Ask the Author: Jolie Booth
Answered Questions (9)
Jolie Booth
When I came to and I was standing on the stage before an audience in a huge auditorium. Everyone was looking at me, expecting me to speak.
Jolie Booth
If I could, I'd travel to 1940's Berlin just before the war and I'd perform in a cabaret alongside Sally Bowles, but that's not fictional... I'd like to hang out with the BFG making lots of dream bubbles.
Jolie Booth
Anything and everything by Robert Macfarlane, John Lewis-Stempel and Tristan Gooley. I'm on a serious nature tip at the moment.
Jolie Booth
I follow my nose. Projects tend to lead into each other and I have no limitations on being attached to a particular medium. I'm not just a writer. For example, I squatted a house sixteen years ago and it turned out be a time-capsule, filled with a woman's life who had died there and had been a hippy in the sixties and seventies. I became custodian of her life archive. Then four years ago I wrote a play called HIP about this woman's life, celebrating her victories and learning lessons from her failings. This became a walking tour where I took people around the streets of Brighton and introduced them to the cool and hip places the hippies and beatniks used to hang out in back in the day. Then this became a museum called the Museum of Ordinary People, which is a new pop-up museum that celebrates the ripples ordinary people leave behind. Part of this museum includes me teaching journal writing courses, which is how I practice writing. and all of this will feature in my next novel "The Meaning of Life" which is coming out in 2020.
Jolie Booth
The idea for my new play Sisterhood came about after several interesting conversations involving myself and a large number of women, both online and in person. These conversations mainly centred around fertility, motherhood, gender identity and the #MeToo revelations. It became clear that something was happening... Women were waking up and I began to imagine a world wide women's web of community and support, who might - if they grew to feel big enough, strong enough and brave enough - be able to help turn this ship around, pulling humanity away from the precipice of environmental disaster, gross inequality and World War III.
I began thinking about making a show that might help all this and it led to me fantasising about the possibility of working with some of the women in my life who inspire her the most and I dreamt of creating a piece that used female stewardship at its very core, so I invited my long term mentor and close friend Andrea Brooks to work with me on the project. Then I also invited Caragh Kelson-Bailey to take part. Caragh is a young woman I have been close friend and mentor to now for many years. Thankfully they both agreed to take part and together they helped me create the foundations of the new show.
With a creative team of amazing women we all headed over to Wilmington for an R&D weekend together. Before we arrived at the space there was no clear idea of what the show was going to be about. There'd been talk of it being like the Vagina Monologues, as a kind of interactive panel show, and there was a desire for it to have a strong lighting and design influence, but other than that there were no firm ideas, although I had just begun reading the works of Lisa Lister and had started thinking about the effects that the infamous witch trials had inflicted upon the female psyche over history.
Andrea encouraged the team to think of the play as already being in the ether, waiting to be told, something I had already felt stirring in my womb space... And slowly but surely the beauty and magic of the historical area we were staying in began working its magic on us, especially because it was Belatane, just at the start of Spring, and once we'd discovered the 1600 year old yew tree growing in the local churchyard of Wilmington, just a few meters up the hill, we were sold. This play had to be historical in setting and had to be about witches.
This newly devised multimedia tale introduces audiences to a sisterhood caught between two timelines: the witch trials of the 16th Century and modern-day women facing a world in political and environmental upheaval. Sisterhood transports the audience, in this extra-live performance, to a church cell in Wilmington, where three women, who span the ages of around 20, 40 and 60 years old, await their trial in the morning. Soothing and passionate storytelling interweaves the tales of these three women with vestiges from the performers own lives, to reveal an immediate and clear association. As the analogue world disappears into the mists of time Sisterhood questions what kind of world we are leaving to our daughters of the digital age? And how, like the phoenix, we can resurrect our sisterhood from the ashes of patriarchal rule?
Thanks to support from the Marlborough Theatre, The Spire Arts Centre and Arts Council England, we have been able to develop the play into a full production that I now have out on tour.
We took on two actress to replace Andrea and Caragh, who were unfortunately unable to come live on the road with me and the show. But with blessings they found Jules Craig and Coco Marteans. We also found the sublime Sophia Craig-Daffern who joined the performers on the stage as a musician creating a captivating soundscape for the action.
I began thinking about making a show that might help all this and it led to me fantasising about the possibility of working with some of the women in my life who inspire her the most and I dreamt of creating a piece that used female stewardship at its very core, so I invited my long term mentor and close friend Andrea Brooks to work with me on the project. Then I also invited Caragh Kelson-Bailey to take part. Caragh is a young woman I have been close friend and mentor to now for many years. Thankfully they both agreed to take part and together they helped me create the foundations of the new show.
With a creative team of amazing women we all headed over to Wilmington for an R&D weekend together. Before we arrived at the space there was no clear idea of what the show was going to be about. There'd been talk of it being like the Vagina Monologues, as a kind of interactive panel show, and there was a desire for it to have a strong lighting and design influence, but other than that there were no firm ideas, although I had just begun reading the works of Lisa Lister and had started thinking about the effects that the infamous witch trials had inflicted upon the female psyche over history.
Andrea encouraged the team to think of the play as already being in the ether, waiting to be told, something I had already felt stirring in my womb space... And slowly but surely the beauty and magic of the historical area we were staying in began working its magic on us, especially because it was Belatane, just at the start of Spring, and once we'd discovered the 1600 year old yew tree growing in the local churchyard of Wilmington, just a few meters up the hill, we were sold. This play had to be historical in setting and had to be about witches.
This newly devised multimedia tale introduces audiences to a sisterhood caught between two timelines: the witch trials of the 16th Century and modern-day women facing a world in political and environmental upheaval. Sisterhood transports the audience, in this extra-live performance, to a church cell in Wilmington, where three women, who span the ages of around 20, 40 and 60 years old, await their trial in the morning. Soothing and passionate storytelling interweaves the tales of these three women with vestiges from the performers own lives, to reveal an immediate and clear association. As the analogue world disappears into the mists of time Sisterhood questions what kind of world we are leaving to our daughters of the digital age? And how, like the phoenix, we can resurrect our sisterhood from the ashes of patriarchal rule?
Thanks to support from the Marlborough Theatre, The Spire Arts Centre and Arts Council England, we have been able to develop the play into a full production that I now have out on tour.
We took on two actress to replace Andrea and Caragh, who were unfortunately unable to come live on the road with me and the show. But with blessings they found Jules Craig and Coco Marteans. We also found the sublime Sophia Craig-Daffern who joined the performers on the stage as a musician creating a captivating soundscape for the action.
Jolie Booth
I've just finished writing a new play called Sisterhood, which I also then performed in and took up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year, where we performed at the Pleasance for the whole of August. It is now on tour around the UK...
GROUNDBREAKING WORK “At its core Sisterhood is a superbly written, intelligent, and essential play, masterfully portrayed by its three actresses, exploring the role of male domination, misinformation, sexual abuse, and age discrimination through the lens of the past but contrasted with moments drawn from the modern day.” - Fringe Review
Like Hand Maids Tale, but with more hope, Sisterhood is a gentle but fearless adventure into the dark heart of patriarchal rule. Three women, aged 20, 40 and 60 (But not a virgin, mother or hag in sight) stand on a precipice, the patriarchy watching over them – flaming torches aloft – threatening to burn them all.
Sisterhood is a newly devised multimedia tale introducing you to a sisterhood caught between two timelines: the witch trials of the 16thC and modern-day women facing a world in political and environmental upheaval. Sisterhood transports the audience, in this extra-live performance, to a church cell in Wilmington, where three women await their trial in the morning. Soothing and passionate storytelling interweaves the stories of these three women with vestiges from the performers own lives, to reveal an immediate and clear association.
“Women don’t have to agree with each other. They don’t even have to like each other. That’s not the point… To challenge patriarchy, create change and begin to heal the wound of the witch trials, women DO have to support other women who dare to speak their truth. Even if it’s completely different to their own. It takes bloody courage to stand up as a woman owning your power. Ask Joan of Arc.” – Witch by Lisa Lister
★★★★★ “An insightful and powerful piece.” - Latest Magazine
★★★★ “If you are looking for a thought provoking play with good jokes and historical references… Sisterhood is absolutely the show for you.” - The Student Newspaper
GROUNDBREAKING WORK “At its core Sisterhood is a superbly written, intelligent, and essential play, masterfully portrayed by its three actresses, exploring the role of male domination, misinformation, sexual abuse, and age discrimination through the lens of the past but contrasted with moments drawn from the modern day.” - Fringe Review
Like Hand Maids Tale, but with more hope, Sisterhood is a gentle but fearless adventure into the dark heart of patriarchal rule. Three women, aged 20, 40 and 60 (But not a virgin, mother or hag in sight) stand on a precipice, the patriarchy watching over them – flaming torches aloft – threatening to burn them all.
Sisterhood is a newly devised multimedia tale introducing you to a sisterhood caught between two timelines: the witch trials of the 16thC and modern-day women facing a world in political and environmental upheaval. Sisterhood transports the audience, in this extra-live performance, to a church cell in Wilmington, where three women await their trial in the morning. Soothing and passionate storytelling interweaves the stories of these three women with vestiges from the performers own lives, to reveal an immediate and clear association.
“Women don’t have to agree with each other. They don’t even have to like each other. That’s not the point… To challenge patriarchy, create change and begin to heal the wound of the witch trials, women DO have to support other women who dare to speak their truth. Even if it’s completely different to their own. It takes bloody courage to stand up as a woman owning your power. Ask Joan of Arc.” – Witch by Lisa Lister
★★★★★ “An insightful and powerful piece.” - Latest Magazine
★★★★ “If you are looking for a thought provoking play with good jokes and historical references… Sisterhood is absolutely the show for you.” - The Student Newspaper
Jolie Booth
Write a journal every day. Take yourself away on writing retreats. Book an Airbnb and hide away on your own, somewhere beautiful and indulge yourself with inner world play time.
Jolie Booth
The opportunity to go inwards and play in the inner world. I also make theatre and art. All acts of creativity are an inward journey, but I find writing, for me, takes me in the deepest. I lose myself.
Jolie Booth
I've never had writers block and I think this is because I write a daily journal. For me this is like the practice of an instrument. Ten to twenty minutes a day, no matter where I am or what I'm doing, it is part of my evening ritual to sit and reflect on my day. I use it to chart my menstrual cycle, the moon cycles and the year wheel, so it also encourages me to notice how my energy levels, concerns and focus' change with the cycles within cycles that I'm living within, reprogramming my experience of time from a patriarchal linear one to a feminine cyclical one. When thinking about what to write about I consider close, middle and far. Close is how I'm feeling and from this point there's even another close middle and far running back into the inner world, but that's for another day. Middle is what I've been up to that day and far is what is currently going on in the world. I don't consciously choose which mode I write my journal in, but I notice where I'm writing from at different points in my cycles.
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