We have been successful with our Arts Council England, Grants For The Arts application to develop Theatre Jukebox. This film shows the existing curation, but we are currently working with the Mass Observation Archive to build and develop two brand new Jukeboxes. They will premier at Future Everything in Manchester before moving down to Bristol’s Mayfest. The work explores how universal truths and our national identity are sometimes best revealed through the mundane and the particular.

Throughout May the existing Jukebox will be at SITE Festival in Stroud. This curation is an autobiographical story based on a box of family records belonging to Lucy and Barney’s family (The Heywoods).

- Future Everything, Manchester. 16th – 19th May.
- Mayfest, Bristol. 21st – 22nd May.
- SITE Festival, Stroud. 1st – 30th May.

The piece was originally presented as part of Mayfest and SITE 2011 and has since been awarded an Arts Council Development Grant. It has also been supported by Parabola Learning Curve, Theatre Gloucestershire, Woefuldane’s Dairy, Hobbs House Bakery and Avery’s Wine Merchants.

Stand and Stare is busy having received a Research and Development grant from the Arts Council to develop the Guild of Cheesemakers with a view to a tour in 2012.

If you missed this sumptuous and and beguiling show there will be the chance to see and taste it on 27th (confirmed) and 28th (tbc) January 2012 in Cheltenham following a scratch event on the 29th November at the Parabola Arts Centre, see their listings for details. Parabola Arts Centre

Theatre Jukebox is an arcade style cabinet which delivers stories to a max of 2 people at a time and uses RFID technology (oyster card technology) to create audio and visual surprises. Lucy and Barney continue to work on this at the Pervasive Media Studio which has moved into a new space at the Watershed.

If you are interested in finding out more and would like to see the Jukebox in action then do get in touch. We have used material from our family archive to develop the first curation for Theatre Jukebox and presented it at Bristol Old Vic ‘Ferment’ , Battersea Arts Centre ‘Freshly Scratched’, PAC Cheltenham and The Roses Tewkesbury. The Jukebox is a canvas in which an endless source of stories and information can be painted. There are exciting plans to use it with the Mass Observation Archive as part of ‘Future Everything’ in Manchester and Mayfest next year, as well as a number of other projects.

If you are in New York before the end of December 2011 our film ‘The End‘ is showing as part of an international touring exhibition called ‘Home and Away’, at the ISE Cultural Foundation in Lower Manhattan. This is a short film we made in 2009 about an old man with foreign accent syndrome - ISE Cultural Foundation

Participants are given an MP3 player containing 5 audio tracks. Each track is recorded using a 3D sound technique and designed to be listened to whilst in a particular location within the theatre. Dotted around the building are numbers (see photos below) that correspond to the MP3 track numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Participants should listen to Track 1 first in the foyer. They are then free to explore the theatre looking for the other numbers. It does not matter in which order tracks 2, 3, 4, and 5 are listened to.

To hear the tracks please follow this link http://soundcloud.com/theatretracks/sets/theatre-tracks-the-roses-1/

It’s pay what you can and there should be loads of other interesting work going on too.

Here’s a link to some info about Freshly Scratched at BAC http://www.bac.org.uk/whats-on/freshly-scratched/

and heres’s one to some info about the Jukebox http://www.standandstare.com/projects/theatre-jukebox/

“Imagine a Jukebox that plays stories instead of records, and allows you to choose the chapters you want. Stand + Stare have already imagined such a machine.”
D-Shed, Bristol

Lorca’s ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’

“We have eight years of mourning now and not a breath of air will be allowed in from the street. The doors and windows may as well be bricked up, do you hear?”
But nothing can stop the growing tide of desire of Bernarda Alba’s five daughters.As the frustrated tension mounts, each holds onto their longings, jealousies and hopes for the attention of the virile Pepe Romano, promised in marriage to one of them.

Following their successful tour and London run with Naomi Wallace’s ‘One Flea Spare’ Red Dog now brings Federico Garcia Lorca’s final masterpiece The House of Bernarda Alba’ to the stage in a new adaption by Kate Littlewood. In the 75th anniversary year of Lorca’s death this is a stunning theatrical journey into the imagination of a great poetic writer, a theatre giant at the height of his powers.

This production is touring nationally and we hope to see you at one of our local performances:

• Foyer Arts, Stroud September 27th – October 8th at 7.30pm Book online or 01453 840021
• The Bike Shed Theatre, Exeter October 11th – October 15th at 7.30pm Book online or 01392 667080
• St-Thomas-the-Martyr, Bristol November 1st – November 5th 7.00pm Book online or email us
• The Everyman Studio, Cheltenham November 8th – November 12th at 7.45pm Book online or 01242 572573

Integrating acting, design and animation this promises to be an extraordinary piece of theatre. It is also ideal for GCSE/A Level students, performing arts/drama students and particularly students interested in art and textiles as costumes are designed by Corinne Hockley.. Please contact Groups for school bookings and workshops The play is suitable for 14+. Performance time 90 minutes

The Creative Team

• Kate Littlewood-Translator
• Sue Colverd-Director
• Corinne Hockley-Designer
• Barney Heywood-Video/Installation Artist
• Colin Sell-Musical Director

The Cast

• Jude Emmet- Bernarda Alba/Magdalena
• Kim Hicks – Poncia
• Kate Abraham- Matirio/Prudencia
• Saskia Portway- Angustias/Magdalena/servant
• Amy Enticknap – Adela/Beggar woman/Amelia

Testimonial

• “Red Dog Theatre Company’s production of One Flea Spare is one of the best I ‘ve seen and in certain particulars, it is the best. The show is sensual, gritty, inventive and intense. What a joy it is to see my work produced to such high standards: impeccably acted, and directed with such vitality as to knock your socks off” Naomi Wallace, playwright
• “It’s rich and dense, but never less than compelling in a revival that boasts some fine performances” 4**** The Guardian
• “Sue Colverd’s gutsy, sexy production veritably whiffs of seventeenth-century London, enhanced by the alluringly raggedy, circular design of Corinne Hockley and Davy McGuire’s elegant video art.”Time Out

Follow Red Dog

If you are on twitter follow us on @RedDogCompany.

www.reddog.org.uk

It will be part of Ferment at The Bristol Old Vic from Wednesday 20th to Saturday 23rd July (this week), from 6 – 10pm. You can find us in the Foyer.

There is no need to book and it takes between 5 and 20 mins (depending on how long you want to spend with it). It seats up to two people at any one time.

Barney has been getting to grips with after effects and we have been trying out the basics of how it will work in terms of how to instruct people as well as writing and devising individual stories.

We have refined the idea down even further and although we are interested in the mobile phone technology (and may very well use it in future), for this first jukebox we are now limiting ourselves to top down projection, audio through headphones and RFID to trigger initial picture selections and further triggers (such as turning the card over to start a piece of audio or film) if required.

On Tuesday this week, we tested out a few of the ideas we had quite roughly put together so far. Our guinea pig audience were very helpful and encouraging. One of the things we wanted to find out was how long the pieces should be and so we made one that was longer than the others – about 4mins. The group all thought that this was probably slightly too long. This was kind of as we had expected and so we are now going to aim to make one of our constraints that they should be 3mins or under.

Another piece of feedback was that people might want to do more than one card in a single sitting, so this is probably something we will need to think about if there are times when it could be busy. If we are there (which I’m sure we will be to start with) we can always regulate this ourselves.

In terms of the ideas, we started with a whole stack of postcards. I collected boring and weird post cards as I was growing up and I also had loads of post cards, flyers and posters on my walls when I was a teenager. Many of the cards from that time were in the stack which sparked memories and ideas.

Barney re-visited a piece of work he did at Wimbledon for his degree show, which was about a modernist house built by our Grandfather in the 1960s. He selected a few photos from that time in the house and recorded our Dad talking to our Granny, Sneeze, about them and her memories. He also made a cine-film of the house as it is now, owned by strangers to our family. We tried taking a couple of those photos and the interviews he made for the degree show and playing them as short stand-alone pieces. At the end you are instructed to turn the card over which triggers a clip of the cine-film that relates to the part of the house shown in the photo.

A further source of inspiration has been ‘the box’. In our family we have an old metal chest which contains papers, letters, some books, newspapers and records dating back to the 17^th century if not earlier. It is a resource that we often dip into. Last night we had a delve and came up with some interesting finds including letters and drawings from our great grandfather, Cecil, to his mother in the Boer war and a special edition of LIFE magazine from 1969 of photos from the Apollo VIII mission.

We mentioned ‘the box’ in our initial application and thought back then that it might provide the inspiration for this project. It has taken most of the residency to come back to this, but it now feels that the idea of snippets of history and memories fits really well with the concept that is now developing. With this resource of family history, both mundane and important, we can create connections between the short experiences if they are taken from or inspired by the box and the family in some way. We have been talking for some time about creating some work that is autobiographical rather than fictional and now, without quite planning it, we feel that is the direction our first JukeBOX is heading in.

The last piece of exciting news is that we have found a carpenter who can make the unit for us. He is currently exhibiting work at an exhibition called the art of ply, which is right under our studio at The Parlour this week. Nice bit of serendipity!

In terms of the story, we had been working on one story; The Shelf Beneath your Eyes. After the meeting we revisited one of our previous projects, The Car Show. Our approach with that show was to come up with numerous short stories/ideas/experiences. The only constraints were that they had to take place in a car and they had to be short (less that 15mins max). We suddenly realised that the Jukebox was a similar beast. What we needed though were the constraints, the things about the Jukebox that make it what it is, like the windscreen, radio etc in a car.

Our first thought was to create a character who introduces and guides you through all the experiences. We imagine this voice would be like a kind of ringmaster.

We then began on Tuesday this week to really deconstruct the tools we have chosen to include in the jukebox and how best to exploit their potential. The three elements that will combine to make the experiences are audio (usually binaural), top down projection and RFID. The RFID is the bit that we are really new to. One of the main things it offers is the chance for audience members to make a choice.

This developed into a new concept for the Jukebox that we now hope to take forward.

With this new concept, each JukeBOX WILL now offer audiences a choice of stories. The simple construct of those experiences would be something like this:

1. Responding to instructions written or projected on the JukeBOX, audiences call a number and hear a recorded message from the ‘ringmaster’. He introduces himself and welcomes you to the Theatre JukeBOX. Hello, I am William Grimaldi, ringmaster, your host, theatre manager and keeper of the Jukebox. Welcome. The drawer should now be open. (It pings open?). Take a look inside. Touch the contents, pick them up. Turn each one over in your hands, smell them , feel them, look at them closely and when you are ready I want you to choose one. You can only have one, so choose carefully. When you are ready place it on the table (there is a projection to show you where to put your chosen item).

Each JukeBOX will have a different theme. The choices of items inside the drawer will follow that theme. Here are a few examples of choices/themes:

-      Books: you choose a book from a very small library. Stories are projected into the books.

-      Music: could choose your format (vinyl, CD, tape) or just have one format

-      Photos

-      Postcards

-      Transport: toy car, train, plane etc

-      Animals: toy farm and wild animals

-      Shoes

-      Chocolate Bars

-      Fruit/Veg

-      Characters: dolls, action figures etc

-      Portraits/miniatures

-      World War II

The list goes on…

1. Having made your choice, you place your item onto the table top in the position indicated by the projection. Each item has an RFID tag concealed inside it. When it makes contact with the table in the correct position, an RFID reader under the table knows which item is there and triggers that particular story. So, in the same way that you make a music choice with a jukebox, this system allows you to choose your story based on the varied attributes of the objects in the drawer.

1. Each short story is delivered via top down projection and audio and can include further choices or uses of the RFID as well as other tricks such as one that delivers a blast of smoke, another that blows bubbles etc.

1. In our current format, we would like to end the experience sometime after the audience member has left the JukeBOX by sending them a follow up text.

JUKEBOX NUMERO 1!

Theatre JukeBOX: Postcards

For the first Theatre JukeBOX, we plan to modify the basic design to give it a vintage airmail style by adorning it with luggage labels and stamps to make it look like an old flight case or trunk. Any feedback cards, graphics etc will also be in this style.

The basic structure will follow the format above like this:

1. Call the number and listen to an intro/welcome from the ringmaster. He tells you to choose a postcard and then to put on the headphones.
2. Look in the drawer and select a postcard. All the postcards are blank on the back.
3. Place your chosen postcard into the place indicated by the projection (photo corners/gap on a pin board or wall or just a rectangle)
4. Put on your headphones if you haven’t already done so. There can be atmos/fill until you place your postcard down. This triggers the story to start.
5. The story is delivered through audio and the top down projections. At some point in the story you see your postcard being written. It might be that the voice you hear in your head is the postcard the character wants to write, which may be in contrast with the words you see s/he writing on the card.
6. At the end of the experience, you post the card in a letter box somewhere on the machine, delivering it back to its start position ready for the next person.

Each story is inspired by a post card. In other versions of the JukeBOX, the stories would be inspired by the type of transport or the piece of royal memorabilia or whatever theme or type of object we have chosen for that version.

“…beguiling, thought-provoking and, of course, tasty experience.”
Exaunt Magazine – Tom Phillips

Stand + Stare bring you The Guild of Cheesemakers, the world’s first theatrical cheese tasting.

Become a member of the Guild and learn from experts about successful combinations of cheese, wine and bread and, over the course of an evening, uncover the mystery behind the inscrutable 198.

This promo was filmed in Bristol at St Thomas the Martyr during the first stage of development.