Venues, venues, venues

Xerxes continues to give me fun and games - I'm only typing this now because today's Dress Rehearsal had to be cancelled when bits of the theatre started to fall onto the stage. First night is now Saturday - and the dress is when the first night was, which means that some things won't have been rehearsed for almost a week. Chaos reigns.

Meantime, lots of initial discussions with venues about Dis-Orientations. I met up with Louise Chantal at Riverside, who seems really keen, and will get back with dates within a week (at least in theory). Once the London dates are in place, we can work backwards (or forwards, if necessary). One of the key things is to have a co-producing venue in which to open the show. For the last two, this was the Phoenix in Leicester, which may well happen again, particularly since both Matthew (who runs it) and Paul Kerryson at the Haymarket are keen to present the show in that city, and are looking at a joint venture. There's also an interesting space in Slough, called the West Wing: this is run by Yasmin Gurreeboo, who is a Mauritian and got in touch with us a while ago about theatre on the island. We put her in touch with Dev Virahsawmy, and she's been a BC fan ever since! It's an exciting new venue, so Yasmin and I have set up a meeting for next week. Meanwhile, Wojciech Trzcinski, who I know via the designer Gary Thorne, gets in touch in search of a work placement - he's just finished his studies and needs some hands-on experience of admin in a theatre company. This could be a great way to get the tour booking done - or at least take some of the detailed workload off me.

Another of our favourite venues, Oval House, is planning a Southern African festival next May-June. Given all our connections with the region, and several projects we have in "planning", it seems mad not to be involved in this, although dates may not fit with my possible (probable) ENO revival of Nixon in China and I don't want to spread our potential for funding too thinly. Arrange yet another meeting for next week, and decide to see how it all pans out.