Sound Stage
Kristy Stott, Theatre Editor
We’re all missing theatre – the live performance, the pre-show excitement, post-show Q&As and interval drinks with friends. Sound Stage is an innovative new initiative that goes someway to recreate a digital theatrical experience for audiences.
Sound Stage is a new project from Pitlochry Festival Theatre and the Royal Lyceum in collaboration with the consistently brilliant and award-winning Manchester-based audio production company, Naked Productions. An exciting, new audio-digital venture, Sound Stage has been designed by theatre-makers and leading technologists, to give audiences a unique online theatre experience.
Designed by theatre-makers and leading technologists, to give audiences a unique online theatre experience.
A series of audio plays, Sound Stage will bring eight acclaimed writers: Mark Ravenhill, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Roy Williams, John Byrne, Jaimini Jethwa, Lynda Radley, Gary McNair and Frances Poet. With one new play released every month through until October 2021, the series starts on 26 March with Ravenhill’s autobiographical, Angela. Ravenhill’s play explores the way in which culture, high and low, had an effect on both his mother’s and his family’s lives.
Each play will not just be presented as an audio recording for audiences to listen to online though; each performance will have a ticketed online première and audiences will be invited to turn up at showtime to find their virtual seats. Audiences will also be able to interact with other theatregoers during the interval and join a post-show Q&A with the creative team. The project aims to recreate the social experience of a trip to the theatre – there’s even a virtual bar where theatre-lovers can mingle.
The project aims to recreate the social experience of a trip to the theatre.
There’s always been a strong connection between audio drama and stage performance – both are shaped by text and storytelling, and both rely on the imagination of the audience to help create a world. Offering the experience of listening to exceptional new audio plays alongside the experience of attending a ‘virtual theatre’, we think that Sound Stage brings an exciting and intriguing new theatrical experience.
