Provenance – the new film with integrated live theatre performance created by @mutinyprojects

Marva Alexander as Ms Kenny Jimoh – in front of the three screen installation – photo by Matthew Usher

As a co-founder and one of the directors of Mutiny Projects I was really delighted to be able to work across the three new writing and tech projects as part of the UEA’s Future and Form programme. All three of our works were presented as part of the programme for the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. One of these was Provenance, a new piece of work written for the project by Ayòbámi Adébáyò, which I was to direct for Mutiny.

This vivid and emotional multiscreen installation and live performance, tells the compelling story of twins separated by death. We follow the journey of the sacred ibeji artefact from its creation in Benin City, Nigeria, in 1895, to present-day Norwich in a story that spans continents, cultures and lifetimes.

Amongst the Yoruba of southwest Nigeria, twins are traditionally revered as gods. If a twin dies, the parents commission a sacred wooden sculpture of memorial— the ibeji. This figure is cared for as if it were a living twin.

With Marva Alexander, playing the role of museum curator Kenny Jimoh, the narrative unfolds over three simultaneous screens as we follow the 120-year journey of this sacred object from its creation in Benin City in 1895, its capture during the 1897 British invasion, Nigerian independence in 1960, to present-day Norwich, revealing how a seemingly anonymous museum artefact – the ibeji – can hold the hopes and emotions of a family and even of a nation.

We shot the film at Riverside Studios in March, with the Mutiny team of Simon Poulter as Art Director and Sophie Mellor as storyboard artist and editor of the film. The film was shot using two cameras as we built up the images and sequences to play out across the three screens. The actors and crew were all socially distanced and screens for the shoot.

The shoot at Riverside Studios with Jumoké Fashola and Suzann McLean – photo by Rich With

We also worked with a brilliant Nigerian Artist – Osaze Amadasun who created all the original drawings within the film. The full list of credits and cast can be seen below. For more info about the project check out the micro-site on our Mutiny Website

Please click to view in full screen for the video of Provenance below.

CAST

• Kenny Jimoh – Marva Alexander Marva Alexander trained at Rose Bruford Drama College of Speech and Drama. Marva’s most recent role has been in the TV drama, It’s a Sin by Russell T Davies playing Mrs Ngomo. Her other TV credits include Doctors, BBC Walking with Caveman, Silent Witness and The Bill. For two years she trained with Black Mime theatre company performing in two of their productions Dirty Reality Two and Mourning Song. She has appeared in many Theatres productions including Salisbury Playhouse, Manchester Library Theatre, Young Vic, Birmingham repertory Theatre and Northampton Theatre Royal. 
• Mrs Jimoh – Jumoké Fashola Jumoké Fashola is an award winning Radio & Television Broadcaster, Jazz Singer and Actress. She currently presents J to Z on BBC Radio 3 and Sunday Breakfast – Inspirit for BBC Radio London. Her theatre credits include Temi Wilkey’s The High Table (Bush Theatre/ Dir, Daniel Bailey) and Zawe Ashton’s For All The Women Who Thought They Were Mad (Hackney Showroom/ Dir, Jo McInnes). She is the creator and host of the Jazz Verse Jukebox which had a 7 year residency at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, London.
• Iya Agba – Golda John Golda John, a Nigerian born veteran award-winning Television, Stage and Film Actress has appeared in numerous theatre productions in Britain and internationally. She played lead roles in Wale Ogunyemi’s The Divorce, Wole Soyinka’s Death and The Kings Horse Man, Opera Wonyosi, Bertolt Brecht’s Good Woman of Setzuan, directed by Dr. Bode Osanyin, to mention a few. Golda was a famous face on Nigeria’s Television Authority in the 90s with plays such as Mirror In The Sun, Checkmate, Village Headmaster and Family Ties. Golda is one of the pioneers of Nigeria’s fast growing film industry, Nollywood, with such films as Ti Oluwa Ni Ile, Suspicion and Ahon among others.

• Adesuwa – Diana Yekinni Diana Yekinni’s theatre credits include: Oyiri di ya in Three Sisters (National Theatre); Mum in I’ll Take You to Mrs Cole (Complicité); Nurse in The Secret lives of Baba Segi’s Wives (Arcola), Tituba in The Crucible (UK Tour); Molly in Drafts(Southwark Playhouse); Expensive Shit (Traverse Theatre / Royal Festival Hall); For Coloured Girls Who Have Considered Suicide (Lagos, Nigeria); London Life Lagos Living (Lagos, Nigeria) TV & Film credits include: Dolapo in For Love (BBC Films); Skin The Documentary (BeNaya/Netflix); Medium(CBS); and Wonu in The Mrs (Africa Magic) Lunch Time Heroes (Netflix).
• Jide – Oliver Alvin-Wilson Oliver Alvin-Wilson’s credits include, for the National Theatre : All Of Us, Nine Night, The Red Barn, Emperor and Galilean and All’s Well That Ends Well. Other theatre includes: The Doctor at the Almeida; The Twilight Zone at the Ambassadors; Hamlet for Hamletscenen; A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Young Vic; Othello at the Stafford Gatehouse; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice and Henry V for Propeller; Antigone, Romeo and Juliet and This Child for Pilot; Doctor Faustus for West Yorkshire Playhouse; Blue/Orange on UK tour for ATG; Antony and Cleopatra for Nuffield; To Kill a Mockingbird for Theatr Clwyd on tour; Pigeon Lover at The Space; and Much Ado About Nothing for Derby Live. Oliver appeared in the films Wonder Woman 1984 and The Huntsman.
• Nurse – Suzann McLean Suzann has worked extensively in both theatre and television she is the winner of British Arrows Gold Award for her performance in the BUPA for living advert and won the African Film Best Actress Award in 2011. Other acting credits include Pennyworth, Good Omens, The Honourable Woman, Dr. Who, Little Miss Jocelyn, Measure For Measure (National Theatre) A Raisin in the Sun (Synergy Theatre). Suzann is artistic director of Theatre Peckham Directing credits include Offie Nominated Extremism (Theatre Peckham), Driving Miss Daisy (York Theatre Royal), Robin Hood (Theatre Peckham), Catcher (Pilot Theatre). 
  For ‘Provenance’ Suzann was also 1st Assistant Director. 

Creative Team

Written by Ayòbámi Adébáyò

Costume and Props: Alana Ashley

Make Up and Hair: Remi Oyenekan

Director of Photography: Andrew Delaney

Sound: Graham Tobias

Gaffer: Rich With

BSL Interpreter: Sumayya Si-Tayeb

1st Assistant Director: Suzann McLean

2nd Assistant Director: Evie Nuttgens

Music and Sound Design: Sandy Nuttgens

Illustration: Osaze Amadasun

Art Direction: Simon Poulter

Editor: Sophie Mellor

Director: Marcus Romer

For Future and Form and University of East Anglia (UEA): 

CHASE Researchers: Sasha Bergstrom-Katz and Wes Brown

Provenance UEA Project Lead: Professor Jean McNeil

Future and Form Project Lead: Professor Henry Sutton

Future and Form Executive Producer: Tim Wright

Filmed at Riverside Studios, London, 2021

Making work during lockdown

I have been working from home since March 16th. During that time I have been keeping myself pretty busy. The picture above is from our Mutiny project called Locus Solus – which means ‘Solitary Place’ – pretty apt for the lockdown period spent in my work shed.

March was spent pretty much ‘unprogramming’ all the work I had programmed for 2020 for Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds. I had been working as interim Artistic Director and had just finished the programme until January 2021. It was a difficult time contacting all the artists an companies week by week and breaking the news that we were unable to bring their work to the theatre. Also realising the the two productions I was scheduled to direct – Big Skies, a new play written by James McDermott and Atiha Sen Gupta, and Animal Farm as the large scale summer production – were also not going to happen. My contract was tapering out as the new AD took up their post – so work had to be made out of thin air. Which is what ended up happening…

Zoom Theatre in Norway – War of The Worlds

March was spent making a piece of Zoom Theatre with the Harstad FHS team who were now scattered all across Norway. This was a first and a really interesting project working with the actors and the Theatre Director Hege Fjeld to make a new version of War of the Worlds. This was an exciting discovery and we worked with green screens and backgrounds and really developed a set of strong performances from the young actors who had been dispersed from their training back to their home towns across Norway. There is a blogpost about this here

Covid 19 Threads – Telling the stories of the pandemic – one tweet at a time.

April and May was spent making #Covid19Threads – this time with Mutiny – our new company with Simon Poulter and Sophie Mellor – Here we took tweets written by people who had been directly affected by the pandemic and we voiced these with a group of brilliant actors. Simon and Sophie put together the short animated films and we made a series of 6 episodes. On episode every week.

Here is  a story from a Doctor in Canada – and the rest are on the link above.

 

SHEDx – Bill Thompson

Also in May I started the first of a series of talks with people who Zoomed into my Shed. The first guest was Bill Thompson, journalist and in his words a hacker nd a pundit – who also heads up digital development at The BBC.

 

Locus Solus – A solitary Place – our ACE R&D project with Mutiny 

This was our project with Mutiny that we started in February at Watershed in Bristol. We  were invited to run our test at the Pervasive Media Studio there – and of course at the end of February it was clear that we would need to pivot to a digital platform – and here we created the world of Locus Solus in the game platform – Roblox. One of the key benefits of this time has been the ability to develop our new company – Mutiny with Simon Poulter and Sophie Mellor.

The project was based on the 1914 novel by Raymond Roussel and we created a series of worlds in the game platform which you can visit. We commissioned Roy Williams to write a new section of the script and we had three actors live in the world operating their avatars. Suzann McLean, Oliver Alvin-Wilson and Simon Munnery.

This is a real breakthrough in immersive digital platform. We managed to get sound and audio into the game world – so we created an online theatre space where anything can happen. There is a fuller description on the blogpost here.

Training and working with artists and companies.

As part of my work across digital and the arts I have also been able to work with key organisations and artists online doing this time. Here I have been working as a mentor for the Mercury Theatre, Colchester, The European Theatre Convention CEO and leadership team, as well as Artists and actors with help with their digital skills and performance pieces. Again some more info here if you are interested in contacting me

Website update of shows I have directed

Another key project has been to draw my work archive together of shows that I have made– and all to move my website within this blog. Where you can find out about my work – as well as latest projects and previous work too.

Breakthrough in new #DigitalTheatre immersive concept with online participation for audiences – developed by @Mutinyprojects

On June 19th there was a theatrical world premiere. It included a newly commissioned piece written by Roy Williams. It was performed live by three actors – Suzann McLean, Oliver Alvin Wilson and Simon Munnery. It had an original sound score specially composed by Sandy Nuttgens – and it was performed live in a brand new theatre space that we had built on the game platform called Roblox.

Suzann McLean performing on the stage in Roblox

Mutiny is a new Arts organisation founded by Simon Poulter, Sophie Mellor and Marcus Romer. It was set up in November 2019 and received Arts Council Funding to develop our new project – Locus Solus – which means Solitary Space. Our work started in February at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol with their support. This was pre-lockdown and we were developing the project and building the world for the narrative in the software development side of Roblox.

Roblox is is an online game platform and game creation system that allows users to program games and play games created by other users. At present there are over 100 million active monthly users.

The audience setting off to the start the story and to be part of the project

On the platform we built the entire world – over several locations and areas, including, rivers, frozen lakes and one of the spaces with a bespoke theatre.

The Theatre space can house many audience members – as of course to be part of the show you will need to have developed an avatar to enter the world. As part of the process as a director we ran a full rehearsal schedule, including a technical and dress rehearsal prior to the premiere.

The Theatre space with room for several hundred seats

The key area of development was the integration of live HD sound for the actors and live mixed soundtrack.We achieved this by laying another program into the Roblox world – so we were able to live mix and integrate the sound and actors’ voices as they moved their avatars around the environment. The real breakthrough was the ability to have active participation and engagement from the audience as we all moved through this immersive environment together – and they too were able to use their voices and talk back at key times too.

Suzann McLean and Oliver Alvin Wilson’s avatars performing the new text by Roy Williams for the audience.

There are several locations in the Locus Solus world and we performed new text across them all. The worlds all interconnect and can allow for multiple immersive experiences at the same time for audiences. This is a truly interactive space and experience for both audience and performers. It lends itself to bespoke design and development of new performance pieces

The ice plateau area of Locus Solus

As Mutiny we are keen to develop this concept and build partners who would like to join us in this project as we move forward. We are looking to build the next iteration and series of commissions as we continue with this project and we will be looking to fund this.

If you are interested and want to get involved then – drop us a message marcus@artsbeacon.uk or info@mutinyprojects.org.uk

 

Application and Consultancy for Arts Organisations.

In these shifting times we all have to rethink our approach to making work and how we can maintain and develop our connections with our audiences and communities. With the new ACE Cultural Recovery funding announced on July 29th – I can come on board and help you and the team get the application in for the first deadline.

Let me help you – I am an Arts and Digital specialist with over 25 years of leadership experience both in delivering and making work. I have run an NPO for over 20 years as AD and CEO (Pilot Theatre) and have worked in leadership positions across a range of arts organisations (Theatre Royal Stratford East, Harrogate Theatre and Theatre Royal BSE)

I know how hard the Senior Management teams of organisations have been working over the last 4 months – so if you need another pair of hands on deck who can help to draw the application together just drop me a line.

I have also pioneered Live to Digital delivery projects for the last ten years for a number of different organisations. I can work with you to help you deliver the right plan for you and your organisation.

If you are interested in having an initial conversation where we can chat all these things through – just drop me an email marcus@artsbeacon.uk

My recent article for ArtsProfessional about the Pivot to Digital in the Arts Sector.

Marcus Romer was CEO and Artistic Director of Pilot Theatre from 1994 – 2016. He was interim Artistic Director of Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds from July 2019 – June 2020. He is now a freelance Director, Writer and Filmmaker and Creative Director of Artsbeacon UK. He has been an Associate Artist for Theatre Royal Stratford East, Harrogate Theatre, National Theatre Wales, and Collusion. He has delivered Digital Consultancy work for SOLT and UK Theatre, Home, Manchester, Arts Council England, Creative England, The British Council, The European Theatre Convention, Chichester Festival Theatre, Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, Stephen Joseph Theatre, New Norske Theatre, Oslo, Innovation Norway, LIPA, Barclays UK, Norwich City Council, Cambridge City Council. He created Shift Happens Conferences, and helped to produce No Boundaries in 2014 and 2015 with Arts Council England.

#SHEDx talk with Marcus Romer and Bill Thompson

 

Welcome to the first SHEDx talk – from my shed – as we are under lockdown from the Covid-19 pandemic. I wanted to put together some talks by interesting people who have interesting things to say. As some of you will know I have run a TEDx and indeed several Shift-Happens conferences which again brought together interesting people who shared their ideas and thoughts with an audience.

So for our first SHEDx I invited Bill Thompson to share his Idas about a pot pandemic world and how some of the technologies that brought us to this crisis might need to be shifted to help us build a better future.

The format is that I introduce the speaker via Zoom from my shed – and they then present their talk. The idea is that main talks are no more than 10 minutes long and that they ask us some difficulty questions.

There will be more to follow – and if you are interested in being part of sharing your thoughts as part of SHEDx please drop me a line marcusromeruk@gmail.com

The video with intro and chat with me first …

 

The video of Bill’s talk without the chat and intro

 

SHEDx acknowledges the work of TED but is not affiliated to it. Marcus Romer has run TEDxYork and attended the TED conference several times. In the current lockdown period this is a series of talks looking at the issues facing us with speakers from around the world.

Marcus Romer is delivering one-to one online courses for Arts Practitioners, Actors, Directors and Arts Organisations

Marcus Romer

Artistic Director / Theatre  / Film / Digital 

New one-to one courses for Arts Practitioners, Actors, Directors and Arts Organisations

I am an award winning director and theatre maker who has led Arts Council funded National organisations for over 25 years. I have a specialism in creating and directing new work in theatre and film, with additional skills in digital capture and live-streaming of productions. I am offering one to one sessions online for actors, directors and arts organisations across the UK. These include:-

Audition and Monologue preparation and rehearsal. These could be for drama school entry, self taping, showreels,  or ongoing acting training.

Presenting and acting for camera skills

Script reading and dramaturgical advice on pieces of new writing.

Application advice and one to one support for arts funding and job submissions 

Live to Digital practical skills and training – including live-streaming and online platform creative work delivery.

Digital strategy – planning and delivery

Business Plans and strategic planning for arts organisations.

Marcus was Artistic Director of Pilot Theatre,  Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds and Associate Artist for Theatre Royal Stratford East and Harrogate Theatre and National Theatre, Wales. He wrote and co-directed The Knife That Killed Me for Universal Pictures. He has directed shows that have opened and played in more than 30 theatres across the UK. He has developed digital strategies for Manchester Royal Exchange, Chichester Festival Theatre, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Kettle’s Yard, Home, Manchester. He has taught and directed at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School

All one to one courses are bespoke for each person or organisation. With concessionary rates for students and early career artists and a sliding scale for funded organisations.

Please drop me a line at marcusromeruk@gmail.com for an initial chat

Recent article for Arts Professional 

 

‘Reveal’ – the first ever active reality project #RevealKL

Here is the video of the Reveal project that I worked on last year as Director and Producer.

REVEAL was a Collusion project developed and devised in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, UK in 2018. Directed and Produced by Simon Poulter and Marcus Romer, this is the first ‘active reality’ project of its kind. It encompassed live performances, large scale projections, an interactive game engine, augmented reality and geo-located story elements, that occurred throughout November and December. With new ‘reveals’ every day it became a multi-episodic box set adventure for mobile that unfolded over a period of time, with video clips, augmented reality codes and clues, video projection, and live interventions that happened across the whole town and beyond.

The project was Executive Produced by Simon Poulter and Rachel Drury, with a team of 36 artists working across disciplines. The legacy site for the project can be found at revealkl.com – supported by Arts Council England, Borough of West Norfolk and King’s Lynn, Discover King’s Lynn, Norfolk County Council and the Combined Authority for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

Music was specially composed by Sandy Nuttgens, Matmos and Carter/Tutti. Game engine and coding by Richard Hall, Chris Tyler and Simon Poulter. Projections by Joe Magee, Karen Eng, Pete Cleary, Dominic Manning, Pete Cleary, Issam Kourbaj and Yael Biran. The story was devised and written by James McDermott and Marcus Romer, with a new Syrian poem written by Liwaa Yazji.

The Reveal project uses a Creative Commons license – Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike – CC BY-NC-SA . This means that anyone can replicate and reuse the method and structure for the project, within the conditions of the license.

Full credit list:

Executive Producers: Simon Poulter, Rachel Drury
Artistic Producers: Marcus Romer, Simon Poulter
Story: James McDermott, Marcus Romer
Words: Liwaa Yazaji
Script Editor: Kathryn Castles
Social media elements: Maze Media
Actors: Oliver Westlake, Claire Lacey, Rebecca Banatvala, Tim Welton
Research and photography volunteer: Beatrice Bray
Film elements and trailer: Gavin Toomey
Logo and Design: Joe Magee
Costume Designer: Sunny Luckhoo
Artists: Issam Kourbaj, Karen Eng, Pete Cleary, Yael Biran, Joe Magee
Music: Carter-Tutti, Matmos, Sandy Nuttgens
Voice overs: Claire Lacey
Engagement Programme: Michelle Brace, Katy Marshall
Web Development: Chris Tyler
Creative Technologist/augments/back-end developer: Richard Hall
3D Artist: Dominic Manning
Projection Development: Pete Cleary
PR and comms: Becky Wieczorek, Stephanie Lewis
Ground and shop team: Luke Woodcroft, Fynn Pitkeathly, Beatrice Bray
Stage Manager: Lewis Anderson
Production Consultant: Ben Pugh
Production Coordinator: Nev Milsom
Project Assistant: Alex Byford
Lighting Assistant: Alexsandra Kruk
Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk: Chris Bamfield, Mark Fuller, Martin Chisholm
AR.js software: Jerome Etienne
After Effects Artist: Sabrina Minter
Fundraising: Catherine Slack
LiDAR Survey: Mark McGarragh
Drone footage and photography: Matthew Usher

A new creative phase #shifthappens

Shift Happens – funnily enough, I know all about that, and also I know that it is a good thing that it does. I have some exciting news, and I am really looking forward to the next creative phase of my work and life. I have just pressed ‘send’ on the final delivery of Graeae’s ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ edit of the Live to Digital Capture that I produced for The Space whilst at Theatre Royal Stratford East. This will be going into cinemas  via the Cinegi distribution network later this year, and I am delighted to have been able to deliver this as part of my last project at Stratford East.

I am stepping down after nearly two years as Stratford East’s Digital Associate Artist to take up a new position as one of the directors of a new National Theatre Wales piece for their #NHS70 celebration project in July this year. I have already started on this and I am really looking forward to working with all the team in Cardiff and on the project in Newport. More info on this will follow in due course on the next stage of their launch for this project. As someone who used to work in the NHS many moons ago it seems like my creative paths have aligned for this project and I am really looking forward to it.

I will be sorry to leave TRSE, it has been an amazing family of creative practitioners over the time I was there, and the building and the people will always hold special memories for me as a director. The fact that I directed Antigone there as my last show before leaving Pilot as Artistic Director was a really great experience, and this led to the opportunities to develop my live to digital practice with the livestreams of shows into hospitals, hospices and Adult social care homes. Speaking about these initiatives across conferences in Europe led me to develop this work for Ramps on the Moon with their production of ‘Tommy’ and also for the more recent Graeae production of ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’

Since making  ‘The Knife That Killed Me’ – the feature film for Universal Pictures –  I have continued to develop this practice into working across the theatre, film and digital distribution space for audiences, and I know this is where my passion lies. So I am delighted to be able to be working on a new project, not only for National Theatre Wales, but also to be developing two new projects with Collusion, the Cambridge based company that works on the interface between Arts and Technology.

With Collusion I am working with new teams of artists across to develop two new public facing arts/tech engagement projects. These build on an R&D project that I was the lead artist on in King’s Lynn during last year. Again there will be more to let you know about these projects in the coming months. But in the meantime a lot of creative preparation is underway to deliver some new performance projects that will be totally brand new in every respect!

Also my work in Yorkshire was clearly not finished, as I will also be picking up on some work I did at the end of last year and as a result of this I will be returning to Harrogate Theatre as an Associate Artist, where we will be building some new large scale project ideas together, as well as developing some new live to digital opportunities for audiences across Yorkshire. I am looking forward to this too immensely. I have really enjoyed being back up North again, catching up with old mates and colleagues, and generally keeping in creative mischief.

So new doors and new opportunities are always exciting and positive, and I look forward  to being able to keep you posted about how the new creative projects are shaping up and developing.

The photo? I took it in Madrid this January when I was visiting my son who now lives there. It reminds me that wherever you are in the world – you have to keep moving the trash out of the way to make shift happen…

 

Making Digital Strategies come to life in Arts Organisations

‘Making the good stuff happen’ has been at the top of my work schedule over the past year or so. It builds on my work with live streaming theatre since 2008 – and I realise that this has been a 10 year journey to help deliver work to new audiences in new spaces.

This has most recently been seen in the ‘live to digital’ work I have been doing at Theatre Royal Stratford East, and something that I have been leading on over the 18 months for the organisation. We have livestreamed work into hospitals, hospices and adult social care homes.

This year we took the livestream of the Rapunzel panto into Bart’s Health Trust, and we included Newham University Hospital (pictured above), St Francis’ Hospice in Romford, and Richard House Children’s Hospice in Beckton. It was made available online on a closed channel that broadcast the performance in HD with full stereo sound. This was picked up online and shared onto smart TV’s, laptops, projectors, iPads and smartphones. It worked across all devices.

We have been supported by Galliard Homes for the pantomime and the livestream was also supported too, with The Space helping us to to deliver this.

We shot the matinee on 29th December with 4 HD cameras that also shoot 4k. They are BlackmagicDesign units and they are tiny, so there is no audience disruption, to any need to take any seats off sale. We can capture, cut and deliver work fast, live and in the moment with the team. There is a full sound mix and we cut this live between the wide shots and the camera operators picking up the close ups and tighter shots.

The theatre has been on board with this development, and have got how this works. The work between the different departments have enabled the collaboration needed to make this a success.

This is how I think Digital needs to work in Arts organisations. It is about finding the ways to reach and connect with audiences. To help to disseminate the work and to provide opportunities to create a ‘Digital Outreach’ programme of activity.

Digital is about being able to create more opportunities for access points for audiences. So this does not just sit in the responsibility of just one department. More often, digital falls under the umbrella of marketing  and communications. This is not the only place this work needs to sit. Digital by its very nature is pervasive and touches and affects all aspects of the organisation, and as such should provide links and synergies across all departments. This will encourage a shift in thinking across the work that is created, the internal systems and all the outward facing aspects of the Arts organisation.

I have been delivering digital strategies for leading Arts organisations over the last year, these have included Chichester Festival Theatre, Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Harrogate Theatre and Kettle’s Yard Museum and Gallery. In all these organisations there is the real willingness to develop and to deliver  a new way of working within the digital space in this way.

However, at the moment, there are many obstacles in the way for arts organisations to get on board with this. Hurdles of rights, permissions, and legal stuff. All important stuff, but we surely need to find a way to streamline this and push the tech and opportunities forward.

To help do this I have put together a ‘how to get started’ with all this, for UK Theatre. This was published on their site this year, and I am now attaching my redrafted version here, which hopefully might be useful.

Let me know if you have any thoughts or ideas about how we might develop this work in the future…

Thanks – here is the guide for you

LivestreamingGuidebyMarcusRomer

marcus@artsbeacon.uk

Christmas Thanks…when you are freelance

It’s the end of my second year as a freelance creative director, and I am planning my freelance Christmas Party works ‘do’ – in actual fact I will probably have a cup of coffee in my slippers and a mince pie about 2pm today….Well I say that of course, but I have been invited to several ones at the places I have worked this year, but as I am doing all my admin and accounts at the moment I have had to give my apologies.

Going through the list of organisations I have had the privilege of working with this year – and what a year it has been,  I have a lot of people and work colleagues to thank. It goes without saying that there has been a great deal of variety and travel. Yes lots of travel. 25,000 miles in the car and hundreds of train journeys – and my box of orange train tickets is overflowing on my desk as I write.

So in kind of date order in terms of working I would like to thank Theatre Royal Stratford  East and the new livestreams we have created together this year, both with the in-house team but also with Ramps on the Moon, for ‘Tommy’, and also with Graeae and The Space for ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ which will be released into cinemas in 2018. Still gearing up we will be livestreaming the TRSE panto, Rapunzel into Hospitals and Hospices on December 28th 2017.

I very much enjoyed working with the students at the University of York as I lectured and ran the practical sessions about acting for camera for the Theatre Film and Television cohort.

A thanks also to Creative England and the Eagle Labs team from Barclays in Brighton, and for all the new startups I worked with as part of the Flight programme. A big thanks too to Collusion in Cambridge, and the creative teams in King’s Lynn we worked with as part of the projection challenge project. Continuing the work with Collusion on their new challenge with the creative teams in Bury St Edmunds into 2018 is continuation of this exciting project.

Thanks also to all the Theatres I worked with, helping them to develop their digital plans and ideas for the next four years, these were Chichester Festival Theatre, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, Stephen Joseph Theatre Scarborough, Harrogate Theatres, Theatre Royal Stratford East, and also Kettle’s Yard Museum and Gallery here in Cambridge. ‘Doing Digital Differently’ was the theme across all these organisations, and it was inspiring to work with the teams from each of those buildings across the country, and reminding me how much I enjoy working in those creative environments. As part of this work I was also asked to speak at two conferences in the UK about Digital and Theatre Design and VR in Scarborough and London.

I also got invited to speak and work in Europe, so a big thanks to the European Theatre Consortium for inviting me to deliver a keynote in Karlsruhe in Germany for their European Theatre Lab project. Also to the New Norske National Theatre in Oslo for inviting me to their away week planning session. Also to the Harstad Folkehøgskole for inviting me back to work with their students in the Arctic Circle once again.

More travel took me to Cardiff several times to work with National Theatre Wales and to help shape their NHS70 project which will run in 2018 as a 70 year celebration of the NHS.

The year also saw me back up in Yorkshire, working at Harrogate Theatre and working  with the team there to help them deliver their new 4 year plan. I loved being back in Yorkshire again, and the team there are amazing, and work so hard to deliver an extraordinary programme.

Most recently I worked with the brilliant Coventry 2012 City of Culture team, as they prepared for their successful interview which resulted in them securing the UK City of Culture title for the City.

So from a year that started with me working in Norwich with John Knell and the Council team and all the cultural organisations, through to the forthcoming livestream from Theatre Royal Stratford East it has been a real privilege, and I have worked with some amazing people. I have learned loads and I look forward to continuing to make new connections and to tackle new challenges in 2018.

Thanks to all who have made this a stimulating and rewarding work year. I will raise a mince pie to you all in my slippers this afternoon.

🙂

Happy Christmas and See you in 2018

 

Mx