Storytelling beyond the stage
Broader and deeper engagement with the stories you tell
Digital storytelling
The Merchant of Venice 1936
Project Manager Rhianna Frost | Digital Producer: Joel Hall | Digital Artist: Mari Luoma
Content Created by Rhianna Frost, Joel Hall and Brigid Larmour
In The Merchant of Venice 1936, Brigid Larmour and Tracy-Ann Oberman reclaim Shakepeare’s play as a Jewish narrative, and use this historically antisemitic script to stand against all forms of hatred and discrimination, particularly in the UK today. This production has been experienced by thousands of audience members, and a third UK tour has recently been announced.
The reach and impact of this production has been broadened and deepened through various extended storytelling methods which I had the privilege to project manage, and create content for. One strand was the Digital Extended Storytelling Platform. This platform has been accessed by over 18,000 unique users and had over 50,000 hits to date.
The digital platform enables access for all, including through a platform guide and education pack. Its different areas delve into historical context, literary analysis, and the production concept, in an interactive and multi-sensory experience. The platform is enriched with archival content, production photographs, interviews, interactive challenges and filmed storytelling, interweaving Shakespeare’s narrative and eyewitness testimonies of the Battle of Cable Street, 1936.
In this way, the platform champions arts education, access, and curiosity, expanding on themes and contexts, and encouraging audience members’ engagement outside of the theatre itself.
stepping beyond the theatre
In striving for inclusion, performance venues need to consider all barriers to access. These barriers can be physical (such as staircases, flashing lights, and auditory barriers), and they can also be social. To step over a theatre threshold can require a great act of courage for many individuals, for many reasons.
While steps can and should be taken by venues to ensure their physical and social accessibility, the best way to ensure that new audiences access your performance is to physically go to them. Go to schools; go to care homes; go to refuge centres, community centres, public squares and prisons. Sometimes this can take the form of performing an extract from your production, but more often it requires sensitivity and pre-discussion in order to find a need for your audience and to meet it.
In venues with the luxury of good arts funding, this may sound more than obvious. However, this kind of outreach is beneficial for all storytellers, irrespective of company size, project size and budget. More importantly, it is enormously beneficial to the community, and to the audiences who have not yet stepped through the theatre door.
using your space
Is your performance space maximising its full storytelling potential? Is your entrance, foyer, bar, contributing to your core narrative?
What story does the space, itself, tell?
Your production space may well be multipurpose. In Vienna, it is likely that this space is serving a repetoire of different productions simultaneously. Your space can be used to serve the narrative of the moment, offering opportunity for interactive exploration of the production concept, history, and plot. It can also be used to market each production to those who attend the space for other reasons; perhaps to visit another production, or perhaps for an outreach project you offer.
Contact me to discuss how your space could be optimised in order to serve your narrative.