Think about the ‘whys’… why do you want to take your work abroad, what are your reasons? Why now? Why you and why that particular piece of work?

know what you have

What is unique about you, your company and your work? Find and identify your USP and work with it. Bear in mind too that international promoters are looking for things that they haven’t already got, not your interpretation of what they already have; “Do German audiences really want our interpretations of Nietzsche?” probably not.

expect nothing, assume nothing

Don’t set out with the same expectations you have grown comfortable with from UK touring. From country to country the notions of health and safety, technical support etc. differ greatly so expect nothing and be prepared for all eventualities. Be realistic and be flexible. Do not make assumptions either about who your audiences will be; the average theatre go-er in Russia may not be who you expect. On that same note, don’t make assumptions about where your work is perfect for, as you will almost always be surprised by the reality. Be aware too that international touring happens on a completely different timescale to what you may be used to so expect a slow burn as conversations may take years to develop into fruition.

leg work

You are the best advocate for your work, and it is you who needs to do the legwork. Other organisations can support you but it is you and only you who can build those connections with international venues and promoters in order to start the proverbial ball rolling.

business ready

Be aware of business talk, think about you and your work in terms of ‘trade’ and ‘export’ and be prepared to run like a business. On this note, it is important to build and solidify your home base before embarking on international touring. Nurture and build those relationships at home to ensure a solid springboard to embark on international touring from. Remember to be entrepreneurial, open minded and think outside of the box; for example, the key to international touring doesn’t necessarily have to be through arts organisations; have you looked into educational charities, does your work tie in with their ambitious? Remember too that international touring should always be in addition to your other touring work and not instead of, so does your company have the capacity to accommodate both?

the heart of the matter

Be aware that there may be other agendas afoot socially and politically. British Council for example may have a particular remit or agenda that they are looking to fulfil and your work may fit in with that, so don’t just quote your flyer blurb, talk about what your work is really about and the social and political threads that string it all together.

context

Always bear in mind the cultural context of your work as many things can get lost in translation (both visual and verbal) and may be interpreted very differently to how you intended!

it’s not just about selling a show

Don’t be fooled, the international streets are not paved with gold so do not enter into the international market expecting pots of it around every corner. International touring is as much (if not more) about the process of collaboration and exchanging ideas as it is building your international profile. It’s about developing your ambitions as an artist and the opportunity of seeing your work through the eyes of other cultures.

getting to know you

Build relationships and get to know promoters as people, not just as a potential booking. As pointed out above, this isn’t just about selling work so don’t just pitch at people, get to know them. You’ll find the doors will open all the more widely by doing so.

share

It’s not a competition between you and other UK artists; that is neither a helpful nor productive attitude. Working together as a UK network will garner more relationships, more communication and therefore better results. Be supportive of each other and share contacts and opportunities. If you’re not right for an opportunity then recommend someone who is, that way you’ll build trust and a relationship with that promoter and that dialogue may develop into future collaborations.

Maja Ardal was born in Iceland and educated in Scotland. She studied theatre at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama before emigrating to Canada where she has worked for 40 years as actor, director, playwright and professional theatre trainer. Maja wrote and performed in  You Fancy Yourself which was originally created and performed in Canada. Maja then took  You Fancy Yourself to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2009, followed by a tour of South East England. The show will form part of Ottawa’s Great Canadian Theatre Company’s 2012 season.

In the Autumn of 2009 I was invited with my solo show, You Fancy Yourself,  to come to England and tour to Sussex, Surrey and Kent theatres and community halls. My host, Gavin Stride of Farnham Maltings had seen my show at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto where my company, Contrary Company produced it in association with Theatre Passe Muraille. I performed at the Edinburgh Fringe that year, and the tour in England followed shortly after.

I spent my childhood in Scotland, and thought I would feel a familiarity with the countryside I was driving through, but in fact I had never been to that part of England when I lived there, and I found the drives delightful as our tour van wound down narrow tree-lined roads, past thatch-roofed houses, and through towns and villages that felt at times like I was passing through a Thomas Hardy novel.

The UK rural touring venues were extremely varied. I played a grand old theatre, and I played a tiny schoolhouse; in a small theatre over a pub, a school gymnasium stage, and a lovely community hall with a red velvet curtain that I could not resist using, as my show had never had a curtain rise on it before.

My favourite places to perform were the smaller communities, who were often raising money from the sale of tickets to my show for a cause. These performances were always sold out, and the audiences had a celebratory feel to them. Several of my performances ended with a thank you speech and a bouquet. One time when I was standing waiting to go on, the church minister who had launched an arts programme in a tiny schoolhouse got up on the podium (the smallest playing space I had ever used) and announced that they had raised more than budgeted on this one show, and the audience cheered, as did I. There is something very special about the collaboration between a theatre person like myself and the good works of a community. It gave me the feeling that my show had even more power than the pleasure of the experience. Professional arts and community arts can have a terrific partnership in so many ways. It seemed that theatres that were offering the show to the general public had more trouble generating sales. This gap intrigued me and made me want to delve deeper into community relations. Here in Canada I have been inspired to do so with my recent work, and this has a lot to do with the wonderful tour I did. I so enjoyed the travelling as well, sharing stories with my delightful and very competent young stage manager Jemma. I would do a tour like this again at the drop of a hat!

The South East England tour of You Fancy Yourself  was produced by Farnham Maltings.

Strangeface were invited to perform at MOBARAK 13th International Puppet Theatre Festival in Iran in July 2010 following our participation in the caravan Marketplace in May 2010. Our work was brought to the attention of the Iranian festival’s organiser by a visiting Iranian artist Arvand Dashtaray who had met our General Manager at the caravan marketplace event. The training we had received from the caravan team was absolutely crucial to the development of the company in the UK and more specifically the success of the project in Iran. Our background in rural touring also proved to be extremely relevant to international work.

Puppet theatre is a significant part of Iranian culture. It is seen as a way for artists to express ideas that would be censored in other forms. The festival organisers were keen to invite Strangeface, as a company using masks and puppets would push the barriers even further.

So we re-rehearsed the work to suit Iranian censorship laws with support from Kent County Council, The British Council, Visiting Arts, caravan and Farnham Maltings.

Certain rules applied. No touching between women and men, no dancing for women, and no singing for women. However we found that the rules were not so clear cut; could a woman playing a man touch a man? Does a female mask have to wear a hijab?

We had agreed to give an extra performance, making three performances in total, to cover a German company that had somehow managed to miss their plane. All we needed to do would be to make sure the set being made in Iran met with requirements, and we would be ready to perform on the evening of the next day…

Proud smiles of Iranian carpenters contrasted with our own looks of horror as we realised the set was not only some way off completion but also some way off the twenty pages of scale drawings faxed out three weeks previously.

It soon became obvious that although we had been provided with a translator, our set builders had not and, unable to read instructions and measurements, had resorted to building the set from a small low resolution picture pulled from the internet. Notions of scale were approximate and whereas the set we had rehearsed on was built of carefully crafted timber to last over a hundred performances what we were now faced with was a set built of hastily carved polystyrene unlikely to make it through three.

There was considerable time spent in the workshop over the next two days but by the afternoon of the next day we were approaching being able to perform. All the requisite props that we had not be able to fly out to Iran due to weight restrictions had been found and our technician got on with rigging and lighting. However as the day went on tension in the cast rose as we all prepared to perform for the censors. And soon two gentlemen wearing grey suits and friendly smiles arrived and sat down, notebooks out and pens poised. We performed our ten minutes, then waited for the debate to begin. Nothing happened. Pens and notebooks were snapped away in briefcases, our censors asked to see the puppets and left.

Which leaves the shows themselves. With surtitles provided in Farsi at the side of the stage the audiences loved The Last Resort  expressing their delight with cheers and whistles at the end of the show. The performances were very successful and the average audience was 91 (capacity 95) despite the fact that first evening had not been widely advertised due to the last minute change in the programme.

With what time we had left we enjoyed the rest of the festival – no small affair. As well as our British contingent, companies from countries including Germany, France, Bosnia, Argentina, Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands attended the 5-day festival complimenting numerous home-grown troupes. Performances happened in various venues around Tehran’s impressive city theatre complex, both inside and out, sometimes in temperatures approaching 40 degrees. It was therefore with great surprise and pleasure that after our last performance we were told that Strangeface had been chosen as one of two companies to be given a Mobarak award for artistic excellence and audience enjoyment.

It is hard not to be influenced by our media’s constant outrage at Iranian actions on the international stage. However this was a wonderful opportunity to see another side to a proud and beautiful nation. The Iranians we met were extremely kind, generous and open-hearted people. Theatre is a wonderful medium for bringing people together to reflect on human nature, and Strangeface was very pleased to have been a small part of an artistic dialogue between Iran and the UK.

A decade ago, I was co-director of Theatre Factory, a promotion and production company based in Brussels. The idea was essentially to bring British theatre to the capital of Europe, a polyglot city with English as a lingua franca. With the professional theatre split strictly along French and Flemish lines, the only English-language theatre was – and still is – produced by amateur community groups.

If I may say, our track record was impressive. We were fortunate to work with some fantastic companies including Out of Joint, Theatr Clwyd, Actors Touring Company, Hoipolloi, Third Angel and the RSC. Linda Marlowe astonished audiences with her Berkoff’s Women and Gareth Armstrong served up a steaming Shylock.

We worked on a festival of new English-language writing that included work by Mark Ravenhill, Conor McPherson and Forced Entertainment and also organized a week of performances by Merseyside-based companies to launch the Liverpool City of Culture bid at the European Parliament.

My experience of working at Theatre Factory gave me the necessary insights into the realities of touring abroad, not just for the visiting companies but from the point of view of the local promoter. You can get the work right, the audiences right, the marketing right and make the relationships worthwhile and enduring but, as with most things, the ultimate assessment has to be based on whether it can work financially.

Despite the artistic successes and some long-lasting relationships that I still enjoy, we found it almost impossible to make the process financially viable – the costs simply outweighed the income. This was despite support from The British Council and some corporate sponsorship. Ultimately though, we could only charge a maximum ticket price in a country where generous subsidy means cheap theatre tickets.

So where’s all this heading? It’s certainly not a dissection of our particular business model but the experience has led me to believe that it’s important to try to gain an understanding of any financial constraints that a potential buyer of work may have. Some festivals and bigger venues may be generously funded to co-produce work or buy in shows, others could be treading a finer line.

Talking to promoters at Caravan 2010, it became clear that there is now more of an appetite for sharing financial information and budgets. In my day, a company could quote a set performance fee plus transport, accommodation and per diems and I could either accept it or not.

Now, it’s not so much about negotiating a price as reaching a mutually acceptable and respectful deal where both parties can win and neither try to make excessive profit at the expense of the other. I believe that anyone involved in international work would benefit from developing a holistic understanding of the costs involved of touring abroad for both parties as well as the potential for income.

It’s essentially a grown-up way of doing business in a harsher economic climate though that’s not to say that artists shouldn’t be seeking to make a good financial deal. They may just need to be more open about how they arrive at the money and view it more as a mutually beneficial relationship than a straight buyer-seller transaction.

As for me, I still have an eye on opportunities for presenting British work in Brussels. The gap in the market remains and no-one else has tried to fill it. That may tell me all I need to know but I’d need to investigate radical ways of financing it in a more inventive and complex way than relying on ticket income alone.