Five minutes with Cheryl Govan
Cheryl Govan, the associate director at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, talks to us about time within theatre.
Cheryl Govan is the associate director (young people and community) at the Stephen Joseph Theatre.
She grew up in Livingston, Scotland, came to Yorkshire to study drama and performance at Leeds University at the age of just 17 and started working at the theatre in the outreach and education department in the 1990s.
Last year she was one of four Olivier Award Be Inspired Champions, voted for by the public and the industry.
With this year set to be one of the busiest ever for the theatre, she explains what her role is and what she has planned.
What started your interest in the theatre?
My first experience with theatre would have been through a church theatre group and that was where I kind of discovered acting.
We did pantomimes every year, and Easter plays.
And then there were youth theatres starting to crop up, the main one I was involved with was West Lothian Youth Theatre which was the first youth theatre in the UK to have its own premises.
How did you start working at the Stephen Joseph Theatre?
A friend who I was at university with somehow got a little job at the old theatre down at Westwood and when the theatre moved, he came with it and started running an outreach department or an education department.
So he just started bringing in people who could do stuff. Then [he] got himself another job and I took over.
What do you enjoy most about working with young people and the community?
I think the theatre as a whole has a big impact on the young people that engage with us and we’re really delighted for people when they succeed.
And not just in the creative industries, we’re really chuffed... whatever it is they choose to do.
And I suppose what we get back is regularly them coming to us as adults and saying that all the skills they’ve learned, even if they’re not working as actors or directors or technicians or writers or whatever, they use them in their job.
We know the Stephen Joseph Theatre as somewhere to watch theatre or cinema, what else does it do within the community?
We run a regular programme of work which involves classes which have an arts base. So choirs, acting, writing classes.
Then in addition to that we run classes that have a more social change context to them I suppose. So we run a whole range of activity which is classed as dementia friendly. From dementia friendly music and movement classes to dementia friendly screenings of some of the films.
We try to take activities out to other places because for some people... they just simply can’t get to the theatre. So we try and take [it] to them.
We have an after schools programme called Creation Studios, so we’re running an after schools arts workshop in nine schools.
It’s all a massive, big umbrella of creating stronger and safer communities.
It’s Alan Aykbourn’s 60th year as a playwright this year, has he been an influence on your work?
Alan is obviously fantastic and the quantity and quality of work is astonishing but what is really interesting is that Alan has always considered himself here a director and not as a writer.
I have been really lucky because I’ve been able to be in Alan’s rehearsals in years gone by... and his way of working really has rubbed off on me.
It’s really useful in the work that we do because we have to work quite quickly and don’t have long rehearsal periods.
What Alan is brilliant at is blocking the play really quickly, so getting the play up on its feet, getting the actors knowing where their entrances and exits are, where they go to with props.
So physically the actors are really aware of what they’re doing in the really early stages of the play which means that they learn their lines really quickly too because they associate the movement with the line. Then you can go back and start to detail it because you have the time to do that.
What are you working on with children and young people at the moment?
There’s a lot coming up! We have a young people’s
board here... and one of the things they introduced, with obviously support from the building, is a new young writer programme of work.
They asked for submissions from writers living locally under 30, four of those plays were then selected, and our young company are performing in a couple of weeks these plays by young writers.
And then the idea is to work with these young writers and progress them to writing for youth theatre groups.
The 15+ youth theatre have been working with Alice and Max Kynman who are brother and sister who were both original members of the Stephen Joseph Youth Theatre who are now in their 20s.
Alice is directing[ Junk yard] and Maxis musically directing the play and has composed all the music for it.
It’s quite a new play, it’s a year old... and written by Jack Thorne, who people might know from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and from TV shows like Shameless.
But it’s a really interesting play based on his dad’s life.
How exciting, and what else do you have planned in
the future?
One of the things we wanted to do was to say that children’s theatre is not just for Christmas it’s all year round, we’re trying to put a much bigger programme of plays for families to come and see.
So I’ll be doing the Hare and the Tortoise which is a really lovely, funny script and it’s going to be really physical. I’ll start working that mid-March and it’ll be on over Easter.
In the bigger picture, we’re about to set up a buddy scheme with My Neighbourhood which is an organisation in Scarborough that try to combat social isolation.
The idea is that we would get volunteers from the theatre who are regular theatre goers to accompany people who are unable to get to the theatre or are too afraid to come on their own.
Now for a few quick fire questions. Holidays - home or away?
Away in the sun.
What are the three things you would do in Scarborough on your day off?
We have a beach hut on the North Bay so we would go down there with the children
and take bikes and roller skates and wetsuits. Any day, hot or cold weather. I would go to Falsgrave Park and I would probably try and go to a local cafe, like Eat Me or Mojos or Espresso Yourself.
Which song means the most to you and why?
Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher by Jackie Wilson and the reason is really simple.
The theatre has a choir called Funky Choir which I organise and also sing with and when my little girl was born, when she was about 10 days old I took her down to visit the choir, and that’s the song the choir was singing when I walked in.
Then the choir sang that at my wedding as well.
If you could direct any actor in any play which would you choose?
I’d really like to direct Medea, with Meera Syal. But I would absolutely direct any play of any kind with Miriam Margolyes because I would love to spend four weeks in a rehearsal room with her.
Books or Kindle and what are you reading?
Books. I do have a kindle
but I like books better. I’m reading A Million Little Pieces by James Frey.
What would you like your legacy to be?
I want to believe that I have encouraged everyone to be the best they could be and not to settle for mediocrity in whatever they choose to do and I’d like to think that people would think of me as being honest, kind, funny, that I was passionate about my life, my work, my community and the world in general.
What’s your order from the chip shop?
Vegan sausages and chips and mushy peas. Anywhere that has a vegetarian menu. If I was in Scotland I would also have chippy sauce, it’s brown sauce mixed with vinegar and it’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever tasted!
Junkyard is on March 1 and 2
The Hare and the Tortoise runs from April 16 to 20
Write this Way, a presentation of the four plays by young writers is on February 8
Tickets and information about all the theatre’s outreach work: www.sjt.uk.com