Hannah Norris

Our intimate, intense, independent Australian theatre work, CUT, has been programmed at London's incredbile multi-disciplinary arts space, The Vaults, for a 4 week season in July.

My name is Hannah Norris, I'm an actor from Melbourne. At the start of last year, I (actor/and in this case, producer), Duncan Graham (writer/director), Sam Hopkins (lighting designer/technical director), Russell Goldsmith (sound designer) and Elizabeth Gadsby* (designer) came together to create our production of CUT for the Adelaide Fringe in a tiny white room with a nightly audience of 18 people. As it was on a small scale, I funded it independently with the amazing team donating precious time and skills on a very small budget.

Our belief in the piece and hard work paid off and we were presented with the Underbelly Adelaide Award to take the show to last year's Edinburgh Fringe. With the award from Underbelly**, and again some self-funding, we managed to transfer the show and played to a slightly larger audience there. Following another successful run in Edinburgh (critically, and going against the norm, miraculously not leaving the Fringe thousands of dollars in debt), Underbelly have now given us the chance to do a month-long run of CUT this July in London at The Vaults.***

This is where you come in.

Underbelly are making this London season possible by massively supporting us with venue hire, administration, marketing budget and contributing towards the production costs. However it doesn't cover everything. And at The Vaults, we are presented with an empty space and an audience five times larger than Adelaide that we need to adapt and build the show to work for.

We're calling for help from friends, arts lovers and Pozible supporters to take this "claustrophobic", "horrifically powerful" innovative Australian piece of independent theatre and present it on a bigger scale on the London stage.

Even with Underbelly on board, we, the creative team, will still be investing our money and time to make this happen. And with your support, we believe we will actually be able to achieve the vision we have for this show.

We feel truly lucky and all realise that this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity that we want to make the absolute best of. Thank you in advance for your support in helping us do this.

Hannah x

cuttheplay.com

*Elizabeth Gadsby is now Resident Designer at Sydney Theatre Company so the fabulous Becky-Dee Trevenen is coming on board as designer for this new incarnation.

**Underbelly Productions

These guys put on huge scale events in Edinburgh, on London's Southbank and branching out worldwide. They are awesome supporters and promoters of Australian artists - past shows include the legendary Briefs, the magical puppetry of Tim Watts (Alvin Sputnik, Bruce), comedians Sam Simmons, Rhys Nicholson & Steen Raskopoulos, and stunning circus and cabaret like A Simple Space. And us!

***The Vaults

This series of abandoned tunnels beneath Waterloo Station was brought to life as a performance space by Kevin Spacey's Old Vic Theatre and has housed productions and events by the likes of Punch Drunk and Banksy. And more recently, amazing immersive experiences like Alice's Adventures Underground and Goosebumps LIVE, as well as the daring, bold and wild Vaults Festival.

This new venue is so different and so much larger than CUT was created for that it is vital we are able to attend to the following elements -  

Design

Into an empty vault beneath Waterloo Station, we need to design and build a contained white space to fit the audience of 90 and performance area. Outside of this, we also need to achieve a full blackout with drapes and other materials to close off every light source that may be spilling into the space. Attention to detail is paramount.

Lighting

Sam Hopkins has designed a bespoke lighting system made up of tiny LED light sources. The equipment we currently have will not cover the larger space so we need to get more cabling and control equipment, as well as some extra lights and hire fees.

Sound

Again, with the increase in size, we need to increase our sound design. We have managed with a couple of small computer speakers in Adelaide and Edinburgh, but we need to create a surround sound design to impact the bigger audeince. This means we need to hire more, and better speakers and 2 small microphones. We also need to get our sound designer, Russell Goldsmith to London to work on this new creation and install it into the space. Russell is father to a small child so we need to raise this money to get him there.

Rehearsal Space

We will do 2 weeks of rehearsal in London prior to opening. The first week, Duncan and I will work alone, and Sam, Becky-Dee and Russell will join us for the second week to bring all the technical elements in. We need a room with similar dimensions to our performance space to work in, where we can make noise and get creative (not like the London lounge rooms, coffee shops and foyers we tried to work in before Edinburgh last year)

As we have already done CUT twice on a smaller scale, we have been learning what works with the show and are aware of the challenges we will likely need to overcome -

Total blackout

CUT plunges the audience in and out of complete blackout. Our number one requirement for this show is this blackout. It requires intense attention to detail as audiences search for any light source in the darkness, and there must be none. The result is a unique, sometimes terrifying sensory experience.

The technology

For CUT, Sam Hopkins has designed a bespoke lighting rig and invented a remote control "OSC-R" that I operate the complex lighting and sound with in performance. There is no technician on set. 

We need to make this innvoative design bulletproof. This means we need as much practice with it as possible prior to performance so we can discover easy fixes to minor issues and put in fail safes. And to get me as familiar with the technology as possible in case I need to deal with any emergencies mid-show.

Audience size

This is our biggest creative challenge. How to ensure the same kind of impact, sensory experience, intensity and claustrophobia for an audience of 90 people, spanning across 6 rows - as we had on 18 and then 33 people in Adelaide and Edinburgh respectively. Being up close to the performer certainly creates a sense of danger, and the small rooms we have previously worked in has given the feeling of being sealed in - like on an aeroplane once you take off.

We need to adapt big chunks of the show, and find alternative ways to effect the audience while not making it too different.

We know that we can achieve these results and overcome these challenges with your support.

Again, thank you thank you thank you thank you in advance.

Check out the rewards. Hopefully there's something you'd enjoy.

x

Photography credits: Gary Cockburn & Fraser Cameron