The Oily team
"You can’t audition performers in the usual way for our work. We’d never do a show, like the one today, without one or two in the cast with experience with us. Newcomers already with experience with live audiences will learn from most from watching what happens in a situation.
"In a way the audition goes on over several shows. If they survive several shows they are likely to stay with the company. They learn from established members of Oily Cart through the preparatory work in developing every show and training becomes part of rehearsal.
"Developing a show often involves working with schools where we may try out particular elements—Greenmead Primary School in Wandsworth in the case of Tube. And it is not just our performers who make the show. As well as our resident designer Claire de Loon and our musical director Max Reinhardt, there are the makers of the props and instruments we use.
"Sculptor Nik Ramage, artist Holly Murray and Nick Weldin for IT and video input have become a regular part of the creative team. Highly-skilled instrument maker James Linwood has made a major contribution. Max first recruited James to make floating chiming instruments for a show build around bubbles. He makes beautiful percussion instruments and for Drum, which when we wanted a drum of greater diameter than the skins found here, he had a skin specially prepared in Thailand. His contacts there said it was simply a matter of finding a big enough buffalo.
"He made the big green pipe organ whose sound you enjoyed so much in Tube. The resonating tubes for this show produce strong vibrations which can be felt through the body. That fits our need to reach every member of our audience, including those without sight or hearing."
Tube plays at the Unicorn Theatre until 22 June in two versions for audiences with profound and multiple learning disabilities and for those on the autism spectrum. A version for babies and toddlers will play at Tara Arts Theatre 3-6 July 2013.
For more information, see www.oilycart.org.uk.