Amanda Gaughan – Theatre director
Born August 27 1982; died March 12 2018
Amanda Gaughan, who has died suddenly aged 35,
was one of the brightest young directing talents to blaze a trail through
Scotland’s theatre scene over the last decade. Much of her work focused on
strong women, and, as is the case with the best artists, reflected her own
personality. Gaughan’s main stage productions of Hecuba and Hedda Gabler were vibrant,
impassioned and full of life, always questioning, always getting behind the
surface veneer to expose the sometimes brutal truth of things. Moreover,
Gaughan’s work was always delivered with heart and soul bursting from the core
of it’s being and barely contained by whatever stage it appeared on.
Gaughan’s work may have been seen at the
Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, the Lyceum, Edinburgh or Dundee Rep, but it felt
like she was only at the start of a career which by rights should have grown
and matured over several decades. As it is, what Gaughan already achieved has been
inspirational, both for the performers and artists who fed off her infectious
energy, and for audiences who experienced first-hand the pulse of that energy.
Amanda Margaret Gaughan was born in Paisley, and
was first exposed to theatre while a pupil at St James’ Primary School. This
was through PACE Youth Theatre, the Paisley-based company with whom she would
eventually work, helping to inspire new generations of young people just as she
had been inspired.
When a curious Gaughan visited PACE with a view
to becoming a member, she was smitten, and within weeks dropped all other
activities to focus solely on PACE. Even before then, the foundations for this
had been set when, aged five, she and her cousin Emma were selected to sing
High Hopes together at their first dance school show. With Gaughan having
learnt the lines first, she took charge of rehearsing both the song and the
choreographed moves that went with it with a commitment and dedication that
amused and captivated all those who caught sight of the girls’ routine in
progress.
The performance at the Mitchell Theatre in Glasgow
was effectively Gaughan’s first mini-production, and brought the house down. It
was a pointer of things to come, and over her eight years with PACE, Gaughan
became fearless in everything she did.
Between 2000
and 2004, Gaughan joined the BA Contemporary Theatre Practice course at what
was then the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD), later the Royal
Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS), creating and performing in new and experimental
work. After graduating with First Class Honours, Gaughan returned to PACE as a full-time member of the artistic team,
running drama workshops with young people, touring schools and directing
performances. In
2008, she returned to RSAMD for a new MA Classical and Contemporary Text course,
specialising in directing.
During her time on the course, Gaughan helped
develop Fever Dream, a new play by Douglas Maxwell that would later be produced
both at RCS and at the Citizens Theatre as Fever Dream: Southside. Gaughan also
worked as an assistant director at the Globe Theatre while on the course,
graduating with Distinction in 2009.
Between 2009 and 2015, Gaughan acted as creative
producer of On the Verge, a festival of new work by students who, just as she
had done, were ready to take the leap into the world beyond academe. As a
director, Gaughan first made her mark professionally at the Citizens Theatre in
Glasgow in 2011 with her production of Dennis Kelly’s claustrophobic end-of-the-world
two-hander, After the End. This was followed by a return to the RCS to direct
final year acting students in Liz Lochhead’s version of Medea.
The same year, Gaughan won a Bank of Scotland
New Directors placement with the National Theatre of Scotland, assisting John
Tiffany on the stage adaptation of Andrew O’Hagan’s book, The Missing. Also
with the NTS, Gaughan directed Martin Travers’ debut play, Roman Bridge, at the
Citz as part of the NTS’ Reveal season.
In 2012, Gaughan worked with Scottish Opera on Last
One Out, a mini opera by Johnny McKnight and Gareth Williams. Her relationship
with music theatre continued with Forest Boy, a new piece by writer Scott Gilmour
and composer Claire McKenzie.
At Dundee Rep, Gaughan directed a bold
production of Euripides’ great anti-war play, Hecuba, and with the NTS, Gaughan
oversaw contributions to its 24 Hour plays initiative. She contributed to the
company’s seasons of international work, directing Catherine Grosvenor’s
translation of Chinese writer Xu Nuo’s play, Fox Attack in 2013, and Lynda
Radley’s take on Brazilian playwright Michelle Ferrier’s There is Someone Who
Hates Us in 2016.
Other plays Gaughan worked on included Romance
by Ross Dunsmore with Cumbernauld Theatre, and numerous rehearsed readings with
Playwrights Studio Scotland by the likes of Linda Maclean, Rosanna Hall and
Kathy McKean. In 2014, Gaughan was associate director on The James Plays, Rona
Munro’s epic trilogy of Scottish history plays co-produced by the NTS, the
National Theatre of Great Britain and Edinburgh International Festival.
Between 2014 and 2016, Gaughan was associate
artist at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, where she directed Ibsen’s Hedda
Gabler in 2015 and Conor McPherson’s modern classic, The Weir, a year later. One of Gaughan’s final projects was on Annville, a new
play by Martin Travers, a nineteenth century set murder story with music based
on Heather Spars’ novel, The Flourish. Streamed live online, the rehearsed
readings of what looked set to be a far larger project was seen all over the
world.
Gaughan’s resume became a kind of
manifesto for everything she held dear about theatre, and everything she felt
it could be.
‘Fundamentally,’ she wrote, ‘we must always be
questioning, challenging, collaborating, nurturing and evaluating, asking ‘what
do our artists want to tell stories about?’ and ‘What do our audiences want to
engage with?’ By asking these questions I believe that a truthful and visceral
programme of work can develop that both audiences and artists can engage with
and enter into an imaginative and thought-provoking discourse about.
‘Theatre enables us to research, explore and
share our experiences of humanity. The best theatrical productions I have seen,
and indeed the kinds that I aim to create, are those which call the audience to
be 'witnesses'; to be complicit in the action and the story.’
In her brief career, Gaughan achieved all of
this with unflinching guts and passion. One can only speculate what else she
might have achieved.
Amanda Gaughan is survived by her mother
Margaret, her father Jim and her partner Shaun Mason.
The Herald, March 31st 2018
ends
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