This Stays in the Room – Heidi Taylor

As the dramaturg, working with co-creators Mindy Parfitt and Alexa Devine for the last two years, we’ve learned a lot about each other. Our process is often super-efficient, slotted in by these busy artists between acting and directing gigs, between doula calls and triathlon training, between fund raisers for the day care and company planning.  We make clear agendas, we check off lists, we assign tasks with an eye on the minutes ticking away. Because the time is precious.

What’s remarkable is that within that precious time, there is so much space for laughter, for tears, for disagreement and reconciliation, for eating good food, for walking in nature, for building fires and sitting in saunas or hot tubs. Perhaps it’s the nature of the project – talking about shame and forgiveness requires a certain care and emotional investment. But I think it’s an ethos more than anything, and one that I keep being reminded of working with the artists at HHG, and with the incredibly generous team of artists at the centre of the project.

Moving towards production in March, we faced a difficult choice: what to call the project. Nothing quite felt right, but we finally settled on the somewhat ironic This Stays in the Room – perhaps because the intimate conversations that sparked the project sometimes started with that preface. Our collaborators are willing to bring their whole selves into the project, hoping that they will be received with hospitality. When we bring this material to audiences in March, much of this material will leave the room for the first time. I look forward to meeting our audiences in Gallery Gachet, to find out what parts of our journey resonate with them, what stays in the room, and what moves out into the world.

Heidi Taylor