Danny Braverman SFHEA FRSA (he/him)

💭 Here are some thoughts on being a #lifetimeaward winner @MDE_Awards. #educationaldrama #sel #creativecoaching #appliedtheatre dannybraverman.com/post/6-lightbu…

How we're feeling about the first week of Dorothy, Back In Oz! 🤩 Pictured: @safia_bartley playing Billina 🐣 in this beautiful costume designed by @Morgan_Brind and created by Rebecca Rawlinson. 16-31 Aug: bit.ly/3IV5bNG Dorothy, Back In Oz is supported by @bstetc. Spring and Summer seasons are sponsored by @EllisonsLaw.

Wonderful first Press Night as a Board member last night. Suffolk folk, I’d urge you to go down to this extraordinary jewel of a Georgian Theatre. This lovely family show is a great introduction if you’ve never been. If you have been, you know what a special place it is.

Sposed to be plugging & selling #Remythed @AssemblyFest & not something that starts 15 mins after we finish so maybe I shouldn't...but @AfterTheLevoyah @nickcassenbaum @Summerhallery is brilliant. Everything I wanted it to be & more. Go or be condemned as a fakakte shmuck forever

"I'm proud to be working class, and I'm proud to be anti-racist working class as well!" Love this woman - interviewed by @novaramedia in Barnsley today ❤️

I used to think I was rational. Then I read Daniel Kahneman's Nobel Prize-winning work on human decision-making. He routinely asks 8 questions to expose cognitive traps you fall into daily. Test yourself with these questions (it's the ultimate BS detector for your brain):

We are shlapping nachas!!! A DOUBLE mitzvah! 
A ★★★★ review from The Scotsman, and we made it onto Popcorn Writer’s Award shortlist. It’s all in a day’s work @TheScotsman @ThePopcornGroup #EdFringe24 #UnleashYourFringe

Drawing: Possible causes of your problems. I've been appalled at the scenes we've witnessed over the last few days. It's utterly unacceptable that people should have to live in fear because of the colour of their skin. [Polite comments only, please.]

@TCLive has a long and proud history of taking powerful theatre into schools to equip the next generation to tackle injustice. Putting creativity, critical thinking, empathy and the imagination at the heart of learning is foundational to defeating fascism.

Anyone wanna have a go at justifying how participating in a race riot gets you two months but *planning* a *peaceful* climate protest gets you five years? Anyone at all?

In 2016, researchers at the University of Adelaide tested Kurt Vonnegut's theory that, "There’s no reason why the simple shapes of stories can’t be fed into computers." They took the emotional arcs of 1300+ novels from Project Gutenberg, turned that into data, used modern tech to analyze the emotional arcs, and then identified 6 patterns seen over and over again in western storytelling. Here they are: 1. Rags to Riches (rise) Your classic underdog tale. A humble, hardworking peasant climbs the mountain to pull the sword from the stone. • Rocky • King Arthur • The Pursuit of Happiness 2. Riches to Rags (fall) Maybe the saddest story of them all. A journey from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. • King Lear • Citizen Kane • Scarlet Letter 3. Man in a Hole (fall then rise) A character’s doing fine, gets herself into a huge problem, but figures out how to overcome it. They often end up better than they started. “You see this story again and again,” Vonnegut says. “People love it, and it is not copyrighted.” • The Martian • The Hunger Games • Shawshank Redemption 4. Icarus (rise then fall) The hero goes on a meteoric rise up New York (or some other) society, calls everyone “old sport,” and throws the wildest parties in town. Then reality sets in, and he realizes he’s too close to the sun. • Macbeth • Great Gatsby • Death of a Salesman 5. Cinderella (rise then fall then rise) I’ll leave this description to Vonnegut: “We’re gonna start way down here. Worse than that, who is so low? It’s a little girl… the shoe fits, and she achieves off-scale happiness.” • Red Rising • Slumdog Millionaire • The Count of Monte Cristo This is my personal favorite. 6. Oedipus (fall then rise then fall) Up until the ~70% mark of the story it looks like things are sunshine and rainbows. Walter White goes from high school teacher to king of the drug lords, if you will. Then all goes wrong. The original fall is often not their doing while the final fall is. • Hamlet • Gone Girl • Breaking Bad My 3 takeaways: 1. Rags to Riches, Oedipus, and Cinderella rank as the three most popular with consumers. AKA, those books sold the most copies. 2. When you think through a story, give it an emotional shape. Literally draw it. X axis: Time Y axis: Ill fortune to good fortune You might be surprised how much it helps you craft your plot (I was shocked). 3. Vonnegut was a damn genius.

"What we are witnessing on our streets is fascist violence fuelled by racism and Islamophobia. Only by naming it and understanding clearly what it is can we work to defeat it." @sianberry on the ongoing violent disorder at the hands of the far-right.

A statement from Tara Theatre

@carolvorders Lest we forget, they’ve got form.

Columnists, front pages, predictably from the Daily Mail group (have a look at the company’s offshore tax structure) - super rich stoking up tensions in poorer sections of society - the super wealthy Reform Ltd “directors” - the super rich Tories and their donors…. An endless list - GB News half owned “offshore” - Nadhim Zahawi and the Telegraph - Sunak and “mob rule” - hedge funds based offshore but owners buying our media See the pattern? None of them give a flying crap about the people they claim to represent Why? Because it doesn’t affect them in any way, other than gives them political support so they can get their hands on our money once more You think it’s anything other than that then give your head a wobble Tories have tried to destroy every part of our infrastructure for their own benefit Meanwhile taxes will rise to pay for damage Police will struggle to retain staff NHS struggles Oh but the offshore media companies and the super rich continue to influence at the very top level - but not pay the same tax rate that you do That’s where my anger is also aimed

What we're seeing on our streets is fascism, and naming it is the first step to defeating it. These are not protests but white supremacist riots. They are attacking communities, targeting muslim citizens and asylum seekers and, like all fascists, holding the law in contempt. 1/

Was absolutely thinking this today. We did it then and we can do it again

Word of the day is to ‘constult’ (17th century): to act stupidly together.

Victoria Park, London, 1978. 100,000 Skins, Punks, Jews, Blacks, Muslims, Mixed , English, Irish, Hindus, Sikhs, Scots, Welsh, Working Class, Middle Class, trade unionists, unified against racists and fascists. Gen Z, it's your turn.

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time * August 2, 1924

We need @BBCNews, @SkyNews and @itvnews to stop calling violent, organised, extremist rioters 'protestors'. Stop legitimising hate crime. RT if you agree.