In Conversation with 2024 Company in Residence: Brymore Productions
Image by Morgan Roberts
In 2024, Backbone welcomes Brymore Productions as our Company in Residence. Brymore Productions is a boutique theatre company that creates interactive and engaging theatrical experiences for young audiences around the world, from Brisbane, Australia. We had a chat with Hollie Bryan and Sean Bryan, co-creators of Brymore Productions about what’s in store for Brymore in 2024, and why drama, play, and creativity are so important for our Youngest Artists.
“These babies...they know what’s going on.”
How did Brymore Productions begin? What’s the company's origin story?
Sean: I was a producer, Hollie was a stage manager out here [in Australia]. The mid-sector was very difficult to produce in, and to make any money off, so I was getting a bit jaded with producing. I’d done it for a while but I was still working in a cafe job and just wasn’t getting anywhere. Hollie was meant to be going back to the UK to study in stage management and she was like, “Well, just take a break and just see what the world gives you instead.” And so, I am not very good at taking breaks, not very good at relaxing and in the interim, created a script for a kids show. From there we just kept building -
Hollie: Spiralled.
Sean: It just got worse. [laughs]
Brymore Productions Head of Youth enters and places a duck on the desk.
Sean: Oh and that’s a duck.
As a company, you describe your intention as ‘to ignite imaginations and spark creativity in young audiences.” Why Young People?
Hollie: We think that people don’t take young people seriously enough and people don’t expect enough of young people and we wanted to create something that met children at their level.
Sean: Showcase their capabilities and ideas.
Hollie: So the first show that we did was an improv-based kids show and it was very ideas-driven from the audience. We thought, ‘the kids have the best, most interesting ideas. Why are we not just using those?’ Steal from the children [all laugh]. Don’t write that down. [laugh continues]. When we started we were like, “Oh those 8 year olds, they’re so smart.” And then we were like, “Oh those 6 year olds….those four year olds...” And now it’s like, “These babies… They know what’s going on.”
Brymore Productions Head of Youth enters and places another duck on the desk.
Sean: This interview is going to be called ‘A Plague of Ducks with Brymore Productions.’
“We wanted to create something that met children at their level. ”
Sean and Hollie in Bexley's Brilliant Birthday, Portsmouth Guildhall
What are some of the joys and challenges when working with or making theatre for Young People?
Sean: I think one of the joys is seeing how parents respond to their children interacting with us. As Hollie was just mentioning, that we work on their level and more often than not we’ve had instances where parents have said, “Oh, my child can’t do this, my child can’t do this.” and we don’t take that as an answer and we push forward with what we’re doing with them and the result is they fully go on with what we’re doing and they contribute to it and they influence the story, or the play, or whatever is happening and the parent at the end goes, “I didn’t know my child was that creative, I didn’t know they were that clever or smart or funny or any of those things.” So being able to showcase their talents and skills and knowledge and wacky ideas is one of the things that’s full of joy.
Indiah: And what is one of the challenges?
Hollie: I think that because of the nature of children’s theatre to this point, it’s very hard to present ourselves as making something that is creatively worthy. Something that’s got integrity, something that we’ve considered and is not just, ‘these things are what kids like so we’ll just do that.’ We think really hard about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it and what the outcome of what we’re doing is. I think it’s really hard to convince people that that's the amount of work that’s gone in.
Sean: And that it’s an art form to take seriously. When you tell people you make children’s theatre the response is always like, “Oh, for like birthday parties and that kind of thing?” Or we’ll be saying we do clown it’s like, “Oh, balloon animals?”. I think you’ve got to go that extra mile to convince people that what you’re doing is a very serious art form and that we have very serious and lofty goals with the work that we create.
Hollie Bryan as Poppy Hasluck in The Bureau Of Untold Stories
“You’ve got to go that extra mile to convince people that what you’re doing is a very serious art form and that we have very serious and lofty goals with the work that we create. ”
What can audiences expect from a Brymore Productions show?
Hollie: A beautiful mess. We thrive on mess. There’s something in me, that whenever I see mess on stage it feels so wrong but it’s so right and I love that controlled release of that chaos. To see kids be like, ‘Oh…this is not how the world is. This is cool.” I really enjoy that.
What will be Brymore Productions’ focus during their residency at Backbone Youth Arts?
Hollie: We are beginning to develop a program for 0-3 year olds, infants and toddlers, that introduces and welcomes that demographic into theatre. I, as a parent myself, haven’t found anything that made us feel that theatre was a space for us and that we were fully welcomed and that it was completely accessible to us. I always felt like, “Ooh gosh I hope he doesn’t cry, I hope that nothing goes wrong.” And then equally, we’re looking to create a space that is safe and inclusive so you can bring your child to the theatre and you can have them have this experience safely, knowing that this is a space that’s created for you. And that, maybe when they’re five you’ll take them to another show, and maybe when they’re seven you can take them to another show again. Knowing from a young age that this is an environment that is for everyone. From the get go.
What does the rest of Brymore’s year look like this year?
Hollie: Just chaos. Always chaos.
Sean: [called from another room during a brief meeting with Brymore Productions Head of Youth] A UK tour!
Hollie: Yes! We’re going on a UK tour that begins in April. A tour of our show Artiste that we developed here as HUB Residents at Backbone. We will be going to the Wales Millennium Centre and the Greenwich Theatre which is an off West End theatre in London. As well as other venues and schools and community engagements in that month. We’ve got a few other shows of Artiste booked in Australia…but none that we can talk about.
Sean: We’re always developing new ideas. Sometimes ideas come quite randomly to us. As I mentioned, I’m not very good at relaxing. Now that Artiste is up and running, that will just plod along and we will end up, inevitably, creating something new. Who knows exactly what that will be. We’ve already started tinkering on the basis of some ideas. And there are some things that we’ve had floating around for a number of years now that, having a space and having some dedicated time and mentorship will probably lead into developing those ideas further. So we might see if that turns into something full scale or if it’s just the early inklings of something. You never know what that turns into.
“It feels like the right place to be doing stuff because we’re tied to it intrinsically as the Brisbane Brymore base. ”
Sean in Mortimer Sparks and the Smashing Stone Tablet, All In The Mind Festival
What are you most excited about working in the office at Backbone?
Hollie: We’ve only ever worked as a pair before, really. We’ve had hands here and there but we’ve never been in an environment amongst other artists and creatives. I think having that input will be really positive, being able to soundboard things. We love Backbone and the community of Backbone. Just being amongst people and having some focused sit down - not in the lounge - time to work on shows and workshops and such.
Sean: I will also add, the first place as Brymore that we did something here in Brisbane since moving here was at the Ron Hurley theatre as part of Short + Sweet. So it felt like a homecoming when we started being in talks with [the team], when Backbone moved to [the Seven Hills Hub] and we were suddenly doing things here. It was an exciting full circle moment and I think that continues now. It feels like the right place to be doing stuff because we’re tied to it intrinsically as the Brisbane Brymore base.
Brymore Productions Head of Youth crawls under the desk in order to most efficiently present a duck to Hollie.
What is the first arts experience you personally remember?
Hollie: My Mum, when I was in junior school, started a drama club. She ran a drama club in our school and I think that that was really great and engaging. It was like a safe, community space to start working on being a person who loves theatre, right? The first time I experienced theatre… My grandma used to take me to the ballet at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, which is a huge theatre. [to Sean] It's, what, 2500 seats?
Sean: If not 3000.
Hollie: It’s enormous and you go there and we’d get a new outfit to go to the theatre and then we’d sit and it was red plush seats, the full nine yards, and watch the ballet. I remember being in that space and being like, “This is wild that life is like this. How is it like this?”
Sean: Mine is very similar. I don’t remember the show so much but I remember we would go to the Victorian Arts Centre to see a musical once a year. Again, not from very, very young but the first thing I remember theatrically was going to the state theatre in Melbourne. I remember the brass of the balcony edge and the red plush velvet seats and that kind of thing.
Hollie: You know what’s funny about that, is that -
Sean: -It’s the opposite of what we do now. The irony of that is that I remember the getting dressed up and the formality and the event style of that experience but Hollie’s right in saying that we want to make the theatre a more accessible space and it’s not so much about the bravado, the polished brass and the plush seats it’s about the experience that you’re having.
Can you introduce us to the Brymore Productions Head of Youth?
Sean: He is our son. He is our 1 and a half year old and he is our Head of Youth, jokingly. He’s our tester. He’s seen every show, he’s the biggest fan. He spoils the show now because he’s seen it so often which is very helpful for other people being in there. But you can always tell if you’re doing the show right or wrong because of how he responds.
Image by Morgan Roberts