Theatre purists want to remain steadfast to the traditional roots of theatre, shunning digital intrusion in favour of the honest actor/audience interaction that gives theatre its unique presence. Others such as Forkbeard Fantasy, Coney and Unlimited are embracing the seemingly limitless possibilities afforded by digital media.

Increasingly theatres (whether through actual desire or financial requirement) are devising new ways of attracting a more modern, tech savvy audience.  Most now use social media for marketing, with blogs on Twitter, groups on Facebook or film style trailers on You Tube. Some such as the National Theatre or Royal Opera House are turning to screening live performances to outside audiences who are perhaps fearful of the risks live theatre involves and more comfortable with this slightly more removed filmic format (its easier to walk out if you don’t like it!).

And a growing few are taking to exploring how technology can enhance the theatrical experience, often communicating with us through digital mediums, interactive websites where we meet the characters and world they inhabit before even reaching the theatre.  And sometimes, we don’t even reach a theatre…well not the type with a stage and proscenium arch many traditionalists would think of.

This week, with the help of the inspired creatives at Idea Generation, the Royal Shakespeare Company launched their own modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet on Twitter, with each character relating their part of the story over five weeks. Along the way, they’re posting soundbites and videos on YouTube, bringing Shakespeare’s teen romance to twenty-first century teenagers without asking them to set foot in an auditorium.

On April 26th, Stellar Network is hosting a panel event at The Young Vic Theatre to debate these and other pressing issues surrounding digital media in both theatre and film.  Among the six-strong panel is David Varela, a writer/producer who has worked across all four media of theatre, TV, film and online storytelling.  His talents and experience are vast, acting as apprentice to Richard Attenborough while still at university, winning numerous awards for his short films and screenplays, writing for both radio and television (including a great many projects for the BBC and Channel 4), The Hampstead Theatre, ICA and The Royal Court, producing a global adventure for Sony on the PlayStation 3, and now leading a team at nDreams in developing and running an Alternate Reality Game starring Lewis Hamilton.

David works on large cross-media projects that combine all manner of online and live media to tell stories and entertain and usually have some form of interactive element.  He draws influence from many sources, ranging from Charlie Kaufman to 42 Entertainment, Philip Pullman, Raymond Chandler, Kneehigh Theatre and 1980’s text adventures.  But his interest in working cross-media in fact started out as a result of reading the Guardian.

“I studied English at university, made shorts and wrote poetry. Then I came to London and wrote light entertainment (anything from magic shows to musicals) for a holiday entertainment company. I worked as a copywriter, writing in many different voices for many different companies. I wrote plays. I wrote screenplays. I wrote radio plays.

Then I saw an ad in the Guardian written entirely in code.  Unscrambled, it was an open call to writers, designers and creative types to work on an international murder mystery treasure hunt. It was called Perplex City. I started as an in-house writer and took on more and more production duties.  For nearly two years, I worked on this huge cross-media game creating a fictional world using audio drama and live events, fictional websites, videos, puzzles, songs, maps, text messages, board games, and just about every medium you can think of. My diverse career finally came together. It felt like I’d unwittingly trained myself for this new, peculiar job.”

As a writer/producer, David clearly loves his work and is evidently doing well.  Pointing out that he does not have to work across different media for every project (he recently wrote a ‘conventional’ play for Radio 4) his ability to work amongst many media is clearly keeping him in continuous paid work, a situation few writers can lay claim to.

Unquestionably there are some very exciting ventures and possibilities to be explored here and rewards to be reaped.  Our imaginations can be stretched in ways that a bare stage or basic set can only at times achieve.  Artists can communicate with us in many more unique ways and a new audience can be reached who may never have embraced traditional theatre.  But as these barriers are worn down and audiences old and new begin to embrace this shift in culture, questions and concerns about what this means for the future of theatre grow.  Will audiences no longer have to suspend their disbelief?  Will actors feel more like they’re on a film set than a stage?  Will conventional plays lose out to those that are more de rigueur? Will theatre companies who cannot afford these new technologies fall behind those with big budgets and friends in the right (cyber) places?

Whatever the answer, one thing is for sure; as stealthily as it did within our homes and workplace, technology and digital media is becoming an increasingly important part of theatre and its future.  We have little choice but to embrace it.  But in the same way technophobes and traditionalists must open themselves up to these new possibilities, so too must the digital theatre entrepreneurs be mindful of the conventions and devices which make theatre the great unique art form it is.  And for those who fall somewhere in the middle, approach it all with caution…. sometimes computer says no….

Leanne Davis, Actress & Stellar Network PR & Marketing Manager

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Stellar Network will be holding our Future Proof event at The Young Vic this Monday 26th April.

This blog post covers the kind of topics we imagine the theatre professionals at this event will be talking about.  There will also be very informed discussion on digital influence in the film industry: content and distribution, from 3D to digital workflows to new business models.

For more information about the panel, the format of the evening and to book tickets visit www.stellarnetwork.com/events

Think politics, disorder, issues with a capital I. In fact, capitalize the whole bloody word. 503 seems synonymous with topical debate, 2009’s This Much Is True, for example.   But can the fearless 503 show its lighter side?

Their new show Peter & Vandy, on which I have just been appointed Assistant Producer, certainly leans to the happier side of the human condition. About as close as 503 will ever come to RomCom, Jay DiPietro’s play is receiving its British premiere after huge success in New York.

It might seem like a safe bet, nice and comfortable and easy. But it goes against that age old axiom (which I may have just made up) that topical issues sell. This certainly seems to work best at 503 and with social/political/cultural “problems” come a whole host of potential marketing strategies. But how do you market a play where two people fall in love, then fall out of love and back in love and then back out of love, etc? This isn’t a deadly shooting on the underground or the conflicts in a gritty south London prison. This is worse. In Britain, Love and Happiness doesn’t sell.

But it’s my job to make it sell. This is going to be tough. I’ll hopefully be back with positive progress soon. Check it out at www.theatre503.com. Maybe I’ll just ask the writer to have a little rewrite. Perhaps Vandy is driven to psychosis after discovering Peter, now a premiership footballer, has been cheating and her brand new Toyota has been recalled?

Back of the net.

The house was where they – Petra, Jimmy and Charley – were going to be happy, then Leon broke through the security gates taking their happiness with him. Four years later they have the chance to meet face to face, confronting what’s been hidden for so long behind locked doors.

‘After the Accident’ by Julian Armitstead receives its only London reading at Soho Theatre tonight as one of the finalists of the Protect the Human playwriting competition 2008. The play will be followed by a post show discussion:

‘Humanising human rights: how do you show both sides of the story?’ with the playwright, restorative justice practitioner Steven Hewson and academic Marian Liebmann.

Directed by Tessa Walker
Cast: Amanda Drew, Nicolas Tennant, Toby Wharton
Tickets: £5/£3
Start time: 7pm
To book call 0207 478 0100 or go to www.sohotheatre.com

Soho Theatre
21 Dean Street, London W1D 3NE
1 – 3 December 2008
Tickets £5/£3
3 for 2 offer: Book for all 3 readings and get the 3rd one free. To book call the box office on 0207 478 0100 and quote ‘3 for 2′ or go to www.sohotheatre.com

“Compelling theatre making real and relevant the impact of human rights issues on our everyday lives.”

The plays:

1 December at 7pm
There’s Loads of Them in Burnley, Thais
by Anna Clarkson
Directed by Charlotte Gwinner
Mae has never eaten a ready meal, been to TK Maxx or tasted mushy peas and Graham Fairclough has only got six weeks to teach her. But with ex-wife and landlady of The Clog and Rocket, Marie, offering up some home truths he might not even have that long.
“Why the ‘ell else ‘as she come to Burnley? It’s not for t’weather is it? And it’s certainly not for ‘im, ‘e’s no oil paintin’ is ‘e?”

2 December at 7pm
After the Accident
by Julian Armitstead
Directed by Tessa Walker
The house was where they – Petra, Jimmy and Charley – were going to be happy, then Leon broke through the security gates taking their happiness with him. Four years later they have the chance to meet face to face, confronting what’s been hidden for so long behind locked doors.
“It’s not all on your side. I’m saying, you’re not the only ones to have suffered for this. You’re not the only ones.”

3 December at 7pm
Lullaby
by Dominic Leggett
Directed by Ken Christiansen
Beth’s got the house ready for Ray’s return from war. But his arrival brings more than just dirty washing and there are some stains that no amount of scrubbing can remove.
“They keep their cool and look you straight in the eye, then you spot there’s a foot tapping, or a twitch at the side of the mouth – The body betrays them every time.”

Over 125 plays were submitted to the competition which provides a high quality platform for dynamic and imaginative plays that communicate human rights stories of import to us all.

Judged by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dan Jones (Amnesty), Sonja Linden & Sara Masters (iceandfire) and Esther Richardson (Soho Theatre).

www.iceandfire.co.uk | www.amnesty.org.uk

iceandfire is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England no.4648400, registered charity 1118200

Rule #2: Set that thought aside. Don’t worry about the end product or whether anyone says how great or horrible your show is. Create the show you believe in. Become consumed with process, not product.



Rule #3: Create your own show. Whether you are writing, directing, and performing a wholly original piece, or working with an extant script, make it your own. Don’t bother with trying to hold true to an author’s intentions – you’ll never know them anyway. Make the show true to yourself and what you have to say now.



Rule #4: Know why you are creating this show. The piece you create must be the expression of something about which you feel very deeply. Setting out to make “good theater” is not enough. Take a strong stand – personal, political, social, artistic, – and challenge yourself to express it. Include your performers in this aim.



Rule #5: Make form fit function. Once you have identified why you are creating this show, find the perfect theatrical form to express your beliefs. Whether it be a puppet show, a dance piece, an environmental installation, street theater, sequential art, a guided tour, audience interactive, non-verbal, bare stage, site specific, proscenium, etc., don’t be restricted in your form. Mix and match for specific moments throughout the show.


Rule #6: Know your performance space and use it. Whether you are performing in a five hundred seat proscenium, a black box, a barn, or an alley, make the show intrinsically linked to the space in which it will be performed. All theater should acknowledge, utilize, and endow the space where it is performed.



Rule #7: Know your audience. Have some idea who you are creating the show for. Firstly it should be for yourself. But secondly it should have some target for who will be in the audience – children, teenagers, punks, the rich, the old, Liberals, grad students, women, gays, a specific ethnicity, etc.. Theater “for everyone” is bland theater.



Rule #8: Contradict those assumptions of the audience. Don’t cater to your audience and what you think they would like to see. Draw them to the theater with something that will attract them, but then, once they are in their seats, challenge them and make them think and feel. Never back-pat or condescend to your audience.



Rule #9: Cast good people above good actors. Someone you can work with will always be more effective than the greatest actor in the world who happens to be a prima donna asshole. Work with people you know and respect as people.



Rule #10: Use the performers for who they are. Let the performers express themselves and their lives and experiences in the show. Include them in the creation process. Give them the chance to speak from their heart.



Rule #11: Create true theater. A show should never fail to answer the question “Why is this theater?” Theater is live performers in front of a live audience. Never forget this. If your show can be put on television or turned into a movie without losing something, you have failed.



Rule #12: Do not suspend your audience’s disbelief. Involve the audience. Make sure you remind them that they are watching live theater. Q: Why do people go to the theater? A: To have a visceral connection with live performers. Take that ball and run with it. If you want to suspend the audience’s disbelief, make a movie. Movies accomplish this much more successfully.



Rule #13: Make sure no two performances are the same. Always include a section of the script where the performers respond to the immediate truth of the moment. Encourage them to keep this perspective throughout the show and accept that whatever happens, happens. Make sure the show is a live, unreproducable event – this is what people have come to see and what makes an evening in the theater life-changing.



Rule #14: Insure tonal variety. Never create a show that can easily be categorized. A piece that is primarily comedy should have deadly serious moments, and a tragedy should have elements of high comedy. And the audience should not be unified in this response. Collide the personal with the abstract, the intellectual with the philistine, the hysterical with the gut-wrenching. Keep the audience off balance and contradict their expectations.



Rule #523: Include a surprise. No one should be able to know what’s coming next, including the performers. Surprise keeps theater a live event. Multiple surprises make great theater.



Rule #16: Create a gift for the audience. The show should include a personal gift for each member of the audience – either material, emotional, or experiential. Make sure everyone in the audience has an individual experience of the show to take out of the theater and share and discuss afterwards.



Rule #17: Change the material world. A small part of the world should be somehow altered by each performance. Something should be destroyed, consumed, built, adorned, or the space itself should be newly endowed by the end of each night of the show. Leave the stage a mess.



Rule #18: Use the elements on stage. Every production should include the four natural elements, especially fire and water. There’s nothing cooler and more immediate than throwing water around or watching something burn on stage. It immediately invokes theater’s ritual origins. If the powers that be don’t let you do this, do it anyway.

Rule #19: Put the backstage on stage. Don’t hide the mechanics of the theater. Let the audience share in the actors’ challenge. For instance, always include a Hikinuki – an on-stage costume change – for at least one of the performers. It’s always great to share a transformation with the audience.



Rule #20: Play with size. It’s always great to incorporate a shift in audience perception of the world of the stage. Incorporate miniatures or enlargements of established stage reality. Nothing says great theater like the entrance of a fifty foot Hitler or a three inch doppelganger of the protagonist.



Rule #21: Include music. There’s nothing better for introducing new music to people than having it accompany stage action. Take the opportunity to re-contextualize known music through performance.



Rule #22: Get non-verbal. Words can be a crutch. Always include a non-verbal segment of the production. Conceive of it as a dance.



Rule #23: Establish ritual through repetition. Give the audience a ritual or repetitive pattern with which to identify. Create a shared history for the audience. Once a ritual is established, you can speak volumes through tiny variations on a theme. The art is in the details. There’s nothing better than feeling part of an inside joke.

Rule #24: Make theater economically affordable to all. There should be no financial limitations on who can be in the audience. People should be able to see your production for the cost of a movie and popcorn. Cheap theater with a diverse audience is much better than expensive theater for a narrow swath of the elite.



Rule #25: Unify the audience. Give the audience shared experiences which create faith and trust in each other. Create an event that brings disparate people to identify with each other through their mutual, but individual, experience of the show.

Rule #26: Break the rules. Don’t do what anybody tells you. Make your own theater. Find your own way. Create your own art.

Greg Allen
September, 2005
www. neofuturists.org