For
further details and images related to some of these
projects, see
Portfolio
and
Gallery
November 2009 – current.
Tao of Hamlet.
Theatre writing commission for 1157performancegroup.
Deconstruction and revisiting of the Shakespeare tragedy
with a Kung Fu Taoist twist. Preview performances as a work
in progress in April and May 2010 followed by further
development and touring to mid-scale venues from autumn
2010
November 2009 – current.
Weight.
Directing performances of three short stories by writer
Catherine Smith. Performed by the writer with incidental
music for accordion and flutes by Peter Copley, lighting
design by Clare O’Donoghue and sound design by John Avery.
Currently being developed at the Lewes Live Lit artists'
workspace and The Mill Arts Centre in Banbury. Previews to
be announced.
September – October 2009.
Floor Plan.
Group exhibition. Phoenix Gallery, Brighton, Mark Hewitt
collaborated with artist Rowena Easton to create an
installation -
a strange house my voice the walls the
silence.
The show featured textual fragments in charcoal on
plasterboard, spatial interventions such as a very small
entrance door and a river of copper sequins. The aim was to
evoke the personal accounts of dreams involving buildings
collected by Hewitt and Easton for the
Dream Library.
May – June 2009.
Free Speech.As
Creative Producer, facilitating a range of multi-media
educational projects in secondary schools in East Sussex
for Lewes Live Lit’s young people’s festival, Free Speech.
May 2009.
IMPORTANT PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS TAPE.
Audio installation for two female voices created as one of
six site specific theatre interventions for the annual
one-day-festival at Farnham Maltings in Surrey: Farnham
Creates. Important Please Listen To This Tape is an
overheard drama played on a dictaphone in a room. Two women
explain to a third why her husband will not be coming home.
The piece was also presented later in May 2009 at Benjamin
Franklin House in London as part of Red Velvet Curtain
Cult’s evening of installations, Kill no more pigeons than
you can eat.
April – September 2009.
Dementia Diaries.
Produced and directed by Mark Hewitt for
Lewes Live Lit.
A literary drama for five voices by poet Maria
Jastrzebska exploring the effects of dementia on a
dysfunctional Anglo-Polish family. Launched with a run
of sell-out performances at Little Polka Café,
Eastbourne, as part of Eastbourne Festival, April 2009
and performed in Artisan café in Lewes in September
2009. Touring planned for 2010.
April 2009.
Polska by the Sea.
Collaborative public art installation by Mark Hewitt and
photographer Lisa Barnard as part of Eastbourne Festival
2009. Developed through Lewes Live Lit for East Sussex Arts
Partnership's
Word County
programme. Large banner portraits of members of
Eastbourne's Polish community were exhibited hanging from
the rafters of at Eastbourne Station alongside an
accompanying collection of 24 postcards with images of
domestic ephemera and snippets of text drawn from
interviews. Project developed with the support of
Polskie Eastbourne.
January 2009.
malt(ings) extr-acts.
Scratch performance of Mark Hewitt's
Untitled (exposure 1).
Part of a new writing showcase with members of Farnham
Playwrights Collective who worked over one day with a
director and actors to present short extracts of new
work-in-progress, Untitled (exposure 1) is a continuation
of an R&D process that began in 200/2002.
September – December 2008.
89% and Rising.
One of five performers in an experimental theatre
production by 1157performancegroup about HIV/AIDS and
sexual morality. Devised and directed by Matthew Scott and
Jo Dagless. Performances in schools/colleges, arts centres
and theatres, October – December 2008.
September 2008.
The Butcher’s Tale.
Brief appearance in short independent film by Turtleclub
Productions playing the top half of an evil one-legged
butcher, Written and directed by Drew Hewitt.
June – September 2008.
Caught in the act – Reading
reading.
A Blank Productions collaborative project for the
National Year of Reading combining photography and text
within a public art context. Photographer Anna Mitchell
took photos of people engaged in the act of reading in
Reading town centre while Mark Hewitt created texts
rooted in interviews with readers. Linked to Reading
Festival of Crime Writing, the project culminated in a
town centre public art installation and an exhibition at
Reading Central Library.
June 2008.
Gridshell Symphonies
/ The Incredible Architectural Musical
Picnic.
A Blank Productions commissioning project for
‘architecture08’. Families and individuals were invited
into the architecturally award-winning Jerwood Gridshell
Space at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum near
Chichester to picnic and witness the first performance of
Gridshell Symphonies: a site specific contemporary
classical music piece for four trombones and string quartet
by composer Petr Copley. The afternoon included sideshows
for children and additional entertainments.
June 2008.
Dream Buildings.
Online Dream Library archiving personal accounts of dreams
involving buildings submitted by members of the public.
Launched as part of architecture08 festival in a joint
event with conceptual artist and writer Rowena Easton at
Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth. The material eventually formed
part of a separate online
Dream Library.
May/June 2008.
Ruin.
Steyning Festival 2008. Second exhibition and event related
to a collaboration with photographer Paul Thomas,
responding to the ruins of Shoreham Cement Works. Also part
of architecture08 festival.
January – March 2008.
Crea+ive Maids+one.
Interviewing, editing and drafting content for a book
profiling a range of arts and creative industry
practitioners living and/or working in the Maidstone area
alongside photos by Manuel Palomeque. Linked to a billboard
project as part of
Art At The Centre
Maidstone.
January 2008.
Beauty in Stone
– writing project, creating text for Prefacemorn, a
disability-led experimental dance theatre company. Beauty
in Stone was primarily a devised piece referencing Greek
mythology and exploring concepts of ideal beauty in
relation to physical disability. First performance at
Camden People’s Theatre, January 2008.
June 2007.
Ruin.
A collaboration with photographer Paul Thomas responding to
the ruins of Shoreham Cement Works in West Sussex. Project
culminated in an exhibition – Ruin – at
thirtyfive-a
gallery, Brighton, and a talk with projected images at the
Ropetackle Centre, Shoreham, as part of the Adur Festival
and Architecture Week, South East.
December 2006 - March 2008.
AQQ.
(Artists’ Quarter Quarterly). Quarterly arts publication
linked to regeneration project
Art At The Centre Maidstone
in Kent. Editing, writing, commissioning and overseeing
design.
October 2006 – October 2007.
Directing Live Literature.
Linked to a Cultural Leadership Bursary awarded by NALD
(National Association of Literature Development) – a
professional development project exploring the role of the
director within the sphere of performed literature. An
accompanying development grant from Arts Council England
South East allowed a period of shadowing work and mentoring
in the process of developing a performance featuring Irish
poet and novelist,
Martina Evans.
An article about the project is on the NALD website:
www.nald.org
September/October 2006.
Farming Stories.
Following performances of Farmed Out at the Pride of Place
Festival in Suffolk, this was a commission from East
Lindsey District Council to develop a scratch performance
of a community theatre piece based on conversations with
farmers in East Lindsey, North Lincolnshire. Working with a
talented group of teenage performers, Farming Stories was
presented at the Riverhead Theatre in Louth, Lincolnshire,
as part of Wolds Words Festival 2006.
May – July 2006.
Embrace.
Commissioned by Usanu Theatre Company, Embrace was a
contemporary revisiting of Italian writer Frana Rame’s
provocative political monologues exploring female sexual
experience and chronicling her own abduction and rape. A
one woman show performed over a short run by Norwegian
actress Karen Ødemark at the Pauper’s Pit, Buxton, as part
of Buxton Festival Fringe, followed by further performances
at the Third Floor Arts Centre, Portsmouth, during July
2006. Devised and directed by Tamara Groen.
April – July 2006.
Body Language.
Writing / performance project. Arts Council funded R&D
directed by Matthew Scott of 1157performancegroup to
develop a live literature show based around Mark Hewitt's
life study writings, (word-sketches of nudes). First
performance at, Norden Farm Centre for the Arts in
Maidenhead.
May 2006.
Stirrings Still.
Performance by heart of Samuel Beckett’s last prose work,
Stirrings Still. Phoenix Gallery, Brighton, as part of City
Running.
May 2006.
City Running.
Mark Hewitt was one of over 40 artists contributing to the
award-winning new work extravaganza,
City Running.
Devised and curated by Greg Daville for Brighton Fringe
Festival, the project involved practitioners working in
a range of disciplines who, on different Saturdays over
a five week period, set out from the Phoenix Gallery,
Brighton at 11pm to absorb, record, collect, collate and
reflect upon the city at night-time, returning at 2.30am
to exhibit or perform work created that night, the
results contributing to a cumulative exhibition.
April 2006.
Farmed Out.
Theatre writing commission leading to first performances of
play for one live actor with projected film sequences. The
piece explored the decline of UK farming and the ramshackle
poetry of industrial rural landscapes. Commissioned by
Farnham Maltings and developed by 1157performancegroup.
First performed at the Pride of Place Festival 2006, in
Woodbridge, Suffolk. Mark Hewitt also performed the
character of Old Spiller in the film sequences.
March / April 2006.
Funny Couple.
Five minute radio story as part of a new writing series
commissioned by BBC Southern Counties. Broadcast in April
2006.
September 2005.
The Temptation of St Antony
– rehearsed reading of short play for one or two
performers. Nightingale Theatre, Brighton.
August 2005:
Stage Fright.
Contributed to research project at Aberystwyth University
into managing performance anxiety.
2002.
Songs of Tenderness & Violence – a cycle for soprano
and nine solo instruments.
Short texts evoking contemporary scenes of dysfunction,
perversity and violence written to accompany new music by
composer Peter Copley.
2001/2002.
Theatre research and development project.
Development work on a visual theatre piece involving two
large red leather wingbacked armchairs. With visual artist
Lindsey McGown, photographer Magali Nougarede, actors John
Cullen and Jo Howarth, assorted life models, lighting
technician Martin Chandler and a furniture reupholsterer.
The piece of work is still in development.
May / August 2001.
Catastrophe.
Theatre performance work. Mark Hewitt acted in three of a
sequence of four Samuel Beckett dramaticules (Rockaby /
Ohio Impromptu / A Piece of Monologue / Catastrophe). The
production ran for 10 days at Komedia, Brighton, and three
weeks at Edinburgh Fringe. Other actors in the production
were George Dillon and Denise Evans. Directed by David
Lavender for Komedia Productions.
July 2000 – May 2001.
Hypnotrash.
Year of the Artist residency exploring the use of hypnosis
/ hypnotherapy as a creative tool and culminating in
temporary publication as an internet journal. Accounts of
dreams collected through the project can now be visited at
the
Dream Library,
created in 2008 as a vehicle for the subsequent project,
Dream Buildings.
April 1998.
The Entertainers
– an omnibus of contemporary writing and
art.
Editor and contributor. Anthology of work by writers,
poets, artists, musicians and others that had contributed
to the early years of the Lewes Live Literature Festival.
Design work by Greg Daville.
February 1998.
Purgations.
First performances at All Saints Centre, Lewes, of a
collaborative cross-artform work combing a sequence of
poems by Mark Hewitt with live music for string sextet by
composer Peter Copley and projected images by visual artist
Tom Walker.
June 1996.
Hastings in the Imagination.
School writing project developed with artist / writer Greg
Daville, running workshops with Year 9 students in Hastings
to create epigrammatic descriptions of imagined scenarios
in their hometown. The writings were displayed on
advertising spaces in local buses.