For the last year Mr Different has been waiting to draw down the Arts Council Funding, with little contact with the original Director. In March 2020, we made the decision to seek a new Director and are pleased to announce that we are working with Richard Ross who is keen to become involved and realise this project. Within weeks of agreeing to proceed Covid 19 was on us and the UK like most countries went into lock down. The situation with live theatre is precarious and so we have decided to reposition the R&D of Mr Different towards an online performance. We have submitted our revised budget to the Arts Council.
Our intention is to develop the project through a series of workshops in September in a theatre and work towards filming the performances and inviting theatres, media, critics and interested potential audiences to a live performance as well as legacy online performances thereafter. If theatres do reopen to the public we intend to seek a theatre in Manchester that will host a live performance as well and offer the work in the future to other theatres.
In terms of the development, Richard Ross and I have been collaborating during lock down. Specifically it is our intention that the set design will utilise light form projection to create unusual designs for different stages of the show.
We have always wanted there to be be a degree of audience participation in direction of the show's outcome at each performance and the use of a filmed show, affords us the possibility to offer alternative endings dependent on audience choices.
As part of the workshop to get to a finished performance we have made contact with several groups of people who will comment on their reaction to the show. Although we intended that these groups would attend in person, of course we are now in a position where the workshop may be available online at given times and feedback requested and developed.
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