NOW 23 arrives with an exciting line-up of Yard commissions and premieres including The Egg Show from Daniel Oliver & Mazvita which runs from April 21-22 at 7pm & April 23 at 3pm.
The Egg Show is a show about Mazvita, a 10-year-old ‘Yardling’ who is part of the Yard Young Artists scheme. Mazvita likes to pull her jumper over her head and be an egg.
This is also a show about Daniel Oliver, a 41-year-old dyspraxic, experimental performance artist, he likes to shout and create a mess.
More information can be found here
The Egg Show is coming to The Yard Theatre as part of Now 23, what can you tell us about the show?
It’s about an 11-year-old girl, Mazvita, who puts her jumper over her head and pretends to be an egg. It’s about a man (me) who likes to run around, and shout, and make a mess, and call it performance art, or theatre, but this time with kids. It’s also about an egg that has to run away from some chefs and then decides to gets famous on YouTube.
It’s about another 11-year-old girl, Jessica, who is not into running around and shouting and making a mess, she is more into drawing and BTS (a K-Pop band).
It’s also about another 11-year-old girl, Rima, who is more into dancing but she does also like shouting.
And all of this turns into The Egg Show which has been commissioned by The Yard Theatre as part of NOW Festival.
What inspired you to write it?
Writing is a funny word for this. It’s actually mainly talking and mucking about and then saying “oh let’s put that in the show” and then rehearsing it but then getting fed up with rehearsing it so just trying to be ok with it potentially going wrong or changing. This is a show that is a tribute to that process of making the show as much as it is the actual show.
I’m inspired to do this mainly because as a neurodivergent person I love seeing people confidently doing things that might typically be called unusual, or inappropriate, or weird, and I love finding ways of showing a celebrating those things.
Tell us a little more about Yard Young Artists and how you met Mazvita?
Yard Young Artists is a programme run by The Yard for local young people aged 4-19 where they provide free weekly drama and arts sessions with professional artists across the school year and during the summer holidays.
Mazvita has been (what The Yard calls) a Yardling for over two years. I had worked with a previous group of Yardlings on a project about pretending to get lost in some woods on the way to a party, and meeting a swamp monster, and a bunch of noisy idea animals, that premiered at The Yard’s 10th Birthday Festival.
When Mazvita started becoming an egg the Yard called me up to see if I wanted to make a show with her about it. I was super excited, and we met and chatted, and Mazvita did lots of drawing to explain more about the egg and the world it lives in.
and what do you think you’ve got personally out of the experience?
I have learnt a lot about the wonderful overlaps between my needs and desires as dyspraxic performance artist and those of an 11-year old who wants to be an egg. My insistence on being broad and generous about what should or shouldn’t happen in a performance have been confirmed. I’ve learnt lots about following ideas and actions even when they feel like distractions and diversions. Especially when they feel like distractions and diversions.
What do you think will be the biggest challenge for you in bringing this to the stage?
Mazvita is new to performing in a professional show. I am new to collaborating with a child. I love the self-taught-lightly-panicked-punky-stubborn charm this brings to it all.
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking to see The Egg Show?
I would say stop thinking and just book it!
This is a show for the inner-children of grown-ups and the inner-grown-ups of children. It’s for daft and smart people who like egg mess and egg fun and egg singing and egg dancing and egg acting.
As Mazvita likes to say… “a good show is an Egg Show!”
The Egg Show from Daniel Oliver & Mazvita runs from April 21 to 23 as part of NOW Festival at The Yard
