Director Imy Wyatt Corner is passionate about political plays.
The co-founder of True Name Theatre is after an assistant director role.
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Since she was a teenager, director Imy Wyatt Corner has been heavily involved with canvassing for the Labour Party.
It is partly that experience of “bizarre, eclectic groups of people coming together with a common aim” that informs her approach to making theatre.
“There are very few places where you get such a mix of people,” Corner says. “You get old people and young people. You get posho careerists, and you get French Annie, who just happens to leave nearby and wants to help. All of them are joined in this cause. I love work that represents that. I love work that explores community, and activism, and the joys and difficulties of politics.”
Corner’s current production – Humane at the Pleasance – ticks all those boxes. Written by Polly Creed, directed by Corner and produced by the company they founded together in 2019, True Name Theatre, it is a 90-minute drama about the Battle Of Brightlingsea – the 1995 protests by local residents against the export of livestock in appalling conditions from the Essex coastline.
A two-hander, starring Francesca Isherwood and Colette Zacca, it tells the story of two friends navigating the complex concerns around collective action. It was originally intended to run in March 2020, but was pushed back by the pandemic. While they waited for it to finally reach the stage, Corner and Creed developed it into a six-part audio drama podcast, which is available to listen to online.
“I’m really interested in political theatre,” continues Corner. “I don’t mean that in the sense of theatre about current affairs. I mean that in the sense of theatre that leaves you chewing on something afterwards. Plays like The Phlebotomist by Ella Road, and The Scar Test by Hannah Khalil. Things that aren’t on-the-nose political, but that raise really profound questions. That really gets me going.”
“I love work that explores community, and activism, and the joys and difficulties of politics…”
Born in 1995, Corner was raised in London, and remembers going to the Tricycle Theatre – now the Kiln Theatre – a lot when it was run by Nicolas Kent in the mid-2000s, a time when Michael Billington labelled it “Britain’s foremost political theatre”. She acted a lot, too – at school and in youth drama groups – but it was while studying English at Edinburgh University that she decided directing was for her.
“A friend of mine said she wanted to be a playwright, so I said, ‘Well, if you write a play, I’ll direct it’, and that’s what we did,” says Corner. “For the first couple of years, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I just made it up as I went along. It’s interesting, though. Doing drama as a teenager, acting with youth groups and stuff, you absorb a lot without meaning to.”
Corner developed a taste for working with new writing – her production of Kate Berglof’s Happy Yet? was a hit at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe and toured to Frankfurt. Her 2018 production of Siofra Dromgoole’s Walk Swiftly & With Purpose transferred from the Edinburgh Fringe to Theatre503, and her production of Dromgoole’s Baby, What Blessings followed it a year later. She backed that up with a well-received revival of Patrick Hamilton’s Gaslight – the play that originated the term of psychological abuse – at the Playground Theatre.
“I think my approach to directing is quite instinctive, and changes depending on what the project requires,” Corner says. “And, although it is also very text-led, I like to create a rehearsal room where it feels like everyone is creating a world together, rather than one in which I am just telling everyone what to do all the time.”
Along the way, Corner has co-founded two companies: True Name Theatre with Creed, which focusses on social and environmental issues like the Battle of Brightlingsea; and Swings And Roundabouts with Katie Berglof, Will Irven and Fran Cattaneo, which focusses on building creative communities of emerging theatremakers.
“After I graduated, I was doing a bunch of new writing nights and not getting anywhere, not meeting anyone, not making any progress,” Corner explains. “There was one where I didn’t even get a ticket to see a show that I had directed. We set up Swings and Roundabouts to help each other out and make things happen, rather than waiting for them to happen.”
When Covid-19 shut theatre down in March 2020 – delaying the originally planned run of Humane – Corner decided that it was time to do some formal training. She enrolled on the Roundhouse’s six-month Future Producers Programme, then on Bristol Old Vic Theatre School’s MA in Drama Directing, graduating earlier this year. Now, she balances her time between developing her career through True Name Theatre, Swings And Roundabouts, and freelance directing projects, and working at a school in London.
“Dedicating yourself full time to trying to carve a career in theatre can be incredibly exhausting, and bad for your mental health,” she says. “I think other jobs are really good for perspective, and I’m not at a point yet where I can work full-time as a director either. I have a few things lined up, but they are dependent on funding. I know what I’m doing until March next year. After that, it’s uncertain.”
What do you want to do?
I’m developing a few different projects at the moment, including a show about climate grief with the brilliant playwright Zoe Alker, which we are hoping to tour around the South West. I’m also really interested in literary adaptations that centre female narratives, and have begun to develop one that I am planning on taking further next year.
I want to continue to direct shows that tell relevant stories and centre women, and I want to start doing that on a larger scale. I want to start developing relationships with and working at theatres that do that well. Future me would love to direct work on an epic scale, too. Working at the Royal Shakespeare Company and learning from directors there would be a dream.
What support do you need to get there?
Realistically, the most useful thing for me right now would be an assistant director role for a long run. I’m really lucky to have done some directing, but the assistant director game is one that I don’t fully understand. There’s a kind of Catch-22, where to assist on a long run, you need to have assisted on a long run. It’s hard to break into that.
The best phone call I could get would be from the Arcola, the Young Vic, or the Kiln, asking me to work there. All three are fantastic theatres that have clear values and community connections, and I’d love to work at any of them in the future. Also, if any Essex-based theatres wanted to pick Humane up, that would be great.
How can people find out more about you?
I don’t have a website, but people can definitely look at True Name’s website, and they can listen to the podcast version of Humane, or come see it at the Pleasance. It’s on until November 21.
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Fergus Morgan