Director and founder of The So & So Arts Club Sarah Berger, has partnered with LIVR, the world’s first virtual reality content platform dedicated to theatre, to create a new writing festival.
The team are now inviting submissions of short plays that lend themselves to being rehearsed and performed adhering to social distancing in a black box theatre where they will be filmed by LIVR.
They should be a maximum length of 60 minutes with a cast of four or fewer. The deadline for submissions 2 September.
Sarah Berger said, “we are not looking for pieces about COVID-19 but writing that uses the new restrictions in an inventive way and uses the added bonus of being filmed in 3D inventively. For example, you might make the camera one of the characters. You are free to adapt a play you have already written using the new mixed medium of theatre and 3D film. We look forward very much to seeing how we can develop a new hybrid performance which is tailor made for our current situation but keeps the idea of interactive theatre alive.”
Known as The Capsule Theatre Festival, the work will be selected by a panel of judges including actors Kevin McNally and Phyllis Logan, playwright Rex Obano, writer Ming Ho, director Simon Naylor, Hackney Empire's artistic director Yamin Choudury, producer and artistic director of the Boulevard Theatre Rachel Edwards and agent Lucy Fawcett.
The panel will select ten plays in total, the top four being filmed at So & So Arts Club’s West London theatre space and offered for viewing online with ticket monies going to the creatives.
The writers of the remaining six plays will receive feedback and their work will be offered for sale to prospective companies.
Running with the theatre festival, there is to be a short film festival produced in collaboration with actor and writer Callum McGowan. Film submissions may be of any genre filmed in lockdown. the shortlisted pieces will be available to view free online with a public screening envisaged later this year.
The film judging panel includes David Wilkinson (Guerilla Films), Denise Parkinson (TI / Future Media), Dom McKvey (DOP), Gary Phillips (Moviehouse Entertainment), Christopher Barnett (composer), Michael Ryan (GFM Films), Natalie Brenner (Metro International Entertainment), Faisal A Qureshi (freelance producer, editor and screenwriter), Helena Mackenzie (Film London) and Tom Abell (Peccadillo Pictures).