Meet James Clements | Actor, Writer, Director and Co-Artistic Director, What Will the Neighbours Say?” Theatre Company”

We had the good fortune of connecting with James Clements and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi James, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
I became an artist because I didn’t see any other way for me to grapple with the questions the world is asking of me. The questions I pursue in my work are always shifting, but there are certain recurring themes: why do we continue making the same mistakes, falling into the same patterns? Why do we fail to learn from the past as we remake our futures, and how can we redress this? Why do we forget to step outside of our experiences and move through the world with empathy? And my current, most pressing, question is how we, as theater artists, keep up with the pace of our world, and give our audiences prescient and urgent work without simply regurgitating the two sides of the wars (cultural, social, environmental and literal) that we are all living through daily. Grappling with these questions represents the core of my artistic career, for which I am immensely grateful. Being able to make a living as an artist is a tremendous privilege.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’m a Scottish playwright, director, performer and theatremaker based between Brooklyn and the UK. As a proudly immigrant artist who facilitates research-based work to enable conversation and nurture transformation, I prioritise innovation and inquiry, seeing the role of the artist as both investigator and interpreter. I create source-based experimental plays that explore socio-political narratives from a global perspective; my practice combines rigorous research (interviews, primary sources, archives) with devised and physical theater techniques. In my work, I predominantly collaborate with fellow immigrant and first-generation folks, often across both linguistic and cultural divides, striving to create provocative, politically-minded work that re-examines, recontextualizes and re-imagines.

Over the first decade of my professional career as a theatermaker, I have created and co-created twelve original documentary and source-based plays that explored everything from the mental health of a modern Princess to the culpability of a fascist filmmaker to gentrification and senior erasure in Bushwick to the survival of a Venezuelan immigrant after his son’s murder. My pieces have ranged from the intimate to the farcical, the epic to the domestic, the confrontational to the whimsical, but are all linked by inquisitiveness, irreverence and a sense of adventure within the form. These processes all utilized my research-development-accessible sharing pipeline, and all fundamentally centered each project’s constituents and their creative impulses.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
When I am in Los Angeles, I absolutely adore the Chateau Marmont, especially for breakfast (or a cocktail in the evening). There is a great new sushi spot, Budonoki, in Los Feliz that I ate at literally three times last visit, it was so good. The Beverly Hills Hotel is a great spot for a meeting, and the happy hour at the W in Westwood is one of the best in the city. I always make sure I make it out to LACMA, and the programming at Villa Aurora, the artist residency space, is always brilliant, too.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d like to uplift Rattlestick Theatre in New York, for their relentless commitment to immigrant artists like myself. I have had the opportunity to work with Will Davis and his team at the theatre as an actor, writer, director, educator, curator and producer, and have always felt so comfortable and safe there. It feels like home.

Website: www.james-clements.com

Instagram: @james_clements92

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-clements-700033152/

Other: My theatre company is at www.wwtns.org!

Image Credits
(c) Pablo Calderón-Santiago