This 7-day Masterclass, led by Coney’s co-directors (Annette Mees, Tom Bowtell and Tassos Stevens), will give participants the opportunity to immerse themselves in responsive performance practice.

You’ll also investigate ways in which immersive theatre can interrogate and engage with social and political systems, culminating in a showcase performance using a Coney show in development, Early Days (of a better nation), as a platform.

The Masterclass will offer:

1) Training in performance: Developing techniques for performing in immersive and responsive theatre, combining text and improvisation techniques to build a character who can respond plausibly in any scenario.

2) Training in devising, writing and dramaturgy: Creating narrative responsive worlds where audiences have agency to co-author their experiences. You will also explore Coney’s iterative development process, where ideas are tested in front of a live audience from the earliest stage.

3) Training in applied game design: Coney’s shows incorporate game mechanics at their heart, and you will explore how these mechanics can be mixed with theatrical techniques to enhance the audience experience.

Dates and Location

The workshops will run in the daytimes of Monday 24^th June to Saturday 29^th June, culminating in performances on the evenings of Friday 28th and Saturday 29th June.

The team and other participants will join for brunch and an informal review of learning objectives on Sunday 30th June.

All activity will take place at Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street, EC1V 9LT.

Suitability

Aimed at performers, the workshop will assume participants have some training or professional acting experience.  Knowledge of responsive performance is useful, although the Masterclass is suitable for those looking to explore this performance style for the first time.

Opportunities are also available for writers, designers and other creatives to engage with the Masterclasses, exploring how their expertise might be applied to the creation of responsive theatre. Email please enable javascript to see the email address for details.

Cost

£400 (inc VAT) including brunch on Sunday 30th June.

Participants will be responsible for covering any travel, food or accommodation requirements.

Booking

Email please enable javascript to see the email address to book, along with a brief CV outlining your experience to date.  Spaces are strictly limited.  A £100 deposit will be payable by cheque or bank transfer to confirm your place with the remaining balance due by Tuesday 11^th June.

Please let us know if you have any access requirements. 

Bursaries

A limited number of bursary places are available, offering 50% and 100% discounts on the cost of the Masterclass.  Email please enable javascript to see the email address for application details.

Applications for bursaries must be made by Monday 20th May.

Speakers include… Matt Adams of Blast Theory, Annette Mees of Coney, Hannah Nicklin, a speaker or speakers from Occupy, A Mystery Guest. Hosted by Tassos Stevens of Coney.

7pm, Sunday 10th March
Camden People’s Theatre
Tickets £8/£6 available online via the CPT partner or  in person from the CPT Box Office.

Devised and designed by Claire ‘Mink’ Bateman and Tassos Stevens.

With writing by Tom Bowtell and additional material by Sam Bailey, Gary Campbell, Hazel Gould, Andrew Mulligan, Rachael A Smith.

This version

Joan Barton
Muriel Coe

Richard Barton
Dan Ford

‘Hopeless’ Bob
Alyn Gwyndaf

Monica Smith
Michelle McMahon

Runners and actors
David Finnigan, Nathan Harrison, Nikki Kennedy, Rachel Roberts, David Shaw.

Graphic design
Ross Aitken

Coordinator for the Dana Centre
Rohan Mehra

Slideshow build
Alyn Gwyndaf

Direction and redesign
Tassos Stevens

Produced for Coney by HQ.

Thanks to Karl Brincat, Kat Nilsson, Antoine Pastor, Richard Walton.

Dedicated to the memory of Muriel Coe, who really was at Bletchley Park all those years ago.

•

Richard Walton suggests a bibliography for those who are interested:

Enigma by Hugh Sebag Montifiore, Weidenfeld & Nicholson.
The Codebook by Simon Singh, 4th Estat.
Securing The State by David Omand, C Hurst & Co.

It runs the 13th to 16th September 2012 in the Absolut Fringe, entrance every 15 minutes from 7pm.

You can book tickets here.

If you’re curious in advance, you might find out a little more here.

It’s inspired by The Adventure Principle, created by Coney, Contact and CYAC. It’s a new piece with a very different model, but continuing the line of investigation into adventure and making an adventure for a playing audience with an acting company of young people.

Coney is here represented by Dan Canham and Tassos Stevens.

In one, a story book comes to life and controls an alien fly that looks a little bit like this illustration by Clare Elsom.

[illustration coming soon!]

But the book has gaps in its rhymes and the children have to solve these to keep control of the fly and stop it pooing everywhere…

Coney is here represented by Tom Bowtell, Ellie Stamp, and others.

On the afternoon of Sunday 13th May, there will be an Open Event from 3pm til 7pm that is about exploring making and playing adventures out on the streets, taking place in a Zone 1 location TBA.

Those who would like to get involved should email please enable javascript to see the email address

In this podcast, Jonathan May of LIFT talks to Tassos Stevens of Coney about the vision for the project, and what can be expected next.

If you’re interested to stay posted about future developments, then either sign up to our mailing list or drop a line to talk@youhavefoundconey.net saying ‘adventure’.

Pop Up Playground is running some Workshop Saturdays to playtest some new games and fix some old ones. As part of the first of these, Coney will be hosting this playful challenge. To play in Melbourne, drop a line to melbourne@youhavefoundconey.net. It runs at Richmond Uniting Church Gallery, 304 Church Street, Richmond 3121, from 10am til 4pm.

It will be linked to our Playful Documentary Unit happening in London as part of Forest Fringe at the Gate Theatre later on the same day. The Playful Documentary Unit in London is an open event, open to all, mail documentaryunit@youhavefoundconey.net to book a place. More info can be found here http://aplayfuldocumentaryunit.posterous.com

Situated on top of a hill between the towns of Whitehaven and Workington, Rosehill was founded by the rather magnificent Hungarian silk magnate Sir Nicholas Sekkers who employed the acclaimed stage and set designer Olivier Messel to create “a rose-red silk lined jewel box.” Coney is happy to attest that Mr Messel achieved his objective with aplomb.

This project marks an important new working model for Coney, as we went up to West Cumbria with minimal knowledge of the area, and no idea of the piece of theatre we were going to make (although the commission from West is Best, the West Cumbrian Arts Engagement Initiative, did give us some starting parameters).  Rather than imposing any pre-conceived ideas onto the project, our aim was to respond to what we found, taking our lead from the location we were working in and the stories which excited the local people we met. Openly confessing our ignorance, we spent several weeks immersing ourselves in the life and history of West Cumbria, meeting more than 100 locals aged from 9 months to 90 years, and hoovering up all the information we could find. From these conversations, certain themes and intriguing stories began to emerge, including the centuries old (and largely playful) rivalry between Workington and Whitehaven folk – and see here for an explanation).

We then began to weave the stories and characters into a piece of interactive story-telling which will take place across several spaces in Rosehill. Local people continue to be involved with every aspect of the piece, with an “authenticity advisory panel” being assembled to ensure that Cumbrian slang of the script rings true, and several over 70s helping designers ensure that the 1960s feel we are going for with the piece feels just right. Local performers, both professional and non-professional, will also make up the cast of Let Them Eat Jam, which will run between March 8th and March 11th 2012.

Coney is here represented by Annette Mees, Mimi Poskitt and Tom Bowtell.

This show in development is a response to the worldwide political turbulence over the last few years. We’ve seen new forms of citizenship, protest and participation: Arab Spring, the 2012 riots that took place in London and other English cities, a crowd-sourced constitution in Iceland, the rise (and fall) of Occupy, Anonymous and the Indignados in Spain and Indignant Citizens Movement in Greece.

These dramatic events inspired Coney to develop Early Days (of a better nation) – a new, large-scale show through a dynamic combination of theatre, a playing audience, live soundtrack, video projection and live-streamed media.

Chapter Scratch, image by Matt Howey-Nunn

Latest
The latest development stage of Early Days was presented at In Between Time at the Arnolfini in Bristol on the 17th of February 2013. Watch this space for what happens next.

The story
Early Days (of a better nation) is being developed in iterative stages with audiences. We started with a simple playtest at Stoke Newington International Airport which led to one ambitious coalition taking the crown. This was followed by two scratches in May 2012 in London and Cardiff which were the first steps towards the development of the show as we tested the game mechanism, currency, technology and narrative.

The scratch events contained elements of constitution, economic cuts, an assassination, a leadership election, an economy of beans and a live news channel. Seven performers took roles: one noble leader, two clerks representing the governing machine, three media reporters who were streamed live to a 24hr news broadcast in the room and a ‘Bean Counter’ who ran the equivalent of the internal economy. Beans could be earned in multiple ways, not all legitimate, and spent on votes. At Battersea Arts Centre, with a crowd of 120, we saw near riots and a sit-in with bribery, fascism and some dirty politics. We then headed to Cardiff for the second scratch at Chapter with 60 people where a renegade reporter joined a party and helped them to win the elections.

After both scratches the post-show bar was humming with conversation, passionate feedback and powerful ideas. Combined with our observations, emails from participants, actors and a feedback-blog from one of the audience members, one thing seemed clear; there’s a really exciting theatre show waiting to emerge.

To further investigate some of the mechanics we also created a game for Playpublik in Berlin, where a crowd of over 60 players build a new nation with sticks, ribbons and balloons. We experimented with independent players, loose from any coalition or back bench. They promptly banded together against the pre-existing parties, ended up with most resources and won the game.

In January and February 2013 we led workshops with students from the MFA Theatre Directing and the MA Creative Producing at Birkbeck University to explore the game mechanics with them and playtest with an invited audience. The next stage of development was played by an audience of 120 at  IBT13 at the Arnolfini. William Drew for wired.co.uk and Jacob of Young Arnolfini shared their experiences which you can read here and here.

Use #earlydays on Twitter to be part of the conversation

Credits

Concept: Annette Mees

In the first phase of development and research Coney was represented by: Jason Sutton, Mink ette and Annette Mees

The playtest at the Stoke Newington International Airport was made by: Annette Mees, Jason Sutton, Mink ette, Sam Howey Nunn, Michael Cusick, Georgina Bednar, Michelle McMahon and Richard Popple

The scratches at BAC & Chapter were made by:

Direction: Annette Mees
Writing: Jason Sutton
Game design: Mink ette
Producer: Sam Howey Nunn
Production management: Kirsty Henderson
Design: Jeannine Inglis Hall
Video Design: Kiel DeValera
Sound Design: Tom Hackley at HAVE Sound and Kiel DeValera
Composer: Max Perryment
Cast at BAC: Georgina Bednar, Michael Cusick, Edmund Harcourt, Michelle McMahon, Richard Popple, Molly Taylor and Jamie Zubairi
Cast at Chapter: Matthew Bulgo, Laurence Clark, Michael Cusick, Teifi Emerald, Bethan Mary James, Laura Jeffs, Simon Morgan-Thomas, Rachel Helena Walsh
With special thanks to: David Aldhouse, Louis Ruscombe-King, Alex Rowse, Ros Howes, Abdul Shayek & Sarah Jane Leigh

The game for Playpublik was developed by Mink ette and Annette Mees

The workshop development at Birkbeck was created by: Annette Mees and Tom Bowtell
With special thanks to: Rob Swain, Andrew McKinnon, Louise Owen, Fintan Walsh and all the students who took part.

The scratch at IBT13 was made by:

Direction: Annette Mees and Tom Bowtell
Writing: Tom Bowtell
Production management: Ros Howes
Assistant producer: Alex Rowse
Design: Elouise Farley and Jo Scotcher
Video design: Kiel DeValera
Cast: Nigel Barret, Laurence Clark, Michael Cusick, Edmund Harcourt, Bethan Mary James, Fran Moulds, Rachel Helena Walsh
With special thanks to: Hannah Nicklin, Rosie Fairchild, the volunteers and Young Arnolfini

Shows

Scratch at Chapter, Cardiff, 17/05/2012

Scratch at BAC, London, 11/05/2012

Game at Playpublik, Berlin, 11/08/2012

Scratch at In Between Time, Arnolfini Bristol, 17/02/2013