Closing Up the Group on March 15
emily
Hi Devising NYC Google Group!
Just wanted to let you know that we’re going to delete this group on March 15. Honestly, until those emails about the dryer lint came through, we didn’t know this group still existed. I thought somehow Google Groups disappeared in the Google Plus shutdown?
Anyway, since this group is no longer active, and to prevent any accidental spamming, we’re going to shut it down.
Jess Hooks and I started this group as a result of our session at Devoted and Disgruntled back in 2010. We were trying to get a Devising movement started and hoped to raise awareness of the form. When we started this group, devising was mostly only talked about in the UK. I seem to remember both Jess and I doing a lot of explaining what devising was when we kicked this off. And look where we are 16 years later! There’s devising all over the place and they’re teaching it theatre schools! And all it took was this list and a couple of meet-ups! (Ha! JK. Pretty sure we had nothing to do with it.)
As I recall, we had high hopes of connecting us all up to devise all kinds of work and I hope you all did. It is wild to reflect how much has shifted in the last 16 years. I know a lot of you are no longer in NYC and a lot of things have shifted for everyone. I just wanted to take this opportunity to marvel at the wild journeys of the sands of time and wish you all well.
For those of you still making devised theatre: It’s been ages since I devised anything but know that I’m still super up for it and if you need a Shakespeare nerd actor/clown/writer/singer-songwriter/Feldenkrais practitioner/weirdo, I am available and still here making stuff. (Hanging out mostly in audio spaces these days.)
Please put me on your mailing lists (em...@messengertheatreco.org) and this thread is open until the Ides of March in case anyone has any other reflections of the last 16 years that you want to throw in here. After that, goodbye Google groups! (Where are we gathering now? WhatsApp groups? Add me wherever! I’m ever in search of community.)
Happy March!
Emily
Official Manager of this Google Group (apparently)
P.S.
Side note, since we mostly connected at Devoted and Disgruntled – I pitched an Open Space/Devoted Disgruntled idea to the folks at IndieSpace and they seemed interested in talking to me about it – so maybe some of us will gather in a Devoted & Disgruntled space again one day!
P.P.S.
For a reminder of how obscure “devising” was when we started this group, here’s my blog about it from 2009, not long after I got back from London: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/what-i-wish-american-theatre-would-learn-from-the-brits-3/