Digital world: Urban Scrawl and beyond
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010Throughout history, new technologies have seemed to threaten theatre — until we got over it, and embraced them. So while at first the digital world — from mobile phones to Twitter — was an irritant to many theatre-makers, new technology is now being increasingly used to record performances, and to make them available to a wider public.
A good example is Urban Scrawl. This is an online audio drama project which has webcast one short play of about 10 minutes every week since January, each inspired by, and named after, the 53 stations on the Piccadilly Line. The brainchild of Dominic Cavendish, Daily Telegraph deputy critic and founding editor of theatreVOICE website, the project was jointly created by Theatre 503 and Rose Bruford College in Sidcup.
Webcast from the theatreVOICE website, Urban Scrawl is run by Gene David Kirk, now artistic director of Jermyn Street Theatre, and draws on the talents of established playwrights such as Mark Ravenhill, Simon Stephens and Laura Wade, as well as relative newcomers such as Bola Agbaje, Ali Taylor and Sarah Beck. All the playlets were recorded, using a wide mix of actors, at Rose Bruford College.
This project would simply not have been possible without digital recording and the internet. So theatre-people shouldn’t worry about the new technologies, says award-winning playwright Mark Ravenhill, Urban Scrawl’s patron and author of the Manor House episode, which starred Harriet Walter. “The potential of online drama, audio and visual, is massive — and we’re still at the very early stages of development.”
Ravenhill continues with a provocative vision of the future: “People are now just posting little clips and parodies on YouTube, but more and more will soon be using the internet to create and show their work. Just as fringe theatre in the 1970s created a whole new theatre culture, so the digital world offers the potential of a whole new theatre, radio and television culture. At the moment, we’re just making toddler steps, but the potential of creating an alternative or counter-culture is huge.”
He’s listened to the Urban Scrawl plays “because people have posted them on their Facebook pages, and given a link. And you think: ‘Oh, that’s quite handy.’” One click and the drama begins. A youth culture, he argues, which relies on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter “to communicate is able to connect and share ideas in new ways. The internet makes a positive contribution to bringing people together— and it’s a genuinely democratic form.”
Playwright Simon Stephens, who wrote Heathrow Terminal Five for Urban Scrawl, agrees with that, and points out that the Facebook and Twitter affect the audiences and the marketing of plays. “Digital technologies have reinvigorated the marketing of shows,” he says, “and reached new audiences. Budgets have become less important than using your imagination.”
“What Urban Scrawl gave me was the opportunity to explore characters I wanted to write about in another, longer play. It gave me a good focus for that. Like an artist’s sketchbook — the rigour of a public forum plus the freedom to do whatever you want.”
Laura Wade, who wrote the Hounslow East episode, has also written the 2007 Radio 4 play, Otherkin, which had scenes set in the digital world of Second Life. She likes the short-play format, saying that “it was my first monologue, and monologues get a bit tiresome if they’re too long”. She notes that short dramas usually need “a funny twist” in the plotting, while longer audio work — such as dramas for Radio 4 or Radio 3 — can have more depth of character and subject matter.
For Urban Scrawl, she did research by going to the station. “I’m really glad I did,” she laughs, “otherwise I would have written it as a covered station when in fact it’s an open-air one.” Writing for radio is much more like writing for film in that “that the story can be told through rapid juxtapositions of scenes, cutting in and out of a scene. That rhythm is much more like a film.”
Although I’m joint editor of theatreVOICE website, I wasn’t directly involved in Urban Scrawl, but I’ve enjoyed listening to podcasts of the plays. It might be the first project of its kind, but it certainly isn’t the last. As Urban Scrawl’s artistic director Gene David Kirk says, “This is a uniquely innovative project, and a great starting point for future work which will also creatively exploit the digital technologies.”
In the future we can certainly expect more content to be created online. Already, projects such as Digital Theatre (www.digitaltheatre.com), run by producer Tom Shaw and director Robert Delamere, are using new technologies to record and make plays available on a wide scale, all downloadable to your computer. And Urban Scrawl itself is a good example of creating new content independently of the mainstream through a joint venue that includes the educational sector as well as fringe theatre.
The future of drama, whether it is posted on YouTube, explored on Second Life, available as a podcast, advertised on Facebook and Twitter, or repeated on i-player, seems to be in safe hands, with fingers ready to pump the keyboard. Now, let the fun begin.
This article by Aleks Sierz originally appeared as ‘Lines of Inspiration’ in The Stage, 10 December 2009.
February 9th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Dear Alex,
Very interesting article.
I am 49 and was inspired to want to become a writer by the writing culture eg; the Play for Today culture back in the 1970’s and because I saw ‘If….’ and then corresponded with the director Lindsay Anderson who believed that the purpose of art/fil/theatre was ‘to change society’. That generation were certainly patrician but they were also encouraging - even -usually- in the BBC and they encouraged new writing in the BBC.
I do not live in London, I live in Berkshire and its difficult to access new writing/theatre. You are fortunate if you can get involved in theatre, its often an exclusive closed shop.
Screenwriters/writers of plays here are establishing our own group to meet up and discuss our work. I think that you are correct that the internet has opportunities but it does also reflect inevitably prevailing orthodoxies and conformity and I feel perhaps as Lindsay Anderson expressed it towards the end of his life that ‘the English will not change’ is correct though one hopes it might not be so. Look at this thread for instance;
http://board.sitcom.co.uk/thread/16618
Nevertheless your article is correct and informative and helpful. I want to connect with other people who at least share a similar perspective because I want to find and creatively collaborate with others of a like mind.