The Gathering

A year and a half ago - in Jan ’25 - I wrote a blog called ‘Letting Go of The Plan,’ about how our vision of The Gathering as a creation centre, based at Bore Place in Kent, might not be unfolding quite as we intended. It was also about how my recent life hadn’t gone as expected, when I received a diagnosis of Acute Myeloid Leukaemia on the day after my 50th…

Improvising is never a process of not planning anything. You make plans all the time – it’s impossible not to do so. Rather, impro involves growing comfortable with letting your plan go, again and again. So, our guiding principles in The Gathering would be the same…

Exactly one year ago today, we learned about the death of Nicky Singer, the brilliant Nicky who ran the Performing Arts Labs, and introduced us to Bore Place via Matilda. On that day, though we didn’t know it was that day, we made a short film about our hopes for The Gathering at the Bore Place, and today, we’re sharing it with you.

I want to tell you a story.

It’s a story about stories. About their power. About how they can change the world, make things happen. But also, about different ways of telling them. And it is an invitation to you to join in the telling, to help with the shaping of a story that is only just beginning.

“I’m not mad. I’ve just read different books.” Ken Campbell

Over the years there have been many people who have inspired me through their books and one of those people is Seth Godin. A marketing and tech guru who’s work about messaging and communication has always been at the forefront. He’s now what I would call a social architect. Creating different contexts for authentic learning, leadership and change to emerge…

Bore Place, where Improbable is hoping to make our home, to build a creation centre, is a historic estate of 500 acres that includes an organic farm, group retreat accommodation, education programmes, and more, and it is all on ‘regeneratively managed’ land. That’s what it says on the website.

“Before Christmas I wrote a piece about Improbable moving towards a seasonal model of working. Now post-Xmas, but still in winter, I think we are, slowly, making some seasonal shifts… the emergent theme that it feels most pressing to write about is much more humble and fundamental: food.”

It is cold today. Frosty. My daughter (a big fan of glitter) was impressed by how the leaves on the ground sparkled silver in the light this morning. For the first time this winter it looks like winter out the window. Like how it’s meant to look, according to the Christmas cards.

There is a question we have been skirting around for a while now. A year in fact. Because it was a year ago that we initiated an open conversation about our quest for a home.

Our quest for a home has only just begun. We have only answered the ‘where.’ Now we have a whole lot of ‘what’ and ‘who’ to wonder about too…..

We might have found Improbable a home….

“I now suspect that if we work with machines the world will seem to us to be a machine, but if we work with living creatures the world will appear to us as a living creature.”

We’ve put out the official job advert, so now here is an informal invitation to join us. A poem about a job. Our spirit ad for an Improbable Executive Director.

When we began this remount, we talked a lot about how to ensure the work stayed alive and still retained its essence, even as a new company was put together. In opera, this is a real challenge.

We want to invite artists, producers, directors, audience members - you! - to engage with us and with each other about the idea of home.

A guest post from Richard Katz: “I imagine some sort of sweet spot. A place which has the size to sustain a group of artists for whom the act of creation is a fluid, ongoing, and organic experience.”

We have committed to approaching this quest for a home just as we would approach the making of a show. If we were in a rehearsal room right now, we would be putting images up on the wall - not interpreting them, not ordering them - just, as we stumble across them.

Keith Johnstone once said of Lifegame, “If theatre didn’t exist, this would be a good place to start.” Phelim had a vision this week of that quote carved up high on the beam of our new space-to-be.

Gathering is a verb and a noun - we gather and together create a circle, an empty space between us which can hold stuff.

Every nest has to start with a first wisp of something.