Projects

THIRD PERSON: Bonnie & Clyde Redux

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:40:25 +0000

Written and Directed by Peter S Petralia
Performed by Gillian Lees and Andrew Westerside
Lighting design by David McBride
Music by Duncan Speakman Violin by Richard Sandford

In 2004, Proto-type Theater made a piece called Third Person about the dissolution of the love affair between two jaded New Yorkers. In attempting to remake the show as a love story in the context of the company's relocation to England an altogether different (and somehow familiar) story emerged... Moving, unsettling and bitter-sweetly funny, Proto-type Theater's Third Person: Bonnie & Clyde Redux investigates the events that unfolded out of the electric meeting of two of history's most infamous lovers, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.

As they illustrate, control and sometimes miscommunicate the story, the performers veer between the emotional, the factual and the fantastical as they pick-apart the particulars of this strange love affair. Delivered in the third person through a variety of lo-fi media including video, drawings and overhead projection, Third Person: Bonnie & Clyde Redux creates a fragmented tale of evidence, rumours and the surprising connections between love, life, death and donuts.

“Proto-type Theater's Third Person: Bonnie & Clyde Redux is a charming, lyrical attempt to redeem two of history's most notorious murderers. "Look how fervently they loved one another" the show urges, delivering 60 minutes of Romeo And Juliet with guns and a mounting body count. Gillian Lees and Andrew Westerside pick over the twisted romance in the third person, slipping seamlessly in and out of character as they draw together fragments of their doomed romance. Murder victims, failed heists and near captures are illustrated captivatingly through a variety of lo-fi media. The action is well paced and punctuated with clever expectant pauses that draw the audience further and further into the enchanted space between fact and romantic conjecture.” - Kultureflash

“It's exciting and visually stimulating, with the attention to detail I have come to expect from Proto-type, and yet is a departure from their more grand work. You really get to know both the performers on stage and the real people that they almost embody.” - Audience Member

“A captivating piece of presentational theatre. Wes and Gillian create an environment which evokes a feeling of sitting with an old acquaintance and being told a series of uncanny yet fascinating turn of events.” - Audience Member

Third Person: Bonnie & Clyde Redux was developed at Battersea Arts Centre (London) and the Storey Creative Industries Centre Lancaster. Supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Third Person: Bonnie & Clyde Redux premiered at Nuffield Theatre Lancaster on 16 February 2010. The Running time is 60 minutes with no interval.

Through the wall

Thu, 1 Oct 2009 14:50:01 +0100

Through the Wall was a six channel video installation commissioned by Chester Performs for their annual Up The Wall festival of art.

Sited on the Roman Walls within the Roman Gardens, Through the Wall was inspired by the surface of the Chester walls and by the (metaphorical) potential of re-orienting the flow of movement through and into the history of the walls themselves. At three sites in the Roman Gardens, double-sided video projections (i.e., projection on both sides of the wall in the same place, at the same time) played on short loops that linked with each other. Viewed from a distance, a viewer would see a set of three wanderers moving from one frame to another stopping to look at the scenery of places that have a real or imagined link to the walls themselves (such as the Great Wall of China, Mount Snowdon and 10 Downing Street).

Accompanying these projections was a series of headphone installations that included musical scores and a recorded voice over of each of the wanders. Sample footage available on YouTube.

I Am So Sorry

Mon, 11 May 2009 22:33:42 +0100

What are you sorry for? The silly thing you said? The mean thing you did?

Apologize to us. Tell us how sorry, how truly, deeply sorry you are. Whatever it is you want to confess, we are hear to listen. Or lie to us. Make up a fictional apology. Apologize for the holocaust or the bombing of Hiroshima. Apologize for George W. Bush. We are listening.

Go to www.proto-type.org/sorry to apologize, or send your apologies via email to us at sorry [at] proto [hyphen] type [dot] org.

The Sunday Lunch Club

Fri, 3 Apr 2009 08:17:25 +0100

The Sunday Lunch Club is a peer networking, work share and meal event that has run six times a year for the past year. Initially started by our Artistic Director as part of a bursary from New Work Network and Nuffield Theatre Lancaster, the Sunday Lunch Club has been run by Proto-type for the past year. The 2009 programme was funded by Nuffield Theatre Lancaster with additional support from LanWest, New Work Network and Arts Council England through the Grants. Events have been hosted throughout the North West with one national event in Yorkshire. Each event is structured around peer sharing of work: two-three artists show an excerpt from a new work that they would like feedback on; we then lead the artists through Critical Response to help them gain a greater understanding of the impact their work has on an audience. After the work share, guests are invited to enjoy a Sunday lunch, which has been catered in for the event.

The guest list is made up of artists, programmers and funders from the region and at any event between fifteen and thirty people attend. We invite special guests who might have a particular interest in the artists who are showing work to try and make practical connections as well. The combination of formal artistic critique and informal networking around a meal has proven to be extremely popular and successful. In the two years of running the program, the guest list has expanded to over one-hundred artists, at least five artists have had bookings as a result of a showing at the lunch club, and two artists have made successful Arts Council England applications after receiving support from the company. Events have been hosted at Axis Arts Centre, Bluecoat Arts Centre, Greenroom, Nuffield Theatre Lancaster, the Rose (Ormskirk), UCLAN, Lanternhouse and Leeds Met Studio Theatre.

This year we also added an informal exchange service in the form of a services trade board, where artists can make offers or requests of services they can offer to support the artistic community in the region (for instance, a free place to stay in Glasgow or help reviewing a budget). The Sunday Lunch Club seeks to build a supportive community of artists in the region that spans social, practical and artistic areas of being an artist.

More information about the project, visit the Sunday Lunch Club page. Queries can be sent to sundaylunchclub [at] proto [hyphen] type [dot] org.

Summer School 2009

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:53:03 +0000

Where do lost things go?Prototype Theater
13 July – 18 July

This summer, for the first time ever, Proto-type Theater is running a six-day summer school at our new home, The Storey, in Lancaster (UK).

The Proto-type Summer School 2009 will offer a chance for adventurous young makers to develop their practice by working with Proto-type. The summer school will be a mixture of workshop/training sessions, new work development and social time, all themed around the question, “Where do lost things go.” Proto-type company members will deliver a series of provocations to the participants around various forms of loss, which will inspire the development of short performance works. Participants will work in groups and individually to develop their short performance pieces and will receive critical feedback and guidance on developing their practice. The weeklong workshop will end with a presentation of work and a closing event.

The Proto-type Summer School is limited to 12 participants and the week is charged at £150. Some bursaries may become available.

Preliminary schedule (subject to change):
13 July
10am arrival coffee/pastries
11am introductory presentations by participants and Proto-type
1pm lunch
2-6pm workshop – first provocation lost in the city
7pm evening event

14 July
10am warm up – workshop
1pm break
2pm critical response method
3-6pm workshop – second provocation lost in space

15 July
10am warm up – individual sessions
1pm break
2-6pm workshop – third provocation lost in time

16 July
10am-1pm warm up – workshop- fourth provocation lost in thought
1pm lunch
2-6pm individual working sessions

17 July
10am-1pm warm up – workshop – fifth provocation nothing else to lose
1pm lunch
2-6pm individual working sessions

18 July
10am coffee/pastries
11am-1pm work in progress showings and feedback session
1pm lunch
2-6pm closing event

Application Procedure / Deadlines

Interested parties should complete the an application form and email it to summerschool [at] proto [hyphen] type [dot] org by noon 8 June 2009. Full details and an application from can be downloaded as a single PDF or as two word documents (application and schedule).

Because spaces are limited, priority will be given to applications submitted before 1 May 2009. All questions should be directed to Proto-type at summerschool [at] proto [hyphen] type [dot] org.