Artistic Director, Charlotte Nightingale, was interviewed by Planet FM’s KickArts programme on Sunday 17th May 2020. KickArts is presented by Emma Bishop and Stephen Dallow. Hear of Glass Ceiling Arts Collective’s contribution to a socially cohesive Aoteroa New Zealand, in the recording below.

The radio interview has also been transcribed to text as:

KickArts
Well, now we're joined by Charlotte Nightingale.

Charlotte
Hello. Nice to be here.

KickArts
And lovely to be in your lounge with you and your dog.

Charlotte
Wonderful. Yeah, he is just sitting here quietly at the moment. Hopefully there won't be any sheep going past. Otherwise, we'll hear lots of barking.

KickArts
Where are you based Charlotte to have sheep going past your window?

Charlotte
Well, I moved to Walkworth recently. And so I live on a property with about five acres and lots of sheep. And I did have a horse until Friday but the horse went back to its owner. But hopefully we'll get another one. That's my other passion: horses.

KickArts
Fantastic. Charlotte tell us about how you fit into the arts landscape of Auckland and New Zealand?

Charlotte
That's a big question.

Well, I have recently set up a new theatre company called Glass Ceiling Arts Collective. But I've been working in the arts since I left college. And I was until recently the general manager of Touch Compass. But at the beginning of the year, I decided with a few colleagues to set up a new organisation, which is to create more access to the arts for diverse communities. So the disability community, that's kind of my passion and inclusivity in terms of disability.

Both my grandparents are disabled. And so is my son. But also, we do a lot of work with the LGBTQI+ community and other cultural groups, cultural diversity. So we're kind of less interested in genre and more interested in access and what our audience wants.

So, yeah, it's been an exciting venture kind of thrown into the air by COVID-19. But also, I guess, given us a bit of time and space to really decide what we want to do, where we want to go.

And we've got some really cool projects that wouldn't have come up had it not been for COVID. So, yeah, I'm grateful for the fact that I've got a really great creative team around me to think about crazy new ideas.

KickArts
So how did your passion for all of this start? Take us back. Take us right back on your journey.

Charlotte
Okay. I guess in terms of the arts. It was always part of my blood, really. My mum is a teacher and she trained at Larban Center. So she did a lot of contemporary art. So we were brought up going to the theatre a lot.

In fact, we often saw stuff that was really inappropriate. And my brother and I used to sit at the National Theatre with our eye hands over our eyes as people prance around naked often. That's quite hilarious. But I always sang and danced. And I loved it.

I have a rare chromosome disorder. And now that I've grown up and I have a son with a disability, I realise a lot of the issues that I had as I grew up, that the dance side really kind of helped me to develop those skills.

I guess the social side as well. And the sense of belonging that we get from being part of something in the arts and that kind of sort of carried with me. I found my people.

I remember being laughed at in sport because I could not run to save my life. I couldn't catch a ball. And I was at a school with loads of really amazing friends who were great at sport. And I was this girl that couldn't do it.

But I managed to find my people through the arts, through theatre, through being part of youth theatre in particular. I've kind of carried that with me. What I like to create now is the sense of belonging. The sense of belonging that is so important for our mental health, for our well-being, and to be able to live a fruitful and wonderful life.

That sense of belonging is really key. Creating something where people have an experience that resonates with them, that they feel has meaning with them, that they watch and they go, that's me! Yeah, that's my whanau. That's my community. So I suppose since I've been in Aotearoa New Zealand for eleven years, I've been working kind of more in that space, in the inclusive space.

Also I did train as a teacher in my late 20s because I had about a couple of years where I had no acting work at all. And I was mainly working in a show or a cafe. So I did train as a teacher and I really didn't want to, but I absolutely loved it. It was one of those things where the government paid you to train. So I got this salary. It was a really amazing thing, actually, that the government did at the time.

And so I trained to be a teacher. And it was just the most incredible thing. I absolutely loved it. My first practicum was in a school in Hounslow, right by Heathrow Airport. I was a minority and we had 93 percent Indian and Pakistani kids there … Somali refugees. And we had a traveller site next door.

So it was amazing. It was incredible. And I loved it. And it was the best experience ever. And I found this new love that I never, ever thought I would have. My mum was a teacher. I was never going to be a teacher. I was always going to be an actor. But I found this love and I think I was lucky in that I worked in a very diverse school with kids who created the most amazing art, yet often in other subjects they failed.

I've taught in many schools, to many kinds of people. But the kids I taught there had nothing, had no family and some had watched their family being murdered in front of them. These really horrendous things happened. But they created the most beautiful art. And I've carried that with me. So now everything that I do is about creating that sense of belonging and enabling people to feel safe enough so that they can take risks and explore themselves, explore their own feelings, their own diversity, their own experiences. And that can really have such a dramatic effect on our health and well-being.

So that's that's me in a little nutshell.

KickArts
I totally relate to what you're saying. I think of last year coming and watching your cast with Madagascar. And you’re working on Peter Pan at the moment. And the fact that it's not just the kids with health issues and things. And seeing the kids working together. So you've got that multi ability, and seeing just how they feed off each other. And the excitement at the end. I was greeted like the queen. The way that they greeted me when I arrived. It was absolutely amazing.

Charlotte
It was a really incredible experience. That was the first time in New Zealand that we've had a musical theatre production with 50 percent of the people identified as having a disability or a high health need. So it was quite unique. And what was great about it was that our kids go to inclusive schools. For the most part difference doesn't it doesn't faze them. It's something that they have in their schools all the time.

It fazes adults though. It fazes people who don't understand. And every child wants the same thing. They want to be loved. They want to have friends. They want to have fun.

So all those kids, including the young people that have very little verbal communication, they want the same as everybody else. They want to feel like they belong. And they connect. I feel so heartened that you said that. It almost brought tears to my eyes. Because that is how we felt every single week, we got into that rehearsal.

And I'm not saying it wasn't a challenge, because when you have such diverse needs, you're constantly as a teacher differentiating and something works one day and doesn't the next. But it completely keeps you on your toes. But it was just the most incredible experience. We have a lot of families who have done amazing musical theatre elsewhere; with the NYTC for example. But they never had the opportunity to perform with a sibling with a disability.

And I'm not saying that NYTC wouldn't have somebody with a disability. But there would be the one person with a disability, whereas we had 50 per cent of people. It meant that siblings could do things together on a Saturday, where they never had done that before. It's either a disability arts program or a mainstream arts program.

So to bring it all together for families is amazing. The fact that you don't have to travel to two or three things on a Saturday. Building that theatre whanau and to know that sense of community, which we've continued as the Glass Ceiling Arts Collective, having picked up when Touch Compass decided that they didn't want to take on the musical theatre project.

So we picked it up. And instead of losing some people it grew. We grew our whanau. We had 40 kids and now we’re working with 60 kids. And it's growing and growing because there is such a need for programs that really embrace that inclusivity and diversity.

KickArts
And you talk about the sense of belonging that the arts gives. Why do you think that the arts are such a key for getting a sense of belonging? Why the arts over anything else?

Is it the inclusiveness of people that practice the arts?

Charlotte
I think it is. If I look at myself at school, I had purple green hair and wore D.M. Boots. But I also did ballet. I guess we were the kind of people that didn't quite fit in.

I think people who are in the arts are sensitive. They can be empathetic. They can be caring. Not all the time, but in general. My experience in the arts is of people who just have good hearts.

I do not do it because I want to show off. I do it because it's a physical nature that I need. If I don't do it, I feel like there's something missing. If I don't have some art in my life, I feel empty. I think we all see something much more than just a job in the arts; much more than a vocation. There's something that's really deep; deep within you.

My mum used to say you don't want to be an actor, Charlotte. You'll never make any money. She was right. But it's something that is so inherently within you which is, I think, quite magical.

My sister, who has just turned 41 years old, always says to me “I’ve only just found out what I want to do with my career. Meanwhile I always knew that you would be in the arts, right from when you were tiny.”

So I think we are a wonderful kind of empathetic and crazy misfit group of people that want to belong. We find our people and we create these wonderful places where we do belong.

KickArts
So with Glass Ceiling you've got a couple of exciting things coming up.

We've already said that you're working on your youth musical, that you’ve been rehearsing throughout COVID. How has it been rehearsing online?

Charlotte
It's been really good. I was really worried about it actually. I was thinking, how on earth is this going to work? But actually. For some of our young people, particularly those with a social difference, autism, for example, or sensory processing differences, being in a large group can be overwhelming. It can cause over stimulation, all sorts of things like that. And we manage that in a rehearsal. We manage it. We have quiet spaces. We have support workers and we manage it.

But what's been interesting is some of those young people have really thrived rehearsing through Zoom because they're in their own home, and they can focus on me.

Recently there was this really amazing moment, with two of our young people, brother and sister Reuban and Kate. I’d taught them this harmony, and I’d never heard Reuben sing before. But he sang this perfect harmony alongside his sister. It was amazing. And this is a child who really does sometimes struggle in a big group because of all the sensory stimulation. So I think for some young people, it's really good.

And it made me think about the future for our rehearsals. Is it that when we are learning music, we start by using Zoom and then we come together? I don't know how you found it, Emma, teaching through Zoom, but it's been quite a learning curve, but with some real positives as well.

KickArts
That's fantastic. So that's your youth stuff. But then you were also working on a really big accessibility festival which, of course, COVID kind of put a stop to. But it is still going to happen in the future, right?.

Charlotte
Yes, it is. So Mike and I founded Glass Ceiling Arts Collective together, and we’ve been working on this idea of an inclusive arts festival for probably three years. And we got funding from ATEED to present the festival this year.

We were very excited. We work quite closely with Laughton Kora, and we had lined him up to be the director of the whole thing. And we were gradually getting lots of people involved. And then COVID came along and put a spanner in the works completely.

So we are now making a concerted effort to look for people who are interested in working with us to create a festival next year instead, with support from Auckland Live. We’re planning for it to be a kind of multisensory arts festival that has theatre, that has aerial arts, that has all sorts of different genres of arts and is completely accessible to everyone. Recently we've done a lot of work with audio description and New Zealand sign language and different kinds of touch tours, whether it's a multi sensory one or one for blind and low vision audiences and people that have access issues in terms of physical disabilities.
So it's kind of creating something that really is inclusive that everybody can come to and for the most part, is a free festival. Hopefully it’s going to happen next year in the middle of winter.

But we've also been working on a show at the beginning of the year that I wrote called The Incredible Glorious World According to the Fitzroy's

KickArts
…. and which I thoroughly enjoyed, by the way. I gave it a wonderful review. I don't know if you were listening, but we gave you a great review after that.

Charlotte
Oh, thank you. I, I think I probably did and I might have posted it up actually. I'm normally good at posting stuff like that. But thanks. Thank you. It was a really amazing experience. It's hard when you bare your soul because a lot of that story is either from my perspective or from a friends perspective.

Actually there was a little story within the wider Fitzroys story, about a badger <which we’re working on as a standalone project>. It's a mythical story, told by Milly the mum to Liam the son, who has autism and ADHD. With the Badger Story, we’re working with some friends of mine in the UK who have a theatre company called Frozen Light who make multisensory theatre. We want it to be a multisensory experience in the home, using film and animation, puppetry and using music and all sorts of stuff; like binaural sound, as well as vibration technology for deaf audiences.

So it's kind of a story which is told through mutli-sensory experiences. Further, with the Badger Story, you can enjoy the experience in your own home, because a lot of our families include someone with a high health need or disability, and they're not going to be going back to school or a learning environment for some time because of those needs.

We've applied for funding to Creative New Zealand, and we're hoping that it will happen at the beginning of September. What is really great, I think, is that it's bringing together lots of artists who at the moment are finding it difficult to get work.

KickArts
Now, we could talk to you forever and a day. So, Steven, I definitely think that Charlotte is one of the people that needs to be on our list because, yes, we're definitely going to be inviting people back who we’ve interviewed over this time to be part of discussions. And we'd love to hear how that funding goes and how your project goes in the future.

Charlotte
Oh, thank you. I'd love to come back.

-- The End --