Project: Dangerous Games (originally The Maze)
Grant: £2,500
Area of benefit: Weymouth
Our project, which ended up being called 'Dangerous Games' not 'The Maze', brought a high quality piece of site-specific, immersive theatre to Weymouth.
Performing on the streets, and in shops and pubs in the centre of town, we engaged audiences who had never seen this kind of theatre before. We also brought together local community volunteers to perform alongside our professional actors, including those from marginalised/hard to reach communities, participants from Dorset Blind and The Lantern Trust, who made new friends and learnt new skills.
Additionally, we worked with performing arts students from Weymouth College, giving them vital experience of working on a professional production and mentoring sessions on beginning a professional career in the performing arts.
The project ran relatively smoothly. We had some issues in finding dates that worked for all project partners as we had to push the original planned performance dates back due to Arts Council delays in awarding the rest of the funding, but we managed to make it work.
We did find marketing the show difficult, despite help from Weymouth BID, we think because Teatro Vivo has not previously had a presence in the town the sort of word of mouth marketing that is extremely useful was hard to achieve. Bookings picked up dramatically towards the end of the run once word started to spread, and we think that in future we'd find it much easier.
A number of our participants had disabilities, blind or partially sighted, so we planned carefully to accommodate them. We had budget for travel expenses for participants, made sure all rehearsal and performance venues were fully accessible, and talked to everyone about their needs to make sure we were able to make the experience a full and enjoyable one for you. We even worked with a guide dog in the show and had to think carefully about movement to allow her to do her job. For audiences, we offer a similarly bespoke service, with ticket bookers encouraged to contact us with any accessibility needs and each performance having an accessibility steward, in addition to the general stewards, who is there to assist anyone who needs help, whether that be navigated the route in a wheelchair or live audio description of the action.
Quotes
"I just want to thank you for bringing back part of my life that I’d had to give up due to my eyesight. Being able to be part of the workshops and the show and not have to worry about my sight holding me back, as everything had been adjusted to make sure my self and my guide dog were safe and included at all time. I don’t think I have the words to tell you how much this meant to me." Particpant feedback.
"Inventive, creative. Wasn't sure who was an actor at times. Good level of interaction, there were still times i could just watch and dance and relax. Imaginative use of local spaces, I felt embedded in the community. I also felt that theatre was more accessible to the local community, people were looking through the windows and were interested, it's good for theatre to be out of stuffy theatre spaces. Fun. Lighthearted. Just a joy. Also, great music." Audience feedback.