DANIEL YORK'S SPECIAL BW TIPS:

 

YOUR PLAY NEEDS TO BE COMPELLING & UNIQUE

 

I had the play. In fact I had four plays. Yet to my mind only two of them were viable for me to produce independently. The reason for this is your play has to be about a compelling issue and it helps if that issue is fairly unique. I see an awful lot of East Asian writers trying to get their naturalistic “living-room” plays which aren’t about being East Asian produced. There’s nothing wrong with that but I think (I could be wrong) this makes things ten times as hard. People could look at my short film and my play and concede that I only write about one thing. Maybe most writers do but the fact is that’s the most authentic and unique subject matter I have at the moment.  

 

TO GET FUNDING FROM GOVERNMENT BODIES YOUR PLAY HAS TO CLEVER IN TICKING THE RIGHT BOXES

 

The thing you have to remember is that to get the UK Arts Council funding you have to fill out a big long form which has to tick an awful lot of boxes. The Arts Council don’t even read the play because they (understandably) can’t be seen as arbiters of taste. They concentrate on things like “audience development” and enabling access to theatre for people who don’t normally have any. What this inevitably leads to (in the case of ethnic minorities) is what I call “ethnic jamboree” theatre which tends to be “colourful”, “exotic” and a “celebration of culture”. All the things that I, as a mixed-raced British born East Asian, don’t have a particular penchant for. The Fu Manchu Complex is the nearest I can get to “ethnic jamboree” theatre. It is about portrayal and stereotyping. It uses a character created exactly 100 years ago by a white man who was arguably a racist. A character that is a Chinese master-villain written by a man who’d never even met a Chinese person. A racist myth, in fact. But one that still lingers in the imagination of Western media to a remarkably prevalent degree. Just look at the recent Chinese themed episode of Sherlock (The Blind Banker) for instance. I thought The Fu Manchu Complex could be sold as it hits so many bullet points.

 

IT IS BETTER TO CO-PRODUCE WITH A RESPECTABLE THEATRE THAN GO ALONE. DON'T BE PRECIOUS ABOUT BEING THE ONLY PRODUCER OF THE PLAY. WHAT MATTERS IS THE END RESULT.

 

We were extremely lucky though that the Ovalhouse were willing to come on board and co-produce with us. You need a venue that’s going to support new work and the Ovalhouse absolutely do that. In order to sell it to the Arts Council though we still had to raise further funding (you have to raise a certain percentage yourself). This funding can be “in-kind”, in other words it can be in the shape of donation of services, facilities, space etc.

 

CREATE BUZZ FOR THE PLAY BY THINKING OUT OF THE BOX AND ORGANISING INTERESTING EVENTS.

 

We decided to go the route of trying to get some academic discussion events organized around the topics in the play. This idea came to me after I’d attended a couple of the brilliant China In Britain events that Anne Witchard organized at the University of Westminster last year. The discussions were often around the subjects of “orientalism”, portrayal and the resounding mythology in early 20th Century literature but which still informs Western media psyche. If we could get a couple of discussion events organized it would both bump up the “in kind” funding (space, marketing, time) as well develop an audience and raise awareness of the issues in the play. The people at SOAS and the University of Westminster were unbelievably supportive and without them and Ovalhouse this play really wouldn’t be happening.  We also collaborated with British East Asian Artist to hold another discussion purely for theatre practitioners.

 

BE CREATIVE & DARING WITH YOUR MARKETING

 

We did also have to look at creative ways of marketing to East Asians which is never easy. We’ve mailed out to Chinese associations and created comic strips (drawn by the brilliant Matthew Leonhart, another mixed-race Eurasian).  When we got the funding we were able to engage a press relations company to handle the mainstream marketing as it’s quite a specialist area.

 

IT HELPS IF YOU HAVE A CAST IN MIND SO YOU DO NOT HAVE THE EXCUSE FROM BACKERS THAT YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FIND THE "RIGHT" ACTORS.

 

In terms of casting, getting a director etc I suppose I’m fortunate in that both Jennifer and myself had worked in the industry for a while and have a lot of contacts. We got director Justin Audibert because I’d acted in a play reading he did last year. I cheekily sent him the synopsis saying “I’m sure you’ll be too busy” but it turned out he wasn’t. He brought with him a phenomenal designer called Lily Arnold who I can’t speak highly enough of. Her designs for The Fu Manchu Complex are truly spectacular.

 

Casting:  I wrote it for an all East Asian cast but I also wanted that cast to reflect the diversity that exists within us. Too often “East Asian” means “Chinese” or “Japanese” but “East Asia” is an enormous geographical area with an extraordinary mix of races and cultures. Even China itself is far more diverse than most people think.  We’re lucky in that there is now an abundance of East Asian actors coming through who are serious about doing serious work as opposed to people who literally just want to sell their ethnicity and appear in TV commercials. We didn’t really do auditions for this as Justin, Jennifer and myself had a very good idea about who fit which roles and indeed I’d written the play with specific people in mind. If I could have a wish come true it’d be that I could write a brilliant part for every single brilliant East Asian actor.

 

IF ALL ELSE FAILS GO FOR BROKE 

 

The other route you can go is literally just to send your scripts to all the big theatres Royal Court, Bush, Hampstead) but there’s an army of readers to get through and you have to really look at the numbers of first-time writers they’re producing which obviously isn’t very many.