theatre Company shows on my laptop thinking, ‘this is awesome stuff!’ So to actually now be in the company is a is a fantastic thing.
What would you say to somebody who's thinking of applying for a Helen Barrett Bright Idea Award?
Whether or not you have a fully formed idea or the beginning of an idea, don’t judge it too early. I think that so many times we have ideas that we don't voice because we shut them down ourselves when actually just saying your ideas out loud, sharing your ideas with someone, that is the window into actually making it happen.
What does a life unlimited mean to you?
To me, a life unlimited means that I don't shut down any opportunities in my life because of my cystic fibrosis.
I think that CF will always be a part of me and it's important that I respect it. But I don't think it's my responsibility to ever go like, ‘I can't do that or I shouldn’t speak to this person or I shouldn't apply to that because I have cystic fibrosis’.
Where can people find out more about the play?
I have a website which is going to have updates about the play. You can find it at jacknorris.org.
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic condition which causes sticky mucus to build up in the lungs and digestive system. It affects more than 11,000 people in the UK. One in 25 of us carries the faulty gene that causes it, usually without knowing.
The Helen Barrett Bright Ideas Awards are available for anyone with CF over the age of 18 to help support your dream career or hobby. Whatever you need to make your lightbulb moment a reality, a Helen Barrett Bright Ideas Award can help you on your way.