from scratch

i remember when we were writing up the application, or the proposal, or whatever it's called, for the show myself and nessa were trying to figure out how we could explain what we were thinking of doing. i mean how do you convince a panel of people to give you the theatre for a week when you have nothing to show them --especially when they are used to getting a script with all the directors ideas(or at least most of them) written out. it was a 'well-we-want-to-make-a-show-about-imagination-and-at-the-moment-you-just-have-to-use-your-imagination' situation.

i feared they would think we were going to take the piss and put up a show with an empty stage, no actors, no props, nothing and then have the audience make it up in their heads. it was a running joke for a while that the audience would come out and say it was shit and we would just say 'and who's fault is it that you didn't enjoy it?'. we knew that we had lots of good ideas (or so we thought at the time and in some cases still think) but we didn't know how to communicate them to the panel. we figured we would work that out when we started to develop the show; the 'figured-out-bit' was going to be the play.

i remember that this video was a big help. we wanted to play with cardboard boxes that came to life, fly to the moon and chase shadows. in a way we could have just said that. but we didn't. we did however tell them to look at the video and then trust us... to our shock, amazement and horror they did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUCrM5i_W3c