A UK tour of Black Tonic is planned for 2015.
For a discussion about booking Black Tonic for your theatre or festival programme please contact Katie Day at info@theotherwayworks.co.uk
April 15, 2013 by katie
A UK tour of Black Tonic is planned for 2015.
For a discussion about booking Black Tonic for your theatre or festival programme please contact Katie Day at info@theotherwayworks.co.uk
by katie
Aesthetic Development of the production, and shooting of film material.
Funded by Birmingham City Council (International Development Grant)
Funded by Arts Council England, The Sir Barry Jackson Trust, and Birmingham City Council. Supported by mac.
UP CLOSE sharing supported by Malmaison Birmingham.
April 14, 2013 by katie
As part of Mayfest Bristol 2009 Sponsored by Mercure Holland House Hotel & Spa Bristol
Originally commissioned by Camden People’s Theatre.
Project Development funded by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award, Arts Council England, Birmingham City Council & The Sir Barry Jackson Trust, and supported by CPT, Contact Theatre & mac.
Sponsored by the Radisson SAS Hotel Birmingham
Funded by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award www.wellcome.ac.uk and The Sir Barry Jackson Trust
Originally commissioned by Camden People’s Theatre. Development funded by Arts Council England, Birmingham City Council & The Sir Barry Jackson Trust, and supported by Contact Theatre, CPT & mac.
Part of Contact Theatre’s Autumn 2008 Season
Sponsored by The Place Hotel, supported by Contact Theatre, and funded by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award.
Originally commissioned by Camden People’s Theatre. Development funded by Arts Council England, Birmingham City Council, The Sir Barry Jackson Trust, and supported by CPT & mac
Part of CPT’s Sprint Festival 2008
Commissioned and Co-Produced by CPT, London
www.cptheatre.co.uk
by katie
“an evocative thriller” The Guardian
The Other Way Works invites you to unravel this original detective story, where even love can be bought for the price of a cocktail from the mini-bar.
by katie
Want to know more before you book?
Sure, that’s fine, and thanks for your interest in Avon Calling.
Below is some more information about the show, how to book a performance, and how it works in your home after you’ve booked it.
The Company
The Other Way Works is a Birmingham, UK based theatre company formed in 2001, led by Katie Day. We create highly interactive performance experiences, frequently for small audiences – sometimes even for one at a time. Our theatre is playful and draws the audience into the very heart of the experience.
The Show
Ding, dong. “Avon Calling!” Join the Avon Lady in the cosy surrounds of your own living room for an intimate Avon Party with a twist. Invite your friends round to share in a celebration of beauty in all its forms, and uncover the secrets that lurk beneath your visitor’s perfectly polished exterior.
Avon Calling is an intimate solo performance for real homes.
What previous audience members and hosts thought
“I just wanted to say a big thank you for a wonderful theatrical experience in my living room last night! What a brilliant evening – we sat around for ages afterwards, deconstructing and analysing the show. It was an amazing experience to offer my friends and I’d recommend the show to anyone!”
“Similar to an actual Avon Party, but with a few twists and turns. Not all a barrel of laughs, but very moving and thought-provoking.”
“The performer was spot on … really drawing you into the show. Her ability to ‘hold a (sometimes uncomfortable) moment’ when so close to her audience was amazing.”
“Very intimate and poignant with some good belly laughs thrown in for good measure”
“It made me laugh and cry within the same 5 minutes”
“great concept and really well executed”
“I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed Avon Calling a few weeks ago. I hosted a party and really enjoyed it. I found it both great entertainment and a thoughtful performance.”
How It Works
Avon Calling is a performance that will take place in your living room – just like a real Avon party might take place. The Avon lady will ring your doorbell, set up her product display in your front room and begin…
After booking the performance, you will be sent more detailed information and we will be in touch around two weeks before the performance date to firm up details and talk through any concerns you may have. On the agreed day and time, we will turn up and perform in your living room, we don’t need any set-up time in advance. There is a company of two (1 actor, 1 stage manager), a trunk of props and Avon products – and that’s it. All we require is access to a power supply (just your usual plug sockets), and for you to have cleared a space in your living room (pushing any coffee tables to one side). The audience will be sat on your sofa, chairs, and on the floor of your living room during the performance. As each home is different we will be in direct contact with you regarding room access.
We appreciate that you may be a little apprehensive about having a performance in your home. However, please relax and be assured that we know what we’re doing. We promise to be careful of your home, sensitive to your needs, and to be the best house-guests we can!
How To Book
Rather than buy individual tickets like for a regular theatre show, you actually buy the show itself. For performance cost please see your local venue’s website. You pay at the time of booking. This covers the cost of us coming and performing the show in your own living room for you, your friends and family.
The maximum capacity for a performance is 10 people – any more and you don’t get the special intimate experience that works best for the show. If you split the cost of the booking between you, it works out about the same as most theatre tickets.
If you are interested in booking Avon Calling, phone the box office at your local venue. You will book a specific date and time, and pay for it then. It’s simple. After you have booked, a representative of The Other Way Works will be in touch to talk more about the show and answer your questions.
Check the website for details of upcoming tour dates and venues.
Avon Calling was commissioned by mac, and supported by Arts Council England
April 4, 2013 by katie
We are hoping to have the Bandstand App available on the iPhone and Android stores in early June, but the focus of the launch of the app will be two events in the parks themselves in July 2013.
Launch Events
West Park, Wolverhampton: Wednesday 10th July 2013, 3-7pm
Lightwoods Park, Bearwood: Thursday 11th July 2013, 3-7pm
These events will be free and informal, and will be an opportunity to experience the Bandstand audio pieces in the company of other interested people, and meet the creative team behind them.
March 14, 2013 by katie
We have commissioned a local illustrator Luke Thrush to create the visual look for the smartphone App that will deliver the audio stories.
He’s drawn some beautiful illustrations for us, creating a real story-book feel to the App. We wanted something that would appeal to our audience in terms of the App interface, nothing to high-tech and whizzy. Something with an artistic quality that felt like a treat to use, rather than a series of buttons to get through.
I think he’s done an amazing job. Calvium who are making the App for us have put his drawings into the prototype App and they instantly transform it. We’ve got more work to do still on the App design, and we need Luke to draw us a few extra buttons and icons, but we’re getting there.
The image above is one of his drawings, and is part of the ‘splash screen’ image for the App. I don’t want to give too much away yet, as it would spoil the surprise when the App is published.
by katie
For the first time we actually recorded our voices at a recording studio, rather than a bedroom or outdoors. We have 6 different voices on the Lightwoods Park track, which seemed too many to record outdoors.
We recorded at the Blue Whale Studio in the Custard Factory, Birmingham, and had a good and productive day last Friday. I’m back there tomorrow to record the final two voices: Gareth, a long-standing collaborator; and Catrin, a 9 year old girl.
The photo features Tom Naylor (aka Mr Naylor MC), who came in last Friday to record his own pieces of text that he has written for the Lightwoods Park story. Obviously used to doing his stuff in front of a mike! In fact everyone was a real pro on Friday (apart from me – I’m reading the instructions!)
Once the final two voices are recorded, we’ll be sending the files to Mark the Composer/Sound Designer to get to work on pulling them together into a soundscape. We’re hoping for jazz music, wintry sounds, and the sounds of skateboards on a ramp, to compliment the voices and the story.
March 12, 2013 by katie
React Future Documentary Sandbox Ideas Lab, Bristol 4th March 2013
Last week I made the trip down to Bristol for the Future Docs Sandbox event at Watershed. It was nice to be on the other side of the fence for a change as a participant, having organised several of these events myself when I worked at Watershed in 2010 producing Theatre Sandbox, and helping to facilitate for one of the Heritage Sandbox events.
It was a mentally stimulating day, gave me lots of food for thought, and started me on my journey to applying to be part of the Sandbox if that’s what I want my next step to be.
But I mostly came to this conclusion in retrospect. During the day it felt at times like quite a struggle, sometimes a bit lacking in focus and energy, and a little frustrating. All of this was interspersed with the pleasure of catching up with old colleagues and friends though, which rather took the edge off it. Having run similar sessions myself, it made me wonder if there was much more that React could do to improve the Ideas Labs, or whether the structure was good and it was really down to us the participants to make it a great day.
Is this event for me?
I felt on the periphery of the subject, as a theatre maker with no experience or training in Documentary. I fell within the ‘creative economy partner’ camp (the other being the ‘academic partner’), but as neither a documentary film maker or a technologist whizz kid what did I have to offer?
But then I wondered if other people felt like they weren’t quite the target audience either, not tech savvy enough, or too ‘old school’ in their documentary making perhaps. The exceptions being those people who talk long and loud about how they were doing all this stuff 10 years ago anyway, but then if they already know it all then perhaps they’re not the target audience either.
From my experience of Theatre Sandbox, there are a lot of people at the events who don’t ‘get it’, or are just there to hear about what’s going on but with no intention of being involved, but there are always a handful that have a real passion for the subject, a curiosity to learn more and who gain a lot from hearing other peoples ideas and perspectives. These are the people who write the best applications and who get selected in the end.
How can all participants be empowered to feel that they could be the right people to make a ‘Future Documentary’?
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What’s the focus and where’s the energy?
Whilst there are things that organisers can do about this, I do also think that if you get a group who are low in energy, defensive or don’t engage for whatever reason then its going to be quite an uphill struggle to maintain focus and energy over a 5 hour session. Sometimes it only seems to take one or two vocal people to set the tone for a whole group, putting everyone on the defensive.
I did feel the lack of ‘Inspiring Examples’ during the day’s session. There was a session called this on the plan, but the way that bit happened (3 x one minute chats with someone you hadn’t met before) didn’t really provide me with any inspiration. I could have improved the situation for myself by doing more preparation before the event, using the well-put-together list of suggested viewing that the React team had provided. But on the day itself, there wasn’t much to help us get our creative juices flowing, and I think this may have contributed to a lack of focus for the day’s conversations. Again, I wonder if some of the other attendees hadn’t done much prep either, and perhaps working on the basis that most people hadn’t done any prep would be a better starting point for what to include during the day’s sessions.
I would also have welcomed more provocation or contribution of ideas from members of the React team during the conversation sessions (but maybe I was just unlucky that they weren’t in any of the groups I spent time in).
There were 3 sessions of around 30 minutes each for Open Space-style concurrent discussion groups. I felt that these were a little too short to really get into anything, and with people moving between groups it made it harder to get beyond initial thoughts. Energy and focus had begun to wane by the 3rd session, where only 2 or 3 (rather than an anticipated 8-10) sessions were proposed by the group. There was no feeding back to the larger group, and the lack of knowledge of what conversations had been going on in other spaces meant that I didn’t get a sense of what ideas the event had generated as a whole. I know that reporting back sessions can be truly dire, but I missed the feeling that the day was more than what I had directly participated in myself.
How can the facilitators inspire and provoke the participants, maintaining energy and focus throughout the day?
How can participants be encouraged to trust that the day will eventually deliver what they want from it if they participate fully in it?
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As I said at the start, I only realised myself on the way home in the car how much the day had given me food for thought. I talked all the way home about ideas, ways into the ideas, problems, questions.
So, thanks to everyone at React and Watershed for a lovely day.
January 17, 2013 by katie
Katherine has been busy over the last few months researching for the Lightwoods Park, Sandwell Bandstand piece. This is a completely new story, developed through conversations with several community groups and park users.
One of the main features in the park (apart from the Bandstand obviously) is skate ramp. We were keen to involve this in our story somehow, and feature the people who use it regularly.
This led us to Mr Naylor, a local MC, keen BMXer and skate park regular. We’ve asked him to write some small sections that will be part of the audio experience, and eventually we’ll record him performing them too. This is our first collaboration with an MC, so its all new territory. We like the rough texts he’s sent through so far, so we hope that we can bring it all together in a way that makes sense! His style is very different from Katherine’s (who is writing the rest of it), so it might be a bit of challenge to integrate it all. We do think its worth the trouble though, as it adds a local authentic voice to the piece, and has the potential to open up the finished piece to a different audience.