A fast train down from Manchester on Friday and a move from the FutureEverything conference at the Contact Theatre to outside the Hampstead Theatre where Matt Shaw and Bob Sheil of the Barlett and Jessica Bowles of the Central School of Speech and Drama were working with other colleagues producing a 1 to 1 scale representation of the potential space offered by this collaborative theatre design.  You can read about the review meeting we held at the Centre a while back in the post below this one.  

Thias Martin and I were invited to go along.  Jessica described us as a kind of 'prodding conscience - getting us to make progress'.  Thias in particular has been thinking about potential commercialisation routes.  For our part, based on feedback from the team, we feel we are able to add value, both to the development of the work and also to looking hard at the commercial and business potential of the collaboration.

It was exciting to watch the various groups of staff, students and others working with a contained and concentrated energy; trying to imagine what the space might be like, building a shared picture in their minds as they discussed angles, approaches and argued about technical points.  The space was laid out in 2D on a large granite plaza, criss-crossed with chalk lines, tape and rope.

I made an audio piece using Audioboo:

And using Reeldirector a short video which I hope gives you some impressions of how the work went.

This collaboration is at an exciting point and to us at the Centre we feel it's accelerating; generating new thinking and experiences for those involved.  There is increasing enmeshing of the creative, technical and commercial aspects and it's great fun to be involved.