#2 Hope as an active political choice
Issue #2 Hope as an active political choice
23rd March 2022
Hello. This is still Chris Mead.
Through the magic of email scheduling, I'll be on a plane to Hamburg when this gets delivered. I'm off to teach and perform at the wonderful TÖRN festival with Project2.
We're debuting a new show format there called Hopepunk. It's a whole genre of stories of which I was previously unaware - but actually some of my favourite TV shows can be classified that way.
Consider the concept of hope itself, with all the implications of love, kindness, and faith in humanity it encompasses. Now, picture that swath of comfy ideas, not as a brightly optimistic state of being, but as an active political choice, made with full self-awareness that things might be bleak or even frankly hopeless, but you’re going to keep hoping, loving and being kind nonetheless.
That's Hopepunk and this is the rest of the newsletter...
Rule of three
[Clothes] Paynter Jacket Co.
Paynter make jackets in limited edition batches, four times a year. They generally sell out in minutes. I love the ethos of the company - taking an iconic style and remaking it with an eye on modernity, sustainability & community. I have 4 of their pieces - two chore jackets, one denim and one car coat. Mostly, I love their commitment to slow fashion - making something with creativity and thoughtfulness.
[Newsletters] Seth Godin & Better Allies
Dynamite improviser & human being, Katy Schutte, introduced me to these two newsletters and I now read both of them religiously. Seth Godin writes micro-blogs daily about aspects of business culture and has an uncanny knack of telling me exactly what I needed to hear, WHEN I needed to hear it. Better Allies by Karen Catlin is a brilliant resource for creating more inclusive spaces with 5 simple actions you can follow every week. Both highly recommended. You should probably subscribe to Katy's newsletter too.
[Musicals] Actors who played the same part singing together
I love musicals. Because I am deeply cool. And during lockdown I became obsessed with a specific kind of promotional video. It's the *"actors who played the same part singing a song together"* video. I find it so interesting to listen to the individual vocal choices they make. Now you can be enthralled too with this handy list.
Elphabas | Evan Hansens | Eliza Hamiltons | Six Queens | You're welcome!
Please reply to this email if you have more of these. Thank you very much.
Spotlight
I'm co-teaching an online workshop on Dramatic Monologues with the incredibly talented Stephen Davidson on 6th April. Stephen is a wonderful teacher and improviser - I'd encourage you to take more of his classes. This workshop is particularly dear to our hearts as we're both vocal advocates of allowing improv to be more theatrical. Dramatic monologues aren't something you see too often in improv shows but they're incredibly rich and evocative tools to add to your repertoire.
You can see more of the classes I have to offer here or you can email me if you'd like to have me coach your team.
Longform thoughts
Everything was the same. The wide aisles, the cassette tape boxes spaced out evenly across the shelves. Hundreds of boxes of the same movies. A hundred Tom Cruises looking worriedly at an explosion, as if to say "Shit, there's an explosion over there, I better not go over that way, unless I want to get exploded". And no actual tapes to rent of anything popular. That was important too.
Read my short story They brought back Blockbuster (based on a dream I had).
Radio days
Sweet dreams, Radio!