martin zeman's blog

Working on elexu gives me a great opportunity to discover some great organisations with a similar mission to ours – empowering people. I am often speechless when I see what amazing things are going on that I (and majority of people) don’t know about.

Old Vic New Voices is a programme of a popular London theatre Old Vic (you will surely know Kevin Spacey who is an Artistic Director there).

The mission of New Voices is to support emerging theatre talent and to open theatre to new and diverse audiences. One of their most exciting projects are The 24 Hours Plays. I got a chance to experience it live.

To explain the New Voices 24 Hours Plays in one sentence I would say it’s an X-Factor for young theatre artists. Actors, playwrights, directors and producers go through an auditioning process hoping to get selected among circa 50 artists to take part in the actual 24 hours experience. 24 hours doesn’t mean anything else than to write, cast, rehearse and perform a play within 24 hours (actually there are seven plays as the artists get split into teams of 7-8 and each play is about 10 minutes long). It is impressive that Steve Winter, who is heading the project, personally watches auditions of all the candidates which means some 1500 monologues within two weeks.

The following video shows perfectly the atmosphere of those 24 hours. This one is from 2010 but on the night of the plays we got to see a similar video for the actual year. The video had been shot and edited in the 24 hours prior to that moment which is a great achievement considering there were some shots from the late afternoon rehearsals. I really liked the combination of film followed by a live performance.

24 Hour Plays: Old Vic New Voices 2010 from Old Vic New Voices on Vimeo.

I think the whole concept is just amazing – the time constraint adds nicely to the excitement – if they only had 24 hours anything could happen. Also the fact that audience comprises mainly of friends and family (the theatre was absolutely packed) creates a very special and warm atmosphere.

The best testament of the project’s impact are the achievements of the past participants – many of them has gone on to work in West End shows or in television. One could argue that when they chose the most talented artists there is no wonder they are successful but then look at X-Factor, how many finalists survive a following season? The 24 Hours event is one of many steps on those artists’ journeys but it’s a big one.

Eleven years ago, young and talented team Spectrum Praha got promoted to the top softball competition in Czech Republic. The first few years they were fighting hard against relegation, then came several long years (I think four of them) when they always ended up in the fourth place. For the first time it was a success but with every other fourth place the feeling of disappointment from missing out on a medal grew.

Then there came another leap and a period when Spectrum kept occupying the second place. Once again it was a great success for the first time but gradually it became more and more frustrating. This year the team finally won the desired title after beating its nemesis from Chomutov in just three matches in best-out-of-five-matches finals.

What I found interesting were comments from softball community – people said: “What a surprise” but they meant it sarcastically, they said it was quite clear in advance Spectrum would win. While Spectrum was the strongest team on the paper this year, you could have said that about them for the last couple of years. In my eyes, and I am sure neither in the eyes of the players from Spectrum, it makes the victory any smaller – it is a huge victory and great success. And do you know what was the main cause for the vitory?

Determination and perseverance. The commitment of the players and coaches. To commiting most of their free time to softball year after year. Even after not that successful seasons throwing themselves into yet another season with the same passion and vigour.

Players came and went. There were probably over fifty players in the team over the ten years (I was lucky enough to be one of them) but only three of them made it through the whole ten-year journey. For them the victory surely is the sweetest of all. However, I believe the biggest share of success came from the commitment of the manager of the first team and a manager of the youth team, thanks to which the first team had a steady supply of talented young players. To motivate yourself and everyone around you for another season, especially if the one just gone hadn’t been that successful, is a very difficult task.

So what is my point? Success doesn’t happen over night – it is the determination and perseverance that build success. And that’s true in all areas of our lives not just in sports.

Another great example of this from a recent past is the Occupy Wall Street movement. Determination and perseverance rule the world of succes.