WRABNESS R&D

*Photos by Luke Witcomb

The Wrabness R&D took place 5th-8th September at Wrabness Village Hall, with much work outside and also a visit to Wix and Wrabness School. There were 5 working sessions, plus 1 photography/film and media session, plus 1 schools session and 1 public facing foraging walk.

*Nina Hajiyianni (director) in discussion with Bek Palmer (designer) * * Wrabness R&D: the full team. (From L to R) Nina Hajiyianni (director), Alex Fairley (performer), Murray Lachlan Young (writer), Bek Palmer (designer), Becca Bindang (performer), Chris Warner (composer and sound design), Matthew Linley (producer), Farrell Cox, Fran Burgoyne (performers).

*Becca Bindang, Farrell Cox, Fran Burgoyne (performers) *

*Becca Bindang, Farrell Cox and Fran Burgoyne (Performers)

Alex Fairley Scott (performer), Matthew Linley (producer), Lora Aziz (forager in residence), Nina Hajiyianni (director) and Bek Palmer (designer) Lora Aziz (Forager in Residence) leading a community foraging walk in Wrabness Photo Ben Wilmott

Bek Palmer White Card design for The Chronicles of Atom and Luna - scale model. Photo and design credit Bek Palmer Having established the story in the first R&D (Wivenhoe) this second R&D was able to focus on how we tell the story - both in terms of performance and in terms of design. We considered and tested Bek’s white card design.

We were able to test and play with some musical ideas he has being developing as our composer and sound associate. (In the schools session we even taught the children The Mushroom Song so the school and cast heard the song together for the first time!). The session also allowed us to test a couple of potential new performers to join the company - Fran Burgoyne and Alex Scott.

Key learning

• That the story worked. • And that what we have developed - effectively over the last 3 years is very exciting. This is the note that our producer Matthew Linley sent venue partners the following note which just about sums it up:-

“We've just had a great few days on Atom and Luna in deepest darkest North Essex...in Wrabness Village Hall which was lovely! Murray (writer) and Nina (director obvs) were quite literally on fire, sparring with each other at a rate of knots which was phenomenal to watch especially on the Friday where we seemed to motor through the show and solve an incredible amount of stuff, despite the heat!

Our story involves a giant hare (puppet), a transforming wolf, a screeching bird and a flight of butterflies (more puppets). There’s also sizzling mushrooms (oh and of course a mushroom song written by our composer Chris Warren) and some great performances emerging from our cast.

As well as the school visit we also went foraging with our Resident Forager Lora Aziz. One of our actors tweeted 'every R&D should have a foraging walk', and another tweeted this lovely line about the show: ' The Chronicles of Atom and Luna - a beautiful blend of fairytale and nature', which I might just start using!”

Actions Going Forward

• Murray will develop a new version of the script for rehearsal based on the findings from the R&D • Bek will develop the design for the performance, ready for final build • We will (hopefully) go into rehearsal in September 2022 for our tour in Oct/Nov 22