So Amber, tell me about your new show!
We've been on quite a journey with this. We had already developed the concept and storyline before Covid-19 and were intending to tour it last year as a live piece of interactive theatre but obviously we had to change plans. The process of creating the show and reframing it for a digital audience has been challenging and has asked us to completely re-imagine our ways of working. Luckily, in the Autumn we were able to get together as a team and pull the show together. Our most radical re-imagining was not to film a piece of theatre but create a hybrid piece that straddled theatre and film.
To achieve this, we brought into the core creative process a production company called Helm Films, and their principal filmmaker, Sam Halmarack. Sam worked with the devising team including theatre director Kate O’Connor ensuring the material was filmic as well as theatrical. It was a great opportunity for co-artistic director Lucy Garland and myself to shift our roles to become producers, supporting the creative process.
So, what's the narrative behind 2065 – The Multi-Sensory Movie? It sounds quite futuristic!
It has a lot of sci-fi elements in it! It's about a group of rebels who live in their ‘nest’, hiding underground from an oppressive regime. Music has been banned and the rebels are musicians, fighting for freedom. The movie version, like our live pieces of theatre, is full of sensory moments and when you book a ticket for the online performance you receive through the post a ‘rebel pack’!
When we perform to live audiences, our actors interact with every individual in the audience through the many sensory elements that are present in the performance. These interactions are fundamental to their theatre experience and we clearly didn't want to lose that part of the work with online audiences.
So, the ‘rebel pack’ is filled with sensory props that relate to the movie and at key moments the character of Frozen Light's archivist in residence will tell you when to use the props so that you can experience the tastes, smells, and textures of 2065. There is a holding screen for sensory moments in the action whilst the audience in their own homes can interact together with the appropriate prop and experience for themselves the narrative of the movie in their own way, and in their own time. Once that has happened the audience can then start the next video when ready and the narrative continues.
Where do you get inspiration for storylines?
We always start from the ‘environment’, working with all the sensory elements drawn from that and how they can be used as props to stimulate the development of narrative and character. We visited arcade gaming places to build our sense of a futuristic world absorbing all the sensory elements of that experience. Through all this work we began to make connections with contemporary society and issues around oppression and underground movements, and slowly the narrative emerged.
It's always been important for us to create contemporary and challenging narratives to reflect the lives of the audience we engage with. Our audiences are primarily adults with profound and multiple disabilities who have rich lived experiences that are as complex as those of others, and we recognise the importance of them being able to access stories that have impacted their lives. We are all living in these same difficult times and in many ways the outsider theme resonates with all of us involved in this process.
Our work often gets confused with children's theatre. There is an assumption that we belong to that category and that our work sits in the education/learning departments of venues whereas we want to talk to the people who programme the venue's visiting shows. There is also an assumption that the audiences we work with can't cope with ‘adult’ storylines and that the work needs to be simplified or ‘sweetened’ to make it accessible. The feedback we get from our audiences is in fact the exact opposite. During Covid-19 we set up an audience panel consisting of people with profound and multiple disabilities and their carers and families from across the country. What was remarkable about this group was the diversity of opinions and views within it to a whole range of issues, including their responses to Covid-19. Their advice and support during the process of creating 2065 The Sensory Movie was invaluable.
What are you most looking forward to as we look ahead to the next few months and beyond?
I think we have a real sense that our ways of working will now be enriched because of this experience. Our connections with audiences have strengthened and deepened. We have been hearing stories directly from those communities themselves. and that is something we want to build on for the future. We are so excited about life going forwards!
For more information or to buy your ticket and ‘rebel pack’, visit www.frozenlighttheatre.com