RESOURCE PACK 2016–2017
CHAPTER 1
CONTENTS
RESOURCE PACK SUPPORTING INFORMATION
3
ABOUT THE COMPANY
About Mark Murphy
About the creative team
About the performers
4
5
5
OUT OF THIS WORLD – THE STORY SO FAR
Philosophy and ideas behind the show
6
6
MARK MURPHY – IN CONVERSATION
7
GLOSSARY8
OUT OF THIS WORLD SUPPORTING INFORMATION
UK Tour 2017
Company Led Workshops
Credits
RESOURCE PACK SUPPORTING INFORMATION
How to get the most out of your interactive Out Of This World
resource pack:
To get the most out of this opportunity we recommend the
following:
Be your own Director. Make your own decisions.
Go behind the scenes in real-time. . .
•If you haven’t already done so, make sure you sign-up to register for a reminder so you don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity by visiting www.outofthisworldtour.co.uk
This resource pack provides users with a unique opportunity to
follow Mark Murphy and his creative collaborators as they begin
the active production stage of a brand new touring show, Out Of
This World. Specially devised tasks will invite participants to step
into Mark’s shoes…
•Tutors should make a note of the following release dates for the five chapters of the resource pack: 01.11.16, 01.12.16, 23.01.17, 20.02.17, 20.03.17, plus, there will be a very special bonus chapter available in April 2017 – more details to follow nearer the time
. . . What might you do differently if you were directing
and producing this show?
•Each chapter will be downloadable from the following link www.outofthisworldtour.co.uk/resources
Over the coming months resource users will ‘meet’ the creative
team behind Out Of This World, who will share their knowledge
and expertise, as the production develops. Through video diaries,
interviews and written text, users will follow the highs and lows,
opportunities and challenges faced by Mark and his team, from
initial idea to fully finished touring production.
•The resource pack has been designed as a ‘Director’s Notebook’, and to get the best experience we recommend tutors provide each student with a printed hard copy, that they use as their own journal for recording ideas and inspirations, and responding to the creative tasks (in chapters 2–5)
Users will be given ‘live’ updates as Mark and his team take on
any challenges around bringing the show into being. Plus, there
will also be the opportunity to learn about Mark himself, through
frank and in-depth interviews, that will unveil the creative force
behind Out Of This World.
•A variety of video links will be included in the chapters, including regular video updates from Mark Murphy detailing the experiences of him and his team, during the creative process. All users will therefore require the ability to view these films to ensure they get the fullest experience
This is the first of five monthly instalments (‘chapters’), which
are being released between now and March 2017, providing an
invaluable learning opportunity for anyone with a passion for
performance and creativity.
•This resource could be used as part of group study or by an individual
•Users will be kept up to date with details about the tour throughout.
Aimed at GCSE, A Level, BTEC, National Certificate & Higher
students studying for qualifications such as Dance, Drama
& Theatre, Performing Arts, Theatre Technology & Stage
Management and Acting & Theatre Performance, resource pack
users will be set creative, research & discussion tasks to support
learning for all students with an interest in physical theatre,
performance, directing, designing and producing.
3
ABOUT THE COMPANY
About Mark Murphy
Mark Murphy is an outstanding artist with an impeccable track record built upon a
body of work spanning 25 years across theatre, outdoor spectacle and international
ceremonies. He began his career as founder and director of V-TOL Dance Company
(1991–2001). More recently his leadership and vision have created some of the
most striking theatre and large-scale events of the last two decades: The Glasgow
Commonwealth Games Closing Ceremony, the Presidential Flame Capture Ceremony for
the Baku 1st European Games, the London 2012 Festival commissioned Land of Giants,
and the Liverpool 2008 and Turku 2011 European Capital of Culture Opening Shows.
By revealing intimacy in the epic, uncovering depth in the spectacular and by celebrating
the extraordinary in the every-day, Mark makes work that is simultaneously challenging,
accessible and entertaining. He especially enjoys producing work on a huge scale with
community-participants and citizen performers, creating unforgettable experiences for
them and the viewer alike.
This is Mark’s show reel: https://vimeo.com/120171036
And this is a short film about how Mark works: https://vimeo.com/139785143
Mark takes a broad view and a fully active role in all aspects of his creations. He
views himself as an artist, and therefore has an interest in every element within his
production. He is the writer, director and creative lead and brings three decades of
experience to this show. Mark also creates the projected film and animation content,
and is involved in both the design and sound, as well. Mark takes a synergetic approach
to his work and has a trusted team of collaborators that will join forces with him on this
production, some of whom he has worked with for many years, and a number of whom
we will learn about in more detail, in later chapters.
Mark’s voracious appetite for making things and being curious in his work, has since led
him to work with a vast array of creators, devisors, performers, makers and producers,
enabling him to generate a unique kind of theatrical experience for his audience.
Mark is grateful to the role that participation in the arts has played in his own life, and
to the individuals that inspired him at an early age. Mark feels a strong obligation to
continue this process and to inspire others, and highly values the opportunities he has to
deliver workshops, master classes, talks and lectures, especially for young people.
Mark says of his creations: “I have a subtitle for my work – Made for Audiences –
and I take that very seriously. I feel it is beholden on the creators of theatre to place
the audience at the centre of their work. This may seem an obvious thing to say but
I want to create an unforgettable experience that resonates on a visual, emotional
and intellectual level. I also want a visit to the theatre to be a thrilling prospect full of
pre-show anticipation and post show emotional exhaustion. This is in no way the same
as giving an audience what you think they want but more the case that I want to leave
no stone unturned when it comes to innovation, leave no technique unexplored in the
pursuit of kinetic thrills and do everything I can to tell a thrilling story that has a lasting
and meaningful effect on the audience – especially those either new to the theatre or
those who have given up on the prospect of a damned good night out.”
4
For further information about
Out Of This World see:
http://www.outofthisworldtour.co.uk/
About the creative team
About the performers
Over the coming months resource pack users will get to meet
some of the key collaborators working with Mark, who are
responsible for both the on-stage action, and the behind-thescenes production. Mark’s trusted team of performers, designers,
producers, and technical experts all work closely together to
make a show like this possible. As we will learn in the following
chapters, what goes on off-stage is equally as important to what
goes on in view of the audience. We will get to know some of the
key contributors working on this production and learn about their
roles and responsibilities, and what has brought them to this
point in their career.
We will also learn about the cast members of Out Of This World,
what role they play and what the experience of working on a
show like this means to them.
Through insightful interviews with Mark, we will uncover the
inspirations and influences behind his productions, and the
characters he creates for them. We will learn about which ideas
have been a catalyst for this particular show, and how he and his
performers will go about bringing these themes to the stage.
We will unpick the process that Mark and his team will
experience together, as they make their way from the first day of
rehearsal to the opening night.
Before Mark and his team come together for rehearsals in the
spring, they still have a long road to travel, and many aspects
of the production to explore. The next few months will see all
members of the team in an intense period of planning, safety
assessments, production meetings, and further research and
development.
5
OUT OF THIS WORLD – THE STORY SO FAR
Claire Soper, Producer for Out Of This World and Dance Touring
Partnership, describes the process of getting a show like this to
the point of being in-production:
Going forward, I will work most closely with Mark, Chris Hay
(Production Manager), Tiffany Evans (Marketing), Nancy Poole
(PR), Hans and Sarah (eMarketing), Steph Webb (Travel
Agent) in order to bring together all the elements and support
structures for the project, as well as leading on all contractual
conversations with each theatre, managing the budget and
producing reports and evaluation in line with our funding
agreements.”
“A production and tour of this scale takes a lot of collaboration,
partnerships and forward planning. As Mark will explain in
later chapters, this show has been 5 years in the making.
During this period, alongside developing the show, he has been
building relationships in order to bring together a group of
co-commissioners, funders and venues to realise each stage
of the development and tour. I’d say that from the first point at
which Mark approached Dance Touring Partnership (DTP) about
working together to tour the show (this is after he had already
done the Research and Development at Warwick Arts Centre
and in Buenos Aires) to the point where the project got funding is
approximately three years.
Philosophy and ideas behind the show
Out Of This World explores themes such as neurological injury,
advanced trauma medicine, grief and explores the extraordinary
capacity of the comatose mind to equip the heart with all
it needs to survive. It makes use of a number of theatrical
techniques including ground-breaking aerial choreography, largescale projection, original text and explosive special effects. This
visceral piece of theatre, both intense psychological thriller and
heart-rending medical drama, is the result of years of dedicated
research and development.
A number of people have been involved in working with Mark
in order to make a series of funding applications to support the
creation and tour for Out Of This World. From my point of view,
the process started with me getting commitment from venues
in order to provide a provisional tour schedule to include in the
applications. With 15 venues and 7.5 weeks of touring – this has
involved a lot of draft scheduling, rescheduling and negotiations.
Featuring a holy trinity of characters: a woman, her husband and
a neurosurgeon, where absolutely everything; the stage, the
theatre, and even the audience are all in her mind. This is the
story of a woman’s woozy descent into the depths of a medically
induced coma. Once safely cocooned, her crashed imagination
takes over the show – creating a vivid inward cinema in which
she reviews her life. But after discovering a shocking truth and
with the medical team moving in for the kill, she must escape her
subterranean safe house in a very real fight for life.
On average, the decision making process on each application
has taken approximately 12 weeks. This has made for some
nail-biting moments, especially when a piece of funding / support
hasn’t come through. However, this is where Mark’s experience,
his solid team of collaborators and partnership working comes
into play. Collaboratively, we have found other funding and ways
to support the needs of the show. You will see in the list of
credits in the final section of this resource, just how many people
and organisations have played a crucial part in contributing to
getting the ‘show on the road’ either through cash or ’support
in-kind’ by giving their services / equipment at a reduced rate or
free of charge.
This early film explores the key themes of the show:
https://vimeo.com/76503678
The following film is a brief taster of what is envisaged for the
final production. This film was created after an initial period of
research and development, and is used to promote the tour to
venues and funders: https://vimeo.com/114483347
Over the last six months, I’ve been making more funding
applications, confirming the tour schedule and negotiating fees
in order to produce contracts for every element of the project.
6
MARK MURPHY – IN CONVERSATION
Can you tell us about some of the ideas and influences
behind Out Of This World?
“I did a show in Australia in 2006 for the Melbourne
Commonwealth Games with a company called ‘Legs on The
Wall’, and I particularly connected with one of their performers
– Alexandra Harrison. She’s a stunning performer and artist so
naturally I started to think about how we could work together
on something else. It’s all a while ago so forgive my memory
and we’ll come to this a bit later in more detail but in that way
that nothing is ever wasted, a film I saw years ago – ‘The Big
Blue’ – which around the same time bubbled up back into my
mind for some reason. And so I guess the combination of a much
loved film and a newly discovered collaborator joined forces to
open a door to make a thing about free-diving. I felt a gift had
been dropped in my lap. A really gorgeous idea – take one breath
and then see how deep you can go beneath the ocean – talk
about a wellspring of metaphors! It’s heaven-sent. Free-diving
had physiological science behind it, but it also had this trapdoor
through into another world. Just perfect. So I proposed an idea
about this to Warwick Arts Centre, and we started working on a
small-scale pilot project.”
I have kind of suspected all along that every show I make is
about a fantasy world where you can rehearse what your life
could become. Every single show I have ever made has been
about that. They are also about taking something that has been
broken into lots of pieces, reconstructing it, and putting those
pieces back together to find out why it broke in the first place. It’s
about traumatic incidents, replaying them, to find out what could
be a better outcome…what could heal the person…what could
stop that happening in the future.
I think it was Brian Eno who said how arts and culture offers ‘a
safe place for you to have quite extreme and rather dangerous
feelings.’. I would say this is always the role of drama.”
What do you think will be the biggest challenge in creating
this new production?
“That it uses words. I think the biggest reason for me moving
away from dance and into theatre, many years ago, was that
I knew I had reached a point where I could quite easily create
movement that the audience would say was amazing, and this
had become too comfortable for me. I realised I wanted to
challenge myself with words. As soon as you start using words
you quickly realise your limitations, very quickly! If you want
to do the one thing that immediately feeds back to you how
incredibly inept you are, then try writing a show where people
speak. Finding ways for people to say things to an audience,
and that actually works is a really scary and really difficult thing
to do well. The interaction between live action and projection
is something I know I have a feel for. That’s a sweet-spot for
me. But also having people sing and talk to each other within
that environment, and still trying to control it all, is a massive
challenge. We could easily have 6 months of rehearsal for this,
but we will only have 6 weeks.”
This is a link to the live experiment we made…
https://vimeo.com/27492403
“I began to realise this was a story about someone journeying
inside themselves. This is about someone putting themselves in
the most extreme position in order to discover some real truths
about who they really are. Essentially, a person intentionally
places themselves at the very edge of death in order to see what
it is to be fully alive. And those elements of tension, and of risk,
really appealed to me as a dramatist.
Another element, the fact that if my life had been different
around the ages of 13 or 14 I might have gone into medicine.
I’ve always had a healthy fascination in all things medical,
and particularly in trauma medicine – which again is the really
dramatic department. So, the twin interests of the world of
trauma medicine and anaesthetics, and the story of this woman
who dives down into herself, started to slowly form into a show.
I was also intrigued by a show where there wasn’t just a main
character, but the main character was also the location. In this
instance, the location is her mind.
Further research:
•‘The Big Blue’ (Directed by Luc Bisson, 1988):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095250/
7
GLOSSARY
eMarketing: Internet marketing, or online marketing, refers to advertising and marketing efforts that use the Web and email to drive
direct sales via electronic commerce, in addition to sales leads from Web sites or emails.
Support in-kind: Gifts in kind, also referred to as in-kind donations, or support in-kind, is a type of charitable giving in which, instead
of giving money to buy needed goods and services, the goods and services themselves are given. Gifts in kind are distinguished from
gifts of cash or stock.
PR: Stands for Public Relations - a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between
organisations and their publics.
SOURCES
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom
8
OUT OF THIS WORLD SUPPORTING INFORMATION
UK Tour 2017
Fri 21 & Sat 22 April, 7.30pm Tue 25 & Wed 26 April, 7.30pm Fri 28 April, 7.30pm Mon 1–Wed 3 May, 7.30pm Fri 5 May, 7.30pm Tue 9 May, 7.30pm Fri 12 & Sat 13 May, 8pm Tue 16 & Wed 17 May, 8pm Fri 19 & Sat 20 May, 7.30pm Tue 23 & Wed 24 May, 7.30pm Fri 26 & Sat 27 May, 7.30pm Tue 30 & Wed 31 May, 8pm Fri 2 June, 8pm Tue 6 & Wed 7 June, 7.30pm Fri 9 & Sat 10 June, 7.30pm Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry Cast, Doncaster Peacock Theatre, London Gulbenkian, Canterbury Grand Theatre, Blackpool Nottingham Playhouse Eden Court, Inverness Tramway, Glasgow Edinburgh Festival Theatre Northern Stage, Newcastle The Lowry, Salford Quays G Live, Guildford Oxford Playhouse Hall for Cornwall, Truro 01786 466666 024 7652 4524 01302 303959 020 7863 8222 01227 769075 01253 290190 0115 941 9419 01463 234234 0845 330 3501 0131 529 6000 0191 230 5151 0843 208 6000 01483 369350 01865 305305 01872 262466 www.macrobertartscentre.org
www.warwickartscentre.co.uk
www.castindoncaster.com
www.sadlerswells.com
www.thegulbenkian.co.uk
www.blackpoolgrand.co.uk
www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk
www.eden-court.co.uk
www.tramway.org
www.edtheatres.com/festival
www.northernstage.co.uk
www.thelowry.com
www.glive.co.uk
www.oxfordplayhouse.com
www.hallforcornwall.co.uk
Running time 80 minutes with no interval
Suitable ages 14+
Company Led Workshops
For dance, theatre and performing arts students, suitable for all
abilities and ages 14+.
Up to 2-hours: £250 + VAT
Workshops will create a highly stimulating, provocative
and mischievous environment and act as a catalyst for the
participants’ own artistic expression.
Based on the often-asked question, “Where do you get your
ideas from?”, Stage 1 of the workshop will include a physical
warm-up and creative tasks aimed at supporting ideas
generation. Drawing upon examples and case studies from Mark
Murphy’s work, and other devisers and producers in theatre, film
and literature, this section also touches on elements of structure
and story design.
Stage 2 of the workshop involves putting theory into practice,
understanding the value of constructive appraisal within a
creative process. Group work and sharing of ‘work in progress’
alongside guided group critique will enable participants to view
one another’s contributions through a more liberating lens,
enabling positive revision and development of their work. Time
permitting the workshop will end with a Q&A session.
Limited availability. For more information, or to book a workshop
please contact [email protected]
CREDITS
Funded by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and Creative Scotland, The Foyle Foundation, Jerwood Charitable
Foundation and Garfield WestonFoundation. Commissioned by Macrobert Arts Centre, Sadler’s Wells London, Dance Touring
Partnership, ART31 KENT, Warwick Arts Centre and Triggered at Warwick. Supported by Cold Mountain Kit, Bluman Associates, tube,
Cuerda Producciones, All or Nothing and Beaconhurst School.
Resource pack written by Hannah Osmond www.hannahosmond.co.uk, in collaboration with Out Of This World creator Mark Murphy
Design by Andrew Lang www.anglepd.co.uk
Photography by Chris Nash and Mark Murphy
WWW.OUTOFTHISWORLDTOUR.CO.UK