Billie  0:00  
Hello,

Zoë  0:01  
hi. Welcome back to Episode Nine of The Not-God Pod. Thank you for returning. Glad to still have you here.

Billie  0:17  
It feels. I think for us it feels like it's been so long since we recorded. I feel like it's not actually going to look like that much time on the..like on the episodes that didn't make any sense.

Zoë  0:31  
Like between episodes. Yeah. Yeah. So we missed a month in November because we were rehearsing a show. We'll talk a little bit about that today. Very exciting times. Did an actual live performance. 

Billie  0:46  
Yeah. 

Zoë  0:47  
Right. But now Now we're recording this super late, like normally we record in the first week of the month...and release in the last week of the month, and it's currently December 19.

Billie  1:00  
Yeah. Didn't go to plan this time, but it's okay. We were chatting about this earlier. And I think the only thing we can say about everything that has happened is I mean, the chaos is very on brand.

Zoë  1:15  
Yeah. Like we haven't updated our to do list since the last week of November.

Billie  1:22  
Yeah. However, even though we haven't done that, we have still kept more or less on top of things.

Zoë  1:31  
Yes. Despite not planning anything this month, we have planned next year. 

Billie  1:37  
Yeah, more or less 

Zoë  1:39  
possible tentative plans, big ideas. We say we hype ourselves up. We are our own biggest fans. 

Billie  1:51  
like someone has to be.

Zoë  1:55  
So that is what we're gonna chat about today is basically, yeah, I guess an overview of 2021. For us what we have been up to what we've learned from it, what we're thinking about in 2022, I guess vaguely in a professional development and kind of working structure of how you bring projects from kind of one iteration into the next and how you sort of draw lines between projects or take kind of working models from one thing and apply them to something else. But also just to have a bit of a chat.

Billie  2:33  
Yeah. It's been a strange year for everybody. Yeah...us included. So I guess we are going to join the masses talking about what a strange year it's been. Yep. And to be honest, regardless of that fact, we did do, as we said, a whole live performance. Yeah, um granted at the very end of the year, but still,

Zoë  3:01  
yeah. I think like, that we kind of dipped our toe into like digital theatre because we had to do digital theatre. I think for us, it's more we make short films, and we make theatre and sometimes, 

Billie  3:16  
yeah, 

Zoë  3:17  
they're part of the same development process.

Billie  3:20  
Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about the term digital theatre. I don't know if we've already spoken about it on podcast.

Zoë  3:30  
I'm not sure either. But, um, yeah, I think for us as well, because we're so like, interdisciplinary in some of the stuff we make, but also, at least in our approach, and way of thinking about like, art and performance. It's like, I don't know, you can make stuff using the same skills and the same ideas in a different form.

Billie  3:57  
And but it's a different form...it's not. I don't know theatre, in my mind. Just has to be in a live space.  I don't think it really works otherwise, 

Zoë  4:13  
In my head digital theatre is like a stream of something

Billie  4:18  
that happened on stage. Yeah, yeah. Well on the stage

Zoë  4:22  
or performed live,  Yeah, yeah. Whereas like, what we have made is short film using some of the skills we use when we make our theatre like our text writing and our movement devising and all of that.

Billie  4:36  
Yeah. But at the end of the day, like to make whatever you want to call it, short films, videos, something digital theatre, I suppose. It kind of does end up being the skills you need for short film like it's not Yeah, you know, We happen to have those skills because we have studied theatre. Yeah. And also because we happen to be a little bit tech savvy. Just about just enough. 

Zoë  5:10  
We can more or less work final cut. 

Billie  5:12  
Yeah, um, you know, and that is, but it's still a short film. It's not. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm frustrated with that term. It makes me annoyed.

Zoë  5:29  
But I think it's interesting, because I'm like, now when we're looking for like, opportunity and stuff. I'm like, I would pitch an idea at a Film Festival and be like, we can make this

Billie  5:36  
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Zoë  5:38  
I wouldn't see it as like, out of our wheelhouse.

Billie  5:42  
Yeah, we should put that on the ideas page

Zoë  5:46  
Yes.

Billie  5:47  
Let's do that. Hang on. Live planning.

This is Oh, yeah, literally, this is how anything gets done. We chat. We chat a lot of shit... and then we're like... Yeah, we should do this. The biggest thing, though, that we did last year, I think, is this is the podcast. We were just talking about how 10 episodes ago? No, yeah, nine or

Zoë  6:15  
10 months ago.. Because we skipped November. Sorry, guys.

Billie  6:21  
We had no clue how to make a podcast. No clue. And we

Zoë  6:27  
Literally like reading wikiHow.

Billie  6:33  
Literally, were like, okay, so I guess we record and then I guess we need like, two weeks to edit... Which I now do in like a half an hour.

Zoë  6:45  
Yeah, we didn't realise it was free. Also.

Billie  6:48  
Yeah, we didn't realise it was free. Um, we had no clue how to get anything on to any streaming sites, like getting things onto Spotify is so simple. Yeah.

Zoë  7:00  
Really, really not that hard. Yeah,

Billie  7:02  
we have definitely said this before, but I think we're both just a little bit surprised how easy it is.

Zoë  7:09  
Yeah. And I think we had a similar experience with like, when we did directory in 2020 as it's like first iteration. Yeah, it was very much like lockdown project like, oh, it would be really cool. If this existed, this is something we are interested in doing long term. How? 

Billie  7:30  
Yeah, and then we actually did it

Zoë  7:32  
Yeah, it turns out, it wasn't that hard. So we're kind of like yeah, that as a, I guess, professional development thing of having one thing that isn't a show that isn't like a creative in inverted commas project, each kind of year. That we're like, we'd really like to do this. We know nothing about it. We're going to learn...through the doing.

Billie  8:05  
Yeah. And like a kind of long term thing, or long term ish thing?

Zoë  8:10  
Yeah. Yeah. Something that's like, this is a really useful skill for us as a company to know we can do. 

Billie  8:19  
And/or we just want to,

Zoë  8:22  
yeah. I mean...it's useful because we want to right?

Billie  8:26  
well, yeah, true. True. That's an interesting thing, actually, about differentiating between what is seen as good to do because it is productive or useful, or builds on skills or builds on...i dont know builds your company builds something. Maybe I'm going off such tangent. I'll just make... the disconnect between that and doing what you want to? Yeah, I kind of think we've managed to make ourselves a company here based purely on what do we want to do? Yeah, because we want to, and then it's more like, okay, and then how do we make that something that other people want to also see? Or interact with in someway?

Zoë  9:14  
And how do we like find, like other organisations, theatres, etc, who align with what we're doing?

Billie  9:24  
I don't know if that makes any sense. But my brain kind of went, Oh, yeah, this is useful for professional development. And then when we said, oh, we want to do it, though. I was just like, Oh, yeah! we want to do it!

Zoë  9:39  
There's no point in developing skills and things we're not interested in.

Billie  9:42  
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway.

Zoë  9:46  
So yeah, I think next year, we were just discussing this, like our thing that we're like, we don't know how we're going to do this. We don't really know the logistics or the possibilities. But we're going to give it a go is we like want to make a zine. Yeah. And under our kind of like long term plans for the NGC hub side of thing if we're to get funding and be kind of running that as more of a, like larger scale thing as in would very much be part of the kind of regular activity under that. But regardless of whether or not that bit happens this year, but that's kind of our thing that we're like, we want to learn how to do this..this year, as well as continuing the podcasts...the zine will be like the new addition to the

Billie  10:42  
Zune will be the thing that we the big the thing that we want to do, but it's professional development also.

Zoë  10:49  
Yeah, yeah, that's like, this would be cool. We know nothing about it. Yeah. So yeah, stay tuned, I guess for using process of that.

Billie  11:05  
Yeah, we're gonna need stuff to put in the zine. Yeah. So that's going to be an opportunity for anyone who wants to come and be involved. We're going to Yeah, I don't know what we're going to need. Anything. Texts and pictures and everything else design? Yeah. Yeah.

Zoë  11:28  
So yeah, we have that as kind of a 2022. Plan. We will do it. We we follow through on things.

Billie  11:36  
Yeah, we do. I'm not sure how we're gonna do it...

Zoë  11:38  
but we're gonna figure out 

Billie  11:40  
Yeah, I mean, we've got a podcast. So yeah, sure, we'll do that as well.

Zoë  11:44  
We want to, yeah, obviously, continue this podcast, we have a nice time we enjoy doing it. We'd love to have more guests on as well, because at the moment, we've kind of talked within the collective within people we trained with. Yeah, and we'd kind of love both to talk to other people who we trained with and know already, who are off doing completely different things to us in different bits of the UK or Europe. And kind of hear about their perspective on the sort of stuff we talk about. But also to hear from people who aren't necessarily like working in theatre, but are working in a different field that has lots of like, similarities or whatever. Or people who we don't know who have completely different background to us. So yeah, it requires a little bit more organisation on our part to like, schedule people in and leave ourselves windows for that. But that's a definite aim for 2022.

Billie  12:52  
Yeah. Yeah. But there's only so much that we can chat about and still be interesting. Like, ten episodes in..

Zoë  13:04  
And we also, yeah, want to do more events.

Billie  13:11  
Yes, we managed to have one event, which was lovely. With Rachel Copel. So shout out to Rachel, if you're listening to this, we love you. Come do an event with us again. But also anyone else? If you have an idea for a workshop or like a talk, let us know.

Zoë  13:39  
And yeah, who knows if that'll be like, online, if we might do in person stuff? That depends, like if we're in the same place at the same time. COVID stuff, space stuff. All of that.

Billie  13:53  
Yeah. Well, I mean, talking about things we're doing next year, this is by no means decided. But I am trying to do an MA in London next year. 

Zoë  14:03  
We love professional development. Yeah.

Billie  14:08  
But if I managed to do an MA in London next year, it means I will be in London next year. And we will be in the same place. And so events might be live. Maybe. Yeah, I mean, I think we need to think about this because I think we've managed to get Yes a  mostly UK based.... community, audience, whatever we want to call all of you guys. But um, we have people from all over the place and it might be useful to just remember to not completely stop including everyone who isn't just London based.

Zoë  14:50  
Yeah, I think there's also the thing of we can do like, like hybrid stuff, especially if it's more talky than practical.

Billie  14:59  
Mm. Definitely. So yeah, so this is these are thoughts for next year? And what we're doing, but no, we don't we have some big ideas. Yeah. And we will figure out how we're going to do that. 

Zoë  15:12  
We know that doing, like free events on professional development type stuff for people in theatre is something we want to do 

Billie  15:23  
Yeah. Yeah. 

Zoë  15:25  
To be confirmed.

Billie  15:27  
Yeah. But it will happen. At some point, on the other side of things. 

Zoë  15:34  
Yes. We make shows 

Billie  15:37  
we make shows. Yeah. Its almost like we trained for that. Yeah. And like, that was the first reason why we wanted to start the NGC - shows. Have we done any shows this year?

Zoë  15:52  
We did. We did. We did. So we had some rehearsal and development, time rehearsal, development, research and development. My brain was like rehearsal time research and development. Yeah, through camden people's theatre, so we did some, like, kind of workshopping of ideas for a show called I talk with my friends at the witching hour, which kind of looks at the witch trials, attitudes to witchcraft, and how that parallels with the history of like medical research, basically very meta-theatrical, very...like I can't think how to describe it. Yeah, very kind of meta-theatrical, playing with those ideas, very information heavy. Lots of like, think if we put Horrible Histories on stage type vibes. Which may get revisited at some point as a show. But yeah, we got to play with some ideas for that back in April. Which... April? Yeah, April, which was fun, very nice to get back into a room after like a year of not being and kind of easing back into the devising process there. And then, we also, I think, basically, the whole way through 2021 have been playing with this... the ideas that are in how do you talk about a manless woman.

Billie  17:31  
it was, I think I saw on my Timehop a picture of one of the pages from the days of abandonment that I must have sent to you. Yeah. So that was like a year ago. I read it. I thought it was the best thing ever.

Zoë  17:47  
Yeah. Yeah. We've been thinking about that for like, all of this year. Yeah. And in summer. You made like a kind of film..

Billie  17:58  
I did. I made a short film thing. And then we just two months, a month ago, two months ago, two months ago, a month ago, 

Zoë  18:12  
No November 19. So exactly a month ago as we're recording November 15th.

Billie  18:19  
Anyway, a month ago, we performed a version of that live at Voila Festival, which was wonderful. And quite strange being back on stage. I think we were well, I felt a little bit rusty. Because I haven't been on stage since the beginning of the pandemic. Yeah. But it was that was great. Yeah.

Zoë  18:44  
Yeah it's like you're in a room devising a show and you're like...how do we do this again?

Billie  18:49  
yeah, yeah. 

Zoë  18:51  
But it was nice. And it was nice to have like a kind of work in progress

Billie  18:55  
Showing 

Zoë  18:55  
Yeah, showing. And hopefully, especially if we're kind of in the same place at the same time a bit more towards the end of this year there's a lot more scope for us to do that. Yeah. Also, shout out to the new diorama spaces at Broadgate

Billie  19:14  
Yeah, massive shout out to them because that space is fantastic.

Zoë  19:21  
Like..to be able to book free rehearsal space.

Billie  19:24  
Yeah. and it was so nice as well.

Zoë  19:29  
It also meant that we booked kind of more time to like play and experiment than would have had we had to like pay for somewhere we'd have been like, Okay, what is the minimum amount of time we can make a work in progress show in? whereas because it was free we were like... oh, actually, we were gonna rehearse like, Friday, Saturday, but like, there's a space available on the Thursday afternoon and we're not doing anything. So let's like,

Billie  19:55  
rehearse then too

Zoë  19:56  
grab it and play with some ideas at it. Yeah,

Billie  20:01  
yeah, so new diorama spaces not the theatre the NDT. What is it? NDT Broadgate

Zoë  20:11  
NDT Broadgate. We like the theatre also!

Billie  20:13  
Yeah. But NDT Broadgate, the rehearsal spaces and the way that that works. Brilliant stuff. Brilliant stuff.

Zoë  20:20  
So yeah, shout out to that. Nice and weird to be on, on stage again.

Billie  20:29  
And that is I think that is a thing that we are trying to push into being a full length show.

Zoë  20:38  
Yeah. So yeah, basically, the the 2022 tentative plan, um, creatively, I guess, we like, obviously, we might come up with something completely different in the middle of the year and be like, this is our priority, or pitch to call outs for kind of more specific things and end up doing something else, but our kind of two main ideas at the moment are to make the kind of work in progress stuff that we've done with manless woman this year into something more complete and finished if theatre could ever be finished.

Billie  21:19  
Full length, something full length?

Zoë  21:21  
Yeah. Yeah, kind of develop that to an end stage of some description. Yeah. And yeah, we're, we're interested within that in the ideas that we've been talking about on the podcast of like, what is it to queer something? What is the process of that? Where are the lines between that and other things like feminist readings, all of that. So? Yeah, we're interested in continuing with that. And then we've also been kind of talking tentatively about a second project, because it seems to work well, for us to have a few things going. Yeah. Both in terms of being able to respond to like opportunities as they come because we have more things to be like, Oh, actually, we're working on this would this be of interest to places?

Billie  22:11  
And if not, we have something else?

Unknown Speaker  22:15  
And also, just, I don't know, I think we're people who like to be doing a little bit of everything all the time. focusing on one thing for an entire year.

Billie  22:36  
We just get bored, I think.

Zoë  22:37  
Yeah. So I think to have lots of things going on is works well for us. So the other kind of thing that we're interested in is the ideas that we were doing a bit more 2020, beginning of 2021, where we did Rites to Celebrate a sun goddess, which ran the whole way through 2020, pretty much...not necessarily intentionally, but no. And then, we kind of did some more kind of sketchy ideas when we did, like, short film called Beira in January or February, kind of continuing that. And in those we look at folklore, specifically Celtic folklore, in those and kind of the ideas in that and the contemporary relevance of that, and there's lots of sort of poetry and those sorts of things. We're interested in kind of bringing those ideas of folklore that's very much like a shared interest of folklore and paganism and those sorts of things. But looking a bit more at the theatricalities of it, and the theatricality of tradition, and, like ritual, and those sorts of things. And kind of bringing in, I guess, some of the meta theatrical elements, which is another kind of common theme that runs through our work - it was very much in manless woman, was very much in the ideas we were playing with when we were with Camden people's Theatre in April. Yeah, I guess kind of bringing those two things together into something that explores, like folklore as a theatrical...yeah, thing, I guess.

Billie  24:27  
Yeah. I also I, well, it might not come through in this but we've we've focused a lot on Celtic, as you said. Yeah. But I have an entire croatian side to my heritage. And croation folklore is very, what's the word? There's just a lot of it. It's very fruitful. Yeah. So um, I want to bring some of that in as well. And I guess we'll see what mix we end up with and what we....what happens but yeah,

Zoë  25:03  
I think one of our like first tasks of 2022 is going to be to kind of do some research and pick a few tales that are of specific interest. Yeah. And kind of pull out, I guess some, some themes and some ideas and get a bit more of a concrete idea of what that is, would be in like a title and some kind of show description and those sorts of things. And then we can hopefully start pitching at people and get some performance or some rehearsal time or whatever lined up. Yeah, and start making that. Yeah. So those are kind of our 2022 rough plans. Yeah, yeah. Another company, like, goal of ours is to start kind of working with people who have the like, external skills that we are just about managing but don't really have we are looking for a producer as a first port of call.

Billie  26:09  
If you are a producer, please contact us. We may be chaotic, but we do our stuff, and we have money for you.

Zoë  26:18  
Yeah, we can pay a producer. We need.

Billie  26:21  
We need one, please, though.

Zoë  26:24  
Basically, we're looking for like support with funding bids. And then to also write in some, like, funding for a producer into those funding bids. Yeah, that's kind of the skills gap for us.

Yeah, like, we can do it. 

Billie  26:43  
But clearly not very succesfully at this point. 

Zoë  26:47  
Yeah, we'd really love to work with somebody else. And kind of form a working relationship. Mm hmm. In that sense as well so, if you're a producer, contact us. If you want to come on the podcast,

Billie  27:07  
contact us. 

Zoë  27:09  
We can, like promo you as much as you would like if you come on the podcast.

Billie  27:16  
And it can be if if you have anything at all, to say that you think is in line with what we talk about. So yeah, come because it's not even a you don't have to be a theatre practitioner. Yeah. You don't have to be doing that at all. We are planning something with somebody who works in a secondary school as a sex ed... Well, no, she doesn't teach sex ed full time. But that is the main goal. And so we're going to chat about that. And talk about like, you know, anything that fits into what we are interested in as a general theme, in theory, in education, anything...come chat with us 

Zoë  27:59  
or if you completely disagree with us, that's also fine. Yeah, if you want to debate us on the podcast that's fine. We're here for it, it's okay. Like we're not here for the echo chamber.

Billie  28:13  
No, that's true.

Zoë  28:16  
Yeah, we'd love to hear from you. If you've got a project you're working on, if you've got your like... started your own company or whatever and you want to tell us about what you do. Come chat to us. We'd love to keep having these discussions. Yeah, I think that's it.

Billie  28:37  
I think that's pretty much it.

Zoë  28:41  
We're wishing you a happy new year.

Billie  28:44  
Yes. Happy New Year. Happy holidays of any kind.

Zoë  28:49  
Yeah. Wishing you a good 2022 

Billie  28:54  
Yes. Yes. 

Zoë  28:57  
See you on the other side. See you in January. hopefully.

Billie  29:02  
See you when the day start getting longer.

Zoë  29:04  
Yes

You can find us on social media if you want to be updated on everything we've told you we're gonna do are @ thenotgodcomplex on Instagram and Facebook at @notgodcomplex on Twitter or you can email us which is thenotgodcomplex @outlook.com. We also if you're not a social media person have a mailing list which you can sign up to on our website, which is thenotgodcomplex.com. Website...website revamp also coming in the new year. Yeah, we're gonna update it. Because we've moved faster than we could update our website this year. 

Billie  29:50  
It's gonna be pretty. 

Zoë  29:52  
Yes, yeah. Thank you for listening. Share with your friends.

Billie  29:56  
Yeah. Tell everyone about this amazing feminist quit podcasts Theatre Company whatever said whatever we are

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Zoe 

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Tell your friends who have chaotic energy

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Billie 

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And we will speak to you in January

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Both

Byeee