TESTIMONIALS: Mentors
PIPPA HILL (previously head of literary at RSC, now freelance dramaturg)
Gemma Brockis is an experienced, original theatre-maker and a huge talent in the British theatre landscape. Known for her experimental, devised process and for making shows with narratives that bridge into immersive experiences for audiences, Gemma is an innovative, generous and exceptional theatre artist. Since working with her at the RSC where I commissioned her to co-create a new show, Kingdom Come, for The Other Place, I have followed Gemma's work and have encouraged her to focus on developing her playwriting. Gemma's ability to distil dramatic story beats into a visually ravishing theatrical language is extraordinary. The time to develop each story beat is always the element that requires time and investment for her, and it is the area she is rightly seeking to explore and develop.
It is rare to meet a theatre maker who is as uniquely inventive and visionary like Gemma. She is unlike anyone else I have worked with. She has a radical, contemporary, refreshing approach to writing new narratives that has the potential to offer a striking contrast to the current trends in British theatre.
SIMON STEPHENS (playwright)
I recommend Gemma Brockis for your consideration for your funding without reservation. I think she has the potential to write something brilliant. She is a thinker of unarguable clarity and force. She has read and dramaturged early drafts of my plays with a striking clarity and insight. She has worked as a professional actor for many years and brings the instincts and rigour of her work to her thinking about scripts. Some actors don't have dramaturgical insight. Gemma has a great deal. In attempting to dramatise the startling Massacre of Corse Lorne she will be writing into a subject that compels her. She has found a story that resonates four centuries after its happening. Her passion for her subject is unarguable. Her talent as a theatre maker is unarguable. Her suppleness as a thinker about scripts is, in my opinion, striking. I have no doubt she has the potential to write something remarkable.
TIM CROUCH (playwright)
I met Gemma in 2003, when we were sharing space in the Traverse theatre. I've been seeing her work and sharing experiences and ideas for twenty years. She has a unique voice as a theatre artist - funny, serious and deeply engaged with the experience of the audience. She should be much more visible in the landscape and I've been encouraging to write herself a show - to take full control and demand visibility.
I also know her as part of Shunt. Shunt always found ways to make surprising work and to give the audience pleasure. Their work blended huge popularity with absolute commitment to experimentation - and it has been hugely influential to the whole theatre scene, not only the more obvious immersive leg. Gemma's voice within that collective was strong, and her work as an individual director/maker/writer has proven her individual artistry, many times over. It's just this kind of voice that we want more of in theatre. I want to see the work she makes, and I know a lot of other people want that too.
If this application is successful, it would be an investment not only in her as an artist, but also in a healthy and exciting theatre landscape.
YUSRA WARSAMA (playwright)