Christina Baily in Looking for JJ, photographer: Louise Buckby
Annual Report 07-08
This year Pilot Theatre worked on several major performance projects including our biggest ever event – a multi media performance for the opening ceremony of the IIFA Awards – allowing us to reach our largest and most diverse audiences to date. Simultaneously we have developed our digital and online strategy which supports both our performance work and extended activities such as workshops and residencies in schools. In the next year we will continue to develop new work and partnerships, and to explore the possibilities open to us as a theatre company in the 21st century. For Pilot Theatre this includes the creative potential of digital technology for live performance and as a tool for building creative communities. We began this process with our nationally touring production of Looking for JJ, which integrated digital technology in every aspect of the production. The success of this approach was evident in the feedback we received from our audiences. Our presence on social networking sites MySpace and Facebook, our Second Life hub (the first from a UK theatre) and our YouTube channel are now well established, and have been a great way for audiences to interact with us, but it doesn’t stop there.
We are looking ahead to the possibilities presented by the next evolution of digital technology; it has become an intrinsic part of creativity and collaboration, particularly in work for and with young people. It is already enabling the development of our new work, including Lord of the Flies and Catcher in Their Eye, and we are so excited by the potential across arts organisations that we have created a forum for debate: Shift Happens, a conference in partnership with York Theatre Royal and Arts Council England on 3rd July 2008. We’re confident that you can find a way to engage with us as a company in a way that suits you; we are always open to ideas. So catch up with us onstage, ontour, and online.
Marcus Romer Artistic Director April 2008
Zoobin Surty and Yorkshire residents in IIFA Awards video sequence by KMA
onstage ontour online
Annual Report 07-08 sections
productions international education
digital strategy statistics
Joanna Swain in Fungus the Bogeyman, photographer: Peter Byrne
Looking for JJ
IIFA Awards – Opening Act
By Anne Cassidy
Working with Yorkshire-based performers Pilot Theatre produced the opening act of the 2007 IDEA International Indian Film Academy Awards Ceremony, hosted in Yorkshire by YTB with the support of Yorkshire Forward.
Adapted and directed by Marcus Romer in partnership with York Theatre Royal and Unicorn Theatre, London ✭✭✭✭ Daily Mail
✭✭✭✭ Evening Standard ✭✭✭✭ The Times
“a gripping, unsettling play” The Daily Telegraph
Directors: Marcus Romer and Kully Thiarai Sound: Kaiser Chiefs’ Ruby remixed by Sandy Nuttgens and Johnny Kalsi Drumming: Johnny Kalsi and The Dhol Foundation Video: KMA Movement: Darshan Singh Bhuller and Viva Aerial Dance With pupils from the nearby Phillimore School, Sheffield.
Raymond Briggs’ Fungus the Bogeyman Adapted and directed by Marcus Romer A co-production with artsdepot, London ✭✭✭✭ Time Out
“You will have the slime of your life at this fabulous show” York Press “a gorgeous production” BBC
productions
Looking for JJ, photographer: Louise Buckby
“This is a genuinely important piece of young people’s theatre, every bit as thoughtful and demanding as its audience deserves.” The Times
Vicky Wesseling in Adopt a Soldier
We are partners in Magic Net, a collaboration of European theatre companies funded by the European Commission under Culture 2000. Adopt a Soldier was devised by actors from HetMuz Theater, Zandaam; Pilot Theatre, UK; and Theater der Jungen Welt, Leipzig; under the direction of Vivienne Newport, working from a composition by dramaturgs Richard Hurford and Eva K Mathijssen. The multilingual piece was presented at the Magic Net Annual Meeting in Schwerin and toured Europe in summer 2007.
As part of the Magic Net project young people from six European theatre companies met in Schwerin to devise a performance; they chose to address the problems experienced by migrants across Europe. With many people of various nationalities collaborating, the working process itself came to reflect a sense of a European identity and challenged the borders created by linguistic and cultural difference.
We also exchanged video postcards online in the Theatre for a Change InterACT! Project, which linked practitioners using interactive theatre as a tool for HIV/AIDS education and advocacy in Ghana with theatre companies in the UK: interactproject.blogspot.com Our international collaborations continue in the year ahead with a Commonwealth Youth Exchange with Malaysia, the Magic Net co-production One Day in Europe and the Youth Net meeting in Poland.
international
Ship of Hope, a Magic Net Co-production
“I personally made many good friends, learnt many new things about Europe and maybe even myself. Danke schön, Magic Net.” Henry, Pilot Theatre’s Youth Exchange representative
One of the country’s leading companies dedicated to theatre for young people, Pilot Theatre creates work that is alive to the issues and possibilities that we face while growing up. Our productions are supported by a programme of education resources for teachers and students.
Having taken Looking for JJ as their point of departure, participants devised their own narratives, developing their ideas through different media including photography, motion graphics, line drawing and graffiti. These combined with the performance on stage to produce a piece of compelling and remarkable theatre.
You can find out more about these resources on our website www.pilot-theatre.com or email education@pilot-theatre.com. In the summer holidays we worked with York Theatre Royal to give three groups of young people the opportunity to work with professional artists to produce a Play in a Week.
education
Participants in Play in a Week, masks and photography: Mo at Moenipulation
“The workshop leaders inspired the students and got them thinking about theatre in a highly creative and imaginative way” South East Essex College
Shift Happens: 3rd July 2008 at York Theatre Royal A one-day event looking at the potential of digital technology for arts organisations. www.shift-happens.co.uk Shift Happens is a partnership event between Pilot Theatre and York Theatre Royal, funded by Arts Council England.
173 45,737 68 1453 492,316 21 videos; 22,486 views Actors employed: 24 Freelance staff employed: 40 Work experience placements: 11 Looking for JJ Performance weeks: Number of shows:
13 90
Fungus the Bogeyman Performance weeks: 8 Number of shows: 76
digital strategy
statistics
GetIntoTheatre.org movie image by Kit Monkman at KMA
Performances: Total audience members: Education sessions: Education participants: Website visits: YouTube Channel:
Pilot Theatre in Second Life
Adopt a Soldier: Performance weeks: Number of shows: IIFA Performances: Audience members:
2 6 1 15,000 live 500 million global TV audience
Paul Miller at shootshoot
Pilot Theatre also took advantage of the creative capacities of digital technology in working with KMA to produce a
promotional film for the getintotheatre.org website run by the YPPT ACE project.
forthcoming
opportunity for participation and collaboration. The resultant unlocking of creative potential is not only liberating, but essential to the cultural health of our theatre ecology. To bring life to this idea we are developing a Theatre 2.0 project with our Associate Artist, Richard Hurford - visit our website to find out more and get involved.
Ebony Feare in Fungus the Bogeyman, photographer: Peter Byrne
Our digital and online strategy is one of Pilot Theatre’s key developments. We have established a presence on YouTube, Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, iTunes (podcasts), and Second Life, as well as extending the web 2.0 and feedback capabilities of our own website www.pilot-theatre.com. The proliferation of user-generated content sites means we have shifted from a ‘read-only’ culture to a read/write culture that allows users to respond and create. The great thing about this is the
By arrangement with Robert Fox Ltd. and Faber and Faber Ltd., Pilot Theatre in association with York Theatre Royal
By William Golding adapted for the stage by Nigel Williams Directed by Marcus Romer William Golding's Lord of the Flies, one of the most disturbing and celebrated novels of modern times, is vividly brought to life in Pilot Theatre’s award-winning production. “terrifying and exhilarating” The Guardian “William Golding meets Quentin Tarantino” Financial Times
Pilot Theatre York Theatre Royal St Leonard’s Place York YO1 7HD tel: 01904 635755 email: info@pilot-theatre.com web: pilot-theatre.com Registered in England Number 1956167 Registered Charity Number 1003677
Marcus Romer Mandy Smith Sarah Seddon Katie Fathers Charles Moore
Artistic Director Administrative Producer Company Administrator Projects Co-ordinator Finance Director
Tracy Cochrane Richard Hurford James Molyneux Hannah Priddle Helen Cadbury
Marketing Consultant Associate Artist Production Manager Education Associate Education Associate
Printed on recycled paper Design by anonymous
This brochure is also available in large print and at www.pilot-theatre.com. Please call 01904 635755 or email info@pilot-theatre.com if you require another format.