Target reached!
If we can raise another 10% on top of our target of £10,000, we can put that money t...
If we can raise another 10% on top of our target of £10,000, we can put that money t...
10 days of research to develop the creative framework for an immersive production of THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISSOCIA by Anthony Neilson
What Are We Trying To Achieve?
Our overall objective for this R&D period is to kickstart both the creative & planning stages of SoLar Production's biggest theatrical project to date: THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISSOCIA which will be running for 6 weeks in London throughout Spring 2019.
Why This Play?
This R&D will help us get on our way to producing the play early next year. By supporting us now, you're enabling us to make the production happen in 2019.
SoLar Productions are producing this play because we believe theatre has the potential to simultaneously educate, entertain & enlighten. At the core of the play lie some important contradictions surrounding mental health. We want the audience to have a bloody brilliant time and also provoke them to challenge any preconceptions around illnesses like Bipolar Disorder.
What's The Story?
This is a hugely original play, both magical and moving, that confirmed Anthony Neilson as one of the major voices in contemporary British theatre.
In Act 1 of the play the audience seemingly witness the protagonist Lisa Jones travelling through a magical & surreal world called Dissocia. We discover in Act 2 that all is not what it seems; what we've seen, heard, smelt, touched, tasted & experienced is not quite as straight forwards as first thought.
Anthony Neilson's play was originally produced for the 2004 Edinburgh International Festival where it wowed critics and audiences alike, cleaning up at the Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland.
In 2007, The National Theatre of Scotland toured the show, and it won the TMA Award for Best Touring Production.
What's Different?
We want to stage the production in a completely new way by capitalising on the participatory nature of immersive, promenade theatre in order to plunge you, our audience, into Lisa's mind. You will not be a passive observer; you will experience what she experiences.
Each scene in Act 1 will include cutting-edge multi-sensory design which requires detailed planning. This hasn't been attempted with this play before and we need time & resources to make it the best it can be.
We're going to work together with a specialised facilitator, an Arts Therapist and 10 people with lived experience of Bipolar Disorder to try and translate their experiences into a meaningful immersive theatrical design rooted in integrity.
By the end of the 10 days, we will have:
Created sketched designs & mood boards for all the spaces;
Created a draft lighting plan;
Created sketches & example footage of projection design;
Created samples of the sound design;
Generated CAD designs of entire performance space based on draft designs (to help us work out cabling & operating logistics);
Researched & generated a fully costed Production Budget based on all these draft designs which will inform future funding applications.
WHAT WE'LL DO WITH THE MONEY
Pay the artists, therapist, facilitator and participants properly for their time & expertise. There will be at least 17 people working on this R&D and they all deserve to be paid a fare wage. It's astonishing how many arts projects still don't do this. At SoLar Productions, we want to do things properly.
Get a proper show website up & running.
Organise a kick-ass Wonderful World Gala to be held on 10th October 2018 - World Mental Health Day (save the date in your diary now!) - to raise money for the production & awareness of the project.
This project successfully funded on 2nd August 2018