Just when you think you know everything about Bonnie Dundee, it reveals something new. They don’t call it ‘The City of Discovery’ for nothing.
As part of this module, I’m lucky to be doing a placement with Dundee Rep. The Rep is currently developing a new production called A-Z of Dundee which will tour different communities within the city.
My fellow intern, Kai, and I are thrilled to be part of this project because we get a sneak peek into the world of theatre AND get to work with playwrights, directors and actors. We have a development meeting which can’t come soon enough.
The production is described as ‘a brand new anarchic, (and mostly true) history of Dundee’ which explores Dundee’s relationship with the rest of the world. We’re not going with the bog-standard ‘Jute, Jam and Journalism’ but will be uncovering things that people might not know.
For this we’ve been speaking Dundonians themselves – us included. After our initial meeting with Heather Cassidy at the Rep, director Ewan Donald and designer Leila Kalbassi, we went out in search of material that can be used in the production.
So, we chatted to people in the city centre and set up other interviews with people of interest. We’ve had some insightful and amusing conversations so far, but we’ll be building on this before our meeting.
Setting sail for our own voyage
Frigate Unicorn – one of the world’s oldest warships.
To get into the swing of things, Kai and I visited the Frigate Unicorn. We learned a bit about the city’s history at sea and, I learned that sailors must have been very short – I was hunched over the entire time!
Nonetheless it was a valuable visit and we gather useful information, ideas and a contact for an interview.
Gunning for stories. The Frigate Unicorn’s gun deck was cool!
We still have a couple of weeks until our meeting where we plan on pitching our findings to the rest of the team. I’m sure there are many stories left to uncover, come back later to find out what they are – or better yet come to the show.
‘E’ is for E-book
In other news, the internship with New Haven is also going well.
Lately, I have taken fully formatted and edited manuscript and prepared it for E-book publication. I was given a template to use and an example E-book to follow. My job was to make sure the text was successfully transferred on to the template.
It was fun to do and to see how publishing in different formats works. Teddie seemed happy with my work (save for a few mistakes – oops). Take a look at the final product here.
Next up is promotion for another title in about a week or so.
Things are certainly moving along! I can’t wait to see what the next few weeks has in store at both placements.
You can also catch me on Twitter and my own website.
All the best,
H.M. Hussain
