Were joined by Carl Dolamore, Oliver Lansley and Megan Stewart for a dynamic discussion which takes us deep into the creative processes and complex methodologies involved in casting and rehearsing for immersive experiences and the key differences in practice between these and traditional theatre making practices.
Our Guests:
Carl Dolamore is an actor and voice artist, currently studying on the MA Voice Studies course at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. He has worked in live and immersive theatre for about a decade and has recently started teaching and coaching actors as well. Carl has worked on Secret Cinema’s Stranger Things & Rocket Raccoon in Secret Cinema’s Guardians of Galaxy, Manuel Faulty Towers Dining Experience, Maze Master for The Crystal Maze, Money Heist Live Experience Show and Boomtown Fair.
Oliver Lansley is a British, Neuro-divergent writer, director and performer who works across stage and screen. Lansley is Artistic Director of the multi award-winning and pioneering theatre company, Les Enfants Terribles. The company has created many ground-breaking productions, including the Olivier Award nominated Alice’s Adventures Underground – which has enjoyed sell out runs in London and Shanghai; The Game’s Afoot for Madame Tussauds; Inside Pussy Riot, and recently The House with Chicken Legs (based on the best selling book by Sophie Anderson) – which has also just been nominated for an Olivier Award. The Company will be opening their own permanent immersive theatre venue – ‘Labyrinth’ in Waterloo in 2024 with the return of Alice’s Adventures Underground. @olilansley @lesenfantsterr
Megan Stewart is a Scottish Writer, Senior Creative and Director. Her writing specialties are adaptations of existing IP; dialogue writing; character writing; game writing; and blended medium writing for the immersive theatre format. Her directing specialties include close- proximity immersive; personalised storylines within roaming group adventures; and crafting authentic audience experiences. Her performance direction is centred around building the ensemble and discovery through structured improvisation. Megan additionally consults for immersive theatre, advising in script development, actor safety, show flow, audience flow and operations. She is currently the Associate Director at multi-award winning immersive theatre company, Layered Reality in London; and Associate Creative Director & Writer at Sarner. Megan has worked on The War of the Worlds (Layered Reality), The Gunpowder Plot (Layered Reality), Money Heist (Bearded Kitten, Fever & Netflix) and further shows with Luna Cinema, Bompas & Parr & Path Group.
Podcast Transcript
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Welcome to the Immersive Experience Network’s Making Immersive Podcast series, giving you the tools and insights into the making of all things immersive and interactive. I’m your host, Dr Joanna Bucknall, and over the course of this knowledge bank series, I’ll be having conversations with extraordinary creatives, production specialists, and makers who shape this tantalising sector and the worlds that draw us into this form.
In this episode of IEN’s Making Immersive Podcast series, the discussion is going to focus upon the casting and rehearsal processes involved in creating complex immersive experiences, and the differences between these and traditional theatre-making practices. We’ll be doing a deep dive into how the creative process and practicalities involved in securing talent and different systems of rehearsals. I’m here with Oliver Lansley, one of the artistic directors of Les Enfants Terribles in Labyrinth. I’m here with Megan Stewart, who is a director and consultant, and I’m also here with Carl Dolamore who is a performer in immersive experiences.
It’s really useful for folks listening to get an idea of how people found their way into this space, into this sector. I was going to just ask each of you what’s your background, a quick-potted history of where did you train? How did you train? How did you get here? Were you self-taught? All that stuff. Megan, if I could start with you, that would be amazing.
Megan Stewart
I got into immersive about six years ago. Fell in, stumbled in blinking, looking around. I, before that, had trained in traditional performance in New York, and then I had done a follow up at film degree at King’s College in London. Then while I was there, I had done some small work in film with a bunch of friends I met at uni. We did some short commercial content and short films, made no money. Then, meanwhile, I was also starting early to develop my directing practice. I was doing stuff at Edinburgh Fringe and off West End, and then off, off, off West End.
Then I stumbled into an immersive company as a senior creative assistant, and then got very lucky. I got to work really closely with the senior teams on that, ended up as the resident of that show, and then saw them through COVID, and then went freelance about two, three years ago now. Then I’ve just worked with different companies. I think now it’s maybe eight theatrical immersive shows and then three immersive museums in different contexts, so it’s been …
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Fun.
Megan Stewart
Wild and fast. I was going to say wild.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Ollie, can I come to you next? You have a background in performer training.
Oliver Lansley
Yes, I didn’t really train much. I left school at 16, which was a long time ago now, but then went into Fringe theatre. At the time, there was a much more vibrant fringe scene, so pub theatres, fringe theatres, fringe festivals. Set up Les Enfants Terribles, my theatre company, and then we really started to build through the Edinburgh Festivals. We would do the Edinburgh Festival every year, and then the shows would get a bit bigger, and then start touring and then …
Dr Joanna Bucknall
That’s where I first saw you in [crosstalk 00:03:25].
Oliver Lansley
Brighton. We did Brighton. We’ve done all the fringes pretty much. Probably not all of them, but we’ve done Brighton, Adelaide, we’ve been all over the world, which we’re very lucky with. We started in more conventional on stages, which we still do. But then in 2015, we started working in immersive with our show Alice’s Adventures Underground, and that was because there was a lot of immersive happening at the time, but we wanted to really focus on the theatre, a part of immersive theatre. That’s what brought us into that. Since then, we’ve done all sorts of different shows. We did a show with Pussy Riot, we did Dinner at The Twits with the Roald Dahl’s estate, we did a show at Kensington Palace, and then all sorts of activations and stuff around the world. That’s me and why I’m sitting here.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Carl, how about you? You are a performer. In fact, our time we need to be mindful of as well, because you’re heading straight into performing later. Am I correct?
Carl Dolamore
Yes, I’m doing a show there.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Yes, exactly.
Carl Dolamore
As most performers, I started off very young. No, I did loads of shows in school and with the local theatres and stuff in my area, and got very lucky with some of the stuff I was able to do, it was really nice. I then went into studying at uni, I auditioned for those drama schools. But what I really enjoyed was the idea of applied theatre, and not many courses 13 years ago offered that. St Mary’s seemed to be the only one. I went to uni the year all the fees tripled, I was like, “If I don’t go this year, I’ll pay three times as much to go next year.” I managed to get in just.
I studied immersive theatre at St Mary’s. I absolutely loved it. Fell in love with it. I fell in love with Boal and the Theatre of the Oppressed, and The Rainbow of Desire, and it carried most of my work for graduation and beyond. I started my own theatre company. It was way too much work. I don’t know how you do it. Absolutely no envy there. Didn’t want to do that. I was like, “I’ll just perform.” I started auditioning for things, and got very fortunate to be in the right rooms and doing the right jobs and meeting the right people, and being asked back to audition and getting jobs, performing in them.
I’ve just been doing that throughout my performance background, and then now studying an MA in voice at Central to bring it all into a different realm. But it’s very much all tied together because it was voice and the way voices performed in specifically immersive theatre that made me fall in love with voice and the way people speak and how actors use their voice. I said, “I want to do this, and take that further.”
Dr Joanna Bucknall
I think everyone around the table, although has a theatre background, have developed those immersive skills very much on the job. Am I right? Figuring it out as you go.
Megan Stewart
Yes.
Oliver Lansley
Is there any other way?
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Because there isn’t actually an explicit course that you can do. There’s immersive courses now, but they actually tend to be very tech-focused and in engineering departments. I don’t think you can still do an immersive theatre course yet. One of the things, though, I think that is absolutely the same across the board of whatever might fit within that elastic band of immersive, is that the audience is always absent from the process which they are in traditional theatre, let’s face it. But usually, the director is the person who’s there to advocate in a more objective way for the presence of the audience. The work can continue because your audience don’t really impact upon it. How do you manage that absence in a process that is fundamentally driven by the audience being present in a way that they’re not in traditional theatre?
Megan Stewart
Something that needs to be integral is leaving the space. That sounds so obvious, but pick your story, pick your avenue, pick your audience, pick who you want to tell the story to, why you want to tell it, what your mission is. Know and trust that as it goes, that is going to stay fluid, adapt, evolve, change. You will be thrown unexpected things that you have to be malleable with. That sounds so basic, but obviously, when we are telling stories, we get so involved and so close to what we’re trying to say, and we are used to certain mediums and how we say it.
I think immersive rips that up a little bit, because you will find four or five, six months in a year, in three years in, an audience will do something you have never seen in your life that thrills you and surprises you and worries you because you didn’t see it coming, and you have to adapt. It sounds like a really obvious point, but from the beginning, knowing that the product you’re creating and the story you’re telling will evolve in the telling and in the mechanics, I think is really important, that ability to stay present and fluid.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
I do think you have to let go of ego.
Megan Stewart
Yes, you have to know you’re right, and you have to know you’re completely wrong. You have to be able to steer the ship, and you have people depending on you to be able to go, “This is our mission to always …” When things are being eroded, when things have to change pre-press, when suddenly the operation is becoming taxing for people, when a scene’s not working a few months in, when things are being chipped away, you have to know your voice, you have to know the voice of the writer and what you were trying to do in the first place, and unite everyone on that.
But listen, if your actors are telling you that the thing you’re desperate to achieve emotionally is not being achieved on the ground, listen to them. If your stage manager is telling you that the ambitious tracks that you think you’ve drawn up do not work, from the taking of the paper to the to the product, listen. If you think a scene can be some emotional, intimate crying piece, and your actors are going, or your teams are going, they’re doing this 40 times in a month, it’s not landing, “The love is being lost, we need to adapt,” listen. I think, surround yourself with experts, be in conversation at every stage of the process. That goes from when you’re pitching it seeing how people who don’t know it respond to it, people who are not as involved in the process as you… to then when you’re bringing on production teams, to then when you’re bringing on operational teams, to then when you’re bringing on casts, to then when you’re bringing on friends and family and preview audiences, they’re telling you where you’re successful or unsuccessful in your mission, so listen to them.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Because usually in the theatre, by the time it reaches an audience, it doesn’t really ever change despite critic feedback or audience feedback or audience response, there’s usually very little adjustment. Ollie, you write actually many of Les Enfants Terribles shows. Can you talk about how you manage that absence in the writing process?
Oliver Lansley
Yes, well, in most of the immersive stuff that we do, the audience is literally a character in the piece, so you’re effectively, it’s like rehearsing a play without one of the actors there most of the time. I think when most people think of writing, they probably think of writing dialog and story and characters. For us with a show like Alice, for example, that comes so late in the process. The majority of our writing is spreadsheets of … You’ve got three minutes in this room, and then it’s going to take two minutes to walk up that corridor and go, and then these actors get … So it’s much more of a mathematical puzzle for a lot of it, which, again, will likely change. You do have to relinquish that control, but you just plan as much as you can.
I think the way that I think about it is you try and give your performers, or give everybody a toolkit to be able to use, as opposed to, “This is how it’s going to go down. This is what you’re going to do.” You try and create an environment where people are confident enough in the ability to do that.
That said, Alice is fully scripted. That seems terrifying initially to actors. If you give them a scene and you go, “You’ve got three minutes and 47 seconds to do this scene exactly. It needs to be that every night,” and actors freak out. But what actors don’t realise is, actually, if you’re doing a piece of Shakespeare on stage, and it’s two and a half hours long, pretty much after the first couple of weeks that show comes down within a couple of minutes of itself, and you just find an internal tempo.
I think when you consider that, although it sounds like a really technical thing to do by the time you’ve done it a few times, and that’s one of the things that I love watching, is like going into a scene when an actor has got it in their bones, and you can just see the way that they … We do a lot of stuff with time code, so you have lights coming on to give them a hint, or a sound effect comes in, and like that will happen. Whatever happens, whether they get their lines right or wrong, the sound effect will come with it.
There’s one particular one in Alice which is the dorm where there’s 20 doors, and there’s sound effects coming on. To go in and watch an actor do this full monologue, and then just leave a pause and the sound effect comes out, it’s really masterful and really exciting when you see it. So, yes, you do have that process but you really have to make sure you’ve got the mechanics down to be able to do that. But that again, that is particular to us because a lot of immersive I know is, well, it’s all different. Some is improvised, some is, you have a shape, but for us, it’s very, very, very particular.
I think we have 40 actors, and then you’ve got 33 spaces, and then you would have it, in over a course of night, you have 12 audiences going in 15 minutes. Any one point of an evening, you’ve got … But the actors who are performing will be performing to multiple audiences, so they’ll go and do two minutes with an audience one, and then two minutes with an audience three and four. It is the spreadsheets and the graphs that are absolutely insane. The idea is that, of course, hopefully, in theatre, the audience don’t know any of it, but …
Megan Stewart
You’re spot on. I just want to add very quickly, I feel like you’re so right, Ollie, immersive sometimes gets this rep of being undisciplined. Underdeveloped and undisciplined. Every second is meticulously planned, even in those slightly more free fall ones. There are scenarios for everything. Same thing on some of the ones I’ve worked on, Ollie, like you’ve got an audience of 16- I’ve now got one coming out, there’s an audience of 40- they’re going through on the 10 every 10. They’re crossing 20 to 40 sets. Some of those are experienced like Link, some of them are transitionary spaces, some of them are being watched on a camera, some of them are being chaperoned by stage management, some of them are being led through fluidly by actors.
More and more, you have a very technical script in which you have to deliver certain things in a certain amount of time, always knowing that there needs to be breadth for 20 people to get from A to B. The discipline is always under, not appreciated, but it gets talked slightly sometimes like it’s this cowboy art form where people go on and they just see how they feel on any given night, and it’s like, Christ, no, we thought about how we think you’re going to feel two years ago. We’ve then tried out how you feel. We then realise you feel differently, and so, yes.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
I don’t know a single company that don’t have multiply exquisitely organised spreadsheets that run shows. It is show floor, 30-second, 10-second by 10-second, it’s hugely technical. So Carl performing in immersive is a massively different proposition to that separation you usually have. What processes do you go to, to prepare for that?
Carl Dolamore
It’s bizarre, isn’t it? On paper and from these perspective of the writers of the directors and the producers and everything, it’s so different. I don’t know if it’s wildly different as an actor, personally. I know there may be loads of people that disagree. The audience is there, but there’s still this barrier. You want it to go down but from their behaviour and their conditioning, they don’t want to break it themselves, typically. That doesn’t mean they won’t, but it’s managing that expectation of teaching them how to play, teaching them the rules of the world you’re in, I think, is the biggest one.
In the rehearsal room, they’re not there, you go and you’re like, “There’s no show,” and then after a while, you’re like, “There’s a show. If anything, it’s too long. We’re not going to get through this.” But it’s nice being in a rehearsal room where people have not done immersive before, and people who have, and they go, “We’re fine,” and they’re like, “Well, we haven’t done the show. You’re like, “We will.” When the audience come in, the show comes to life. It’s beautiful, it’s there, the audience are the show. But it’s the same thing with traditional theatre for lack of a better phrase. But the audience make the show. Even if you’re performing, something will still happen.
If there was no audience in immersive show, the show would still go on. It would be pointless just as if it would be with any other theatrical show. But it’s so audience-focused, it’s so about their experience. The show is not for the actors, and I work with a few people who maybe could do.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Is that one of the big differences then, actually? Because in that process, the audience is always absent for an actor in reality, and often actually, most traditional acting approaches … I keep saying traditional, I don’t even know what that means. But a lot of the approaches towards acting and performing are very internal. It’s all about your internal process, and then, of course, you’re engaging with someone else who’s a specialist, usually another actor who has that same process that you’ve been working under too. Do you have to adjust much to take the audience into account in that?
Carl Dolamore
Somewhat. It’s like turning up and your co-actor is drunk and doesn’t know their lines, is always how I had it explained to me. Where they’re like, they’re your co-actor in this, they’re the Spect-actor as Boal would say, and whatever the personal preferences of your performance style and your rehearsal style, I know lots of people love Meisner, I don’t, personally. I think Meisner makes people feel very internal, makes people overthink, can lead to flat performances. Some people love it. It’s good enough for the Chuckle Brothers, absolutely fine.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Meisner gets thrown around a lot for immersive. Everyone is like, “Use Meisner,” and it’s like …
Carl Dolamore
That’s fine if it works for people. For me, no, I approach it as I would any other thing. Like, look at the script if you’ve got a script, it should be all in there. If you’re improvising, where are you? What are the audience’s characters? What are they doing? What do you want them to do? Where do you want them to go? How long is the scene supposed to be? Right, come up with 18 scenarios, you’ll use one that won’t work, but you’ll refine it, and then you’ll do something else. It’s a process like anything else. You’ll find out what doesn’t work a lot quicker I think with immersive.
But that’s good. You’ll fail fast, and you’ll get to an incredible show really quickly. The first week of the show, I think, will be just mind-blowingly different, and then you’ll find that rhythm, and it’ll be exactly what it was always supposed to be in a bit more, hopefully.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
That is always the hope. It’s almost one of those dreams that everyone is scared of when you’re a performer that you turn up and you don’t know your lines. How do you mitigate for the audience feeling anxiety in that position? I open that up to everyone really. How do you stop the audience feeling the anxiety about being the drunk actor who doesn’t know their lines who rocks up in your anxiety dream?
Oliver Lansley
Well, I think a huge part of your responsibility is making an audience comfortable. That I think is one of the first things that we think about. If you’re going to ask an audience a question as a character, if you go in and go, “Oh, who are you?” They need to know … I know it’s a silly thing, but am I me? Am I a character in this world? Because otherwise you are asking them to improvise something. As much as it’s on our side, it’s like performing with actors that haven’t got a script on their side, it’s throwing them onto a stage without a script as well. But very quickly, once you know the rules, you can play along, but it’s just making sure that they are really comfortable and know the game that they’re playing.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Because it changes as well for every single encounter that someone might have in terms of immersive, sometimes you might have a character, sometimes you might not have a character, sometimes you might be there as yourself. But would you say that actually rules of engagement and establishing those swiftly are really important?
Megan Stewart
Especially because the term is still such an umbrella term, and people have been to what they understand to be an immersive, in reality it’s been an immersive that has been, say, bar-focused, or it’s been presentation or tour-focused. Then you go into something theatrical. I think establishing early what you’re asking of them, as we’re saying, and also, I think if you have the opportunity, if it is something that is scripted and linear, spoon-feeding and layering and rewarding that.
If you can let them know up top that your general principles are keep your phones away, interact with us, but don’t interrupt us, don’t touch our actors, but do feel fully engaged. If there’s a way to do that, then when you go into the next scene, like, layer up the fact that people are going to be talking to you directly in the face, that’s quite disarming, right? They’re going to be speaking directly to you. Once they’re comfortable with that, okay, maybe throw out a question that actually, in reality, is quite closed in your script. It’s rhetorical, they can do easy things with it.
They’ve established a vocal connection, establish a physical connection. We’re going to move you from A to B, can you follow that journey? Okay, you can move. Can you follow a more complex instruction. I’ve got a task for you to do. I’ve got something for you to undergo. You’ve established all of that as a whole group, okay, what about if I just pull you to the side? Can I give you a break off task? I think if you can layer it cleverly in the script and dramaturgy process, people will feel the reward moment, the moment of gratitude that they tried something and it wasn’t shut down, or they weren’t embarrassed in front of their friends, that the show continued and they were rewarded for doing so, and then you can ask more complex and nuanced things of them as they go along.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
That’s always one of the biggest anxieties I think that audiences, or certainly people I know who don’t go regularly, is they are scared of that humiliation and embarrassment or being singled out, I think. When you’re performing, can you read when people are happy for that? Are there things that signal that to you in the moment?
Carl Dolamore
Yes, after about a decade, you get really in tune with, “Oh, no, you’re going to be a problem,” or, “Oh, you’re very shy.” Often, I’d say, nine times out of 10, people just don’t know how to play. It’s a very new environment for them, and you’ve got to teach them, you got to keep giving them the rules of, “This is what we’re doing. You’re this person.” Right, leading questions. They’ll do really weird things. As an actor, you’ve got to be completely in character and go, okay, as me though, that’s a problem.
We’re doing the guidance of the galaxy show, there’s a whole trading system Secret Cinema set up where you bring in some stuff, we trade it in-world, and it’s a beautiful little simple game. It’s wonderful. It worked really well. It doesn’t matter what people did, people would surprise you. One guy brought in a six pack of eggs, and I was like, “That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.” In my head, I was like, “He can’t have six pack of eggs in a crowd of 700 people. It’s too unpredictable. I have to get them off him.
But I don’t want to be like, “Give me those.” It would ruin the game, you’re not playing properly. You have to in-world go, I want what you have. I will get it off you somehow. Well done for trying. We play like this.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
They probably forgot, and then remembered along the way, and just stopped in a garage and were like, “Oh, God, eggs.”
Carl Dolamore
Straight to the car next door and were like, “I need something,” and they really want to play. They really want to be involved. You have to nurture that element of them and go, “Okay, here is something more in-world that we can use, and here is this mission for you,” and, “Go here, do this,” very simple instructions where people are just overwhelmed by the beautiful set, the wonderful story, the writing and everything, and they go, “Now someone’s talking to me.” You have to grab their attention and go, “I’m going to give you a very basic instruction. If you can follow that, great, if you can’t, come back.” Give them an anchor point.
I think again, when it’s all built into the story and the way it’s written, you’ll have a beautiful show. It does that whether you’re moving them in a line, or they’re free roaming, teaching them the rules, and everyone’s thinking of this from the beginning. As the actor, you’re the last point to be teaching them the rules. It should be baked in.
Megan Stewart
I think you’re so right as well, Carl, that I think sometimes, again, audiences get judged a little bit for not understanding what they’re supposed to be doing. But it’s intrinsic in our design. We are bombarding them sensorially with everything we can muster: sets, if we’re going full blown and immersive, scent, temperature, shifting environment, we are talking directly to them, we’re asking them to be actors who are not trained. We can’t then get annoyed with them that they’re now what they’re supposed to be saying.
If you get a silly response, or if your man brings in your eggs, you as you as Carl know, “Okay, what on earth do I do with that?” But you as character go … I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense to me that we scold our audiences for being bamboozled by what we’re doing. We ask that of them. We really challenge them, changing the discipline, changing their focal points throughout a story, asking them to go on missions. We ask a lot of them, so it’s no wonder that sometimes they don’t quite know how to play.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Of course. Well, you’re pulling them into a space that betwixt them between reality and fantasy, and so, of course, the usual rules of social convention don’t always apply in that space, and so, of course, how could they possibly know unless you tell them or show them or indicate what is and isn’t acceptable between a fictional space.
Oliver Lansley
I always think of it like a computer game. If you’re playing a computer game, the first level is the tutorial. You have to learn how to use the buttons, and you have to learn how to engage with different things. Basically, you need to do the same thing effectively.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Even with a tabletop game, you get it out, and the first thing you do is really rules, and then how does the game work? Usually, actually, on first reading, most people are bamboozled. Still, I’m like, let’s do a test round. I don’t know of anyone who’s played a new game that hasn’t gone, “Let’s just do a round that’s low stakes,” and then when you do it, you figure out what’s going on. In a lot of ways, there’s having to build that into that life experience as well. I’m going to open up with another really big question I’m just going to throw out to everyone.
What does the rehearsal process look like? You have bits of script. You have really technical mechanics. What happens when, and when, do those things converge, and does it even have a rehearsal process in a way that we might recognize in traditional forms?
Megan Stewart
Yes, 100%. I love that we all just went, wow. It absolutely has a structure and a form, and it will vary project to project, but it has something that is recognisable. I think the rehearsal process for me always looks relatively similar even going project to project. Once the show is cast, I would always want to do some introductory scripted dramaturgy work. Sitting in a room, reading a script, reading it again, going, “What is our genre, what is our tone, what is our mission? What do we all take from it? Let’s mix up the roles. What do we feel now?”
Then you’d want to go through some research process of some kind understanding what your source material is. Even if it’s just the script, what’s that surrounding world? You and everyone should go on that journey. I think you also, then, want to go through, I call it offers, blocks, and swerves, but essentially, for me, it’s taking apart the script like you might with actioning, but where are you opening the floor to them? Where can they block you unintentionally, as well as deliberately? Where can you swerve back? Where can you find your way back? So starting to try and approach the dramaturgy of immersive in the same way as we would like a regular script breakdown.
Once you’ve done some traditional scene work, I think you’d want to do some rejection, recovery, and repeat work is a good thing to call it, which would be, “Okay, what is everyone’s biggest fear here?” It’s that you put your life on the line in some way and they reject you, they laugh at you, they don’t pay attention to you. You forget your words. They move off of you. They’re not interested. It’s the same thing as any theatrical practice, but just in really close proximity. I would want to get the team very used to the certainty that that will happen, the safe way that they can recover from it quickly, get back in touch with their space, their body, and then get ready to go again, and not think of that as something that’s daunting, but something that is welcomed, or something that’s an opportunity.
Then you would want to get onto site at a certain point, get into those rooms, get into the very nitty-gritty, technical side of it, and then plot and block those rooms in some way. And then start shoving the show up first for yourselves, friends and family, then preview, and then, yes.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Like you said, that doesn’t actually sound that different from a process … Theatrical process is very recognisable, actually. How about for you, Ollie?
Oliver Lansley
What do they look like? There’s a lot of multitasking. With that it’s like you will have … Again, I’m talking specifically on a show like Alice where you’ve got so many different tracks and so many different performers and people playing multiple characters, so there’s always multiple rooms, running multiple scenes, or running tracks. I think the big thing that I think you’re trying to do is empower the actors enough to feel like they’ve got it safe and confident, particularly in this world where there are so many variables, and that’s something over the years, we’ve really worked on trying to go, how do we do that?
Some actors can just take anything, but I would be terrified. It is terrifying. I would be terrified of giving them faith and confidence in what they need to do. It’s a big part of almost getting the repetition, getting some reps in, getting the sense of feeling it. You need them to have a confidence in something that is … It’s this balance of being able to feel confident enough to know that you can deal with the things that you don’t know you’re going to have to deal with.
It’s going like, we can’t tell you what’s going to happen, but you’ll be okay with it. Again, it’s going back to this idea of the toolkit that you go, “Oh, right, okay, if this happens, I can do this. If this happens, I can do this.” But I think that is a big thing, it’s trying to give your actors enough confidence. Because ultimately, once the show starts, it’s on them, and so they need to have that ownership and confidence, and confidence in each other as well.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Yes. Carl you’ll have been in lots of different context and rehearsal processes. Would you say your experience aligns with that, or was very different to that?
Carl Dolamore
A lot of them are very similar, but you will get just turned up into a room, and sometimes they’re like, “We got an hour and the show’s on in a bit,” you’re like, “I don’t know about that,” and you make it work. Sometimes you have a six-to-eight-week process. Any good rehearsal will start with the company getting to know each other. Who are you working with? Who’s your backup? Who’s going to get your avatar situation? Who are you going to be in flux with the entire time? Once that company is strong … I’m managing like 40 people in certain situations- maybe 60s are the biggest cast I’ve worked with- it’s incredible.
I don’t know how it’s done logistically. You’re in the room and you’re like, “Okay, someone’s taking care of this. This isn’t my problem right now.” You develop this kinsmanship, and it is like you trust each other and you learn each other’s backgrounds. Somebody who’s never done immersive before, and they’ve only done Shakespeare, and you’re like, oh, there’s similarities. You find people’s strengths and it becomes a very collaborative thing, which is my favourite part of it.
Then yes, very specifically looking at the script, finding out the logistics of who are you? What is your character doing? What are the audience doing? What are their relationships to you? What do you want them to do, and then where are we? What is this world? Because the world is the character rezone in any immersive show of how quickly can we get in there? I’ve done shows where they’re like, “We’re still building the set,” and I’m like, “That’s fair. It’s a massive set.” It’s absolutely huge, and there are always complications of, well, the plumbing is not working, and we’re like, “When are we seeing the set?” “We will soon.”
You just have to work around these problems. Weirdly, that gives you this problem-solving mentality that you use in the show, and intentional or not, it ends up being beneficial. You always feel stressed. You could always do with another week of rehearsals no matter what you do, and that’s from any perspective, I’m sure. But it’s yes, really trusting the people you’re working with, I think, is a huge thing, and getting everyone on the same page of like, “Okay, well, here are our strong points and here are the bits we need to work on, but if we all do it together, it’s a lot less work.”
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Yes, and what about time scales? Although the processes, they do sound quite similar, are they similar timescales to what you might get in a usual theatrical process?
Oliver Lansley
It depends where that theatrical process … The national, you have three months to rush, or so. We tend to have three weeks, I think. So that is dependent on where you are and who’s paying for it.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
That makes sense. There’s then a different level of at what point certain people get involved and how much is already developed, and before you get either actors or before you maybe even have a director, potentially, and so I suppose that’s quite bespoke to each project.
Megan Stewart
100%. There’ll be some early R&D and then design process, and locking down your venue and your building. Most immersives are taking over. We all chuckled and/or cringed at the word plumbing. Most immersives are taking over in a site-specific way. They’re taking something on, and there’s a huge meticulous process that goes around finding your venue and then actually drawing the path to build. Once all that is done… Then meanwhile, your concept and your idea and your script is being developed. Then at a certain point, if there’s other parts of the disciplines, if there’s other content, if there’s VR/AR content, if there’s game content, if there’s film content, then that will be developed and cast and filmed, and then that’ll be in production.
Ollie wasn’t lying when he said chaos- so much going on all at once. Then at a certain point you’ll start turning your attention to the live operation. You probably won’t have your full operational team early, but you’ll have people starting to drip in that are stage managers for the production phase, and then eventually you’ll start thinking about, who are they handing over to? Who are the teams on the ground? What do those look like, and at what point do they start to fuse with your creative team who began the process? What does that look like? Is always different and interesting.
Then at a certain point, you’ll cast the thing. You’ll ask for three months, you’ll get three weeks, and then, you’ll find that your rehearsal process where actually you’re functioning on a finished set normally tends to be a little bit under pressure or shrunk. You’re looking for a luxury in the testing process, because we’ve been talking about audiences where you want to see an audience respond, make a change, see an audience respond, make a change. You want to build in that space, and of course, that’s one of the first things that gets eaten when we find that there’s any delay.
Then from when it’s on, as Carl says, you’re like, “I’m not ready, and I guess I’m ready,” and it always tends to feel a little bit like that. In the same way as I think there’s that adrenaline that happens in theatre, just generally, full stop. There’s that energy that sits with you in the audience that goes, I don’t know this thing fully yet. I don’t know, but we’re putting it up, and we’re going to see and we’re going to learn about it now.
Oliver Lansley
First week of Alice, the first time we did it was carnage. I mean, awful. Completely re-wrote the way the show worked pretty much every day for those first five days. Very first performance, all of the audience was supposed to see all of the scenes, which is like madness. That’s a completely different show. Everything that we planned was, it was just like, “Okay, this is my …” Thankfully, we got there, but with a lot of very traumatised people.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
You haven’t added pressure in a way for the performers because actually, you have quite a lot of puppets in Alice, and large costumes as well, which are, I’m assuming, an even more … Because they’re quite technical. The puppets aren’t just something you slide on your hand.
Oliver Lansley
No. Again, puppetry is very complicated, technical, and disciplined.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Discipline, niche.
Oliver Lansley
But then putting that into the chaos of immersive is a lot, so we just rely on very talented people and brave people. That initial period, but I cannot describe how drastically that show changed once you put an audience in it. Then it gets easier when you learn those things, you can do all the planning in the world until you put an audience and you don’t know what your show is, and you don’t know how it’s going to work, and you don’t know how they’re going to react, and you don’t know how the timing is like. The more experience you get, the more you can anticipate it, but if you think you know how it’s going to go down, then you’re wrong.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
So true. What length processes have you been involved in? Is it like you said, an hour beforehand?
Carl Dolamore
Genuinely, sometimes you haven’t seen the space before you’re doing a show. If it’s like a small thing or it could be like a really big thing, and they’re like, yep, let’s go in, have a look round. This is where you’d be doing it. I’ve been given mass amounts of tech to do voiceover stuff live on the day, which is hard, and then, puppets as well, very difficult to deal with. You’re like, this is really expensive, please don’t break it, worth more than you are.” You’re like, okay, good job there. But sometimes you get eight weeks. Sometimes you’re really lucky, sometimes you’re in the process for ages, you get to work with vocal coaches from the get go, which is sadly, a massive rarity.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
I was going to say, yes
Carl Dolamore
I’d see more and more people who were injuring their voices from just the space being not quite how it was imagined. People high up going, “How do we change to smooth going?” Certain fighting with certain departments going, “We need this level of soundscape,” and performance going, “I can’t speak about this. We’ll find out in the interim,” and in the interim you’re screaming. It can be quite stressful. It can be quite intimidating. I think you have to draw your own barrier. I will do this to my safety, to my comfort, to give the best show so it’s sustainable. I think everyone wants that. We want more rehearsal process. Everyone in the process wants more time, and I think it’s never going to be to the point where you do a show and you’re like, “Could have done that last week.”
Dr Joanna Bucknall
What stuff do you get? Because obviously, even with Fringe there, you get the script, usually, what, two weeks before you walk into the room, then you’ve got usually two weeks in the room with the script. What stuff have you had in the past up front before you get into that space?
Carl Dolamore
Varies completely. I’ve been given recordings the morning of. We’ve changed them during the recordings, which is difficult if you’re doing a specific accent or a specific impression, and they’re going to change this word, and you’re like, “That word is new.” They’re like, “That’s good. Try a different voice, try a new accent, try this character,” and you’re like, okay, and you don’t have a lot of time.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Who are these people?
Carl Dolamore
Because otherwise I’ll never work. But you know it’s not like the people in front of you going, “Look, we have to get this done. This is the time we have it in, like we’re sorry, this is trickled down from much bigger problems,” and you’re there, going, “Okay.” Sometimes you’ll get a script weeks beforehand, and you’ll look at it and you go, “This is an absolute treat.” Sometimes you’ll spend ages with cast and directors and writers going, “Actually, we’ll cut that, we’ll change that,” and you’ve got this wonderful process of, “I’d like to do this.”
Sometimes you’ll develop the characters with the writers and the directors in the rehearsal room going, “Okay, well, you’ve come up with this choice, and I like that better, so I want to explore this. I’ve written this for you now,” and you’re like, “This is lovely. This is so nice.” You don’t get that with traditional theatre, in the sense of, “Here is the script. Do the script. This isn’t going to change. We’re not going to see the writer until the opening night.”
Dr Joanna Bucknall
You’re sent this script, usually, as an actor, your job is to then do your bit. In traditional theatre it’s like, everyone does their little development creative bit, and then it all comes together for two weeks while everyone figures out how then that meshes together.
Carl Dolamore
Sometimes with varying results. But it has so many benefits of being able to devise and collaborate within an immersive theatre, and going like, this isn’t working, and so I’m going, “No, I agree. Let’s change it.” You don’t have to have the answer right there and then. I know it could be very frustrating, especially when actors go, “This doesn’t work.” You haven’t tried it yet, and that’s who you have to be careful of. Give it a go. Do it. Find out why it doesn’t work. Maybe even have a suggestion of, “This is my experience. What about something like this?” Someone goes, “No, you don’t know what you’re talking about. But actually, that’s given me an idea, and this would work.” You go, “Oh, I helped a bit, hopefully.”
Megan Stewart
I think it’s so interesting what you’re saying as well about the luxurious processes as well, Carl. Because we do all want the eight weeks. What’s so interesting to me always is if, though, you do the eight weeks, and then the contract is long, the show is permanent. People can actually find that to be too long. There’s a very interesting balancing act happening of like, if it’s an opening cast, how long is too long? Whereby they are sick of the show, the love is gone, the quality is dipping as a result, versus you being wheeled in too fast.
I think for all of us actors at every level of creative, we’re trying to work out that balance. How long is too long sitting in the material before it needs fresh eyes for everyone involved? Because the quality is dipping, and because people are losing the love for it because they’re being worked too hard and too long, versus how long do you actually need to intimately understand one of these shows? Do you understand the script? Do you understand improv? Do you understand interaction? Do you understand the wider world?
Do you understand if you have adjacent elements like an FMB area, or other parts that form this wider world that you’re nothing to do with. How long do you need to understand your technical, and how long do you need for safety? That is a very interesting, constantly changing sum that we’re always doing, and I’ve done both. You’re there and you’re like, “This was so wonderful and luxurious,” and then, like a week in, the actors are like, “I think I’m done. I’m quite tired because I’ve been on this whole journey,” versus then the one that is, like two, three weeks, and you’re like, “Oh, god, you’re on.”
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Yes. How about casting? Because there’s lots of … Again, is it bespoke or do you look at a reel, do you do you look at someone’s headshots, do they come and they deliver their monologue?
Oliver Lansley
You’re casting the performer more than you’re casting the characters. I think you usually have an element … You probably have a little bit more latitude than you would on a stage show sometimes, or at least you know how important the human is. I think we spend a lot of time trying to make sure that we’re casting the right company of humans. Humans first performer second, I think.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
What’s the process you tend to do to figure out who might gel together? How do you find that rhythm?
Oliver Lansley
You want to try and spend a bit of time with them. You want to see them interacting with other people, ideally. You need to just try and get a sense of … We’ve even put little spies in the audition rooms to see what people are saying outside. Because it’s so important. Your cast is as positive as its most negative member, and it’s amazing what one or two people in a cast can sway the energy and attitude of a show and everything. We’ve been talking about all these moments where whatever the thing that will go wrong is going to go wrong. That is where you really need the cast to rally around and have that confidence be with each other. If you’ve got that negativity in it, it can be really difficult. I think you know that is a huge thing for us, it’s like going, who are the people that we think are going to be the right people to be able to jump in? That is our number one priority.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Do you do workshops, then?
Oliver Lansley
We do individuals, and then we bring those people into the workshop.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Again, that is a slightly different process, which I think it’s really nice as well, because it is about that interaction. It’s actually almost more like how we do it in HGI. We are the same as we look at individual portfolios, but then we bring people together as a cohort to see how it gels, because it matters. Like you said, one feeling can spread through a cohort in that way. Megan, how about for you?
Megan Stewart
I think that’s spot on. You are looking intimately at the person in front of you and their character. I’ve seen both processes. I’ve seen workshop-based and individual and then a blending of the two. I love the audition room. I love it. I think I enjoy it because you are already reaping the benefits of the immersive format in the audition room. There is no point you sitting behind a desk and giving the floor to someone out of film. I like to be up with them. I like the creatives in the room to be up with them moving around, or at the very least, if you’re sitting behind a table, making direct eye contact with them, responding to them.
I think, generally speaking, if it’s up to me, and again, often you’ll want to spend a lot of time with the very senior, the creative directors of the show to work out from the script or from the product. What are they looking for? Because, again, you can go very filmic, very traditionally theatrical, very game-based, very improv heavy in your immersive show. There are so many approaches, and so I’d want to understand from the top down how it’s been thought of, designed, ideated if I’ve not already been involved in that process.
From there, I would then try and hypothesise what skill sets you might want. I think also knowing that whoever else is involved process will help me to work out what I then might need to cover additionally. If someone is very like theatrically ensemble-based in terms of creating a very empathetic and safe room, I’m probably going to also want to lean slightly more towards bolstering or preparing those performers for when it’s not that environment and when it’s a bit more disarming. Or if someone is a film director and they want the one performance in the can and they are going to work with every performer to find their version of that role, we know it’s never going to be that ever again, because of the nature of the beast.
So how can we preserve that integrity whilst allowing for it being different every 10 minutes. My approach will vary depending on the team and what’s needed for the story. But then in the casting room, if it’s up to me, I will try and get a blend of disciplines and backgrounds. I think we’re all talking about the chemistry of those people on the ground. Something that I think is nice in the ensemble is like aspirational ensemble where you see a colleague do something that is not necessarily your discipline.
Either, it’s this most the most incredible improv you’ve ever seen where someone is so skilled and malleable, because they’ve worked consistently in immersive, distinctly, and so they know how to take a story, weave and Swerve and bring it back without you even feeling muscled, or deflecting the attention from someone onto someone else, just seamlessly to diffuse a room, versus then seeing someone who is traditionally filmic and has these subtle, beautiful moment, human moments right in front of another person, like the camera is in close up.
I think when actors can see each other at the top of their discipline and craft, you get this weird fusion and blend of all and people want to steal from their buddies. You do need to try and preserve everyone’s individuality within it, because often you’ll have someone go like, “I love that,” they’ll do it. It doesn’t quite land in the same way. But whilst preserving individual, independent performance, you do want to create an ensemble where people like what their friends are doing, and it’s slightly different to what they’re doing, and you can pull from all disciplines.
Then just on a very practical level in the room, I’d want to see a script and I’d want to see some improv or interaction, because you’re going to have to do both, so I would want to see them off the page slightly using the story first, and I’d also want to see them staying on the script. For me, actually, really, it’s a red flag if someone comes in and just throws the script away because we will test that. We will make sure that you can do improv, you can interact, you’re not phased, you’re willing, even if it’s not your discipline, to try.
But if there is something created, as the first instinct, if someone doesn’t listen to the material, that’s actually a red flag for me. I love if they’re willing, I love if they come in and go, “Just so you know, I’ve prepared to come off this slightly if I need to.” But chances are, if someone’s written something, at least show us some of what they’ve written, because otherwise it’s … Yes. Then the other side is the same. If someone cannot move from what they’ve prepared, red flag. If you note them, if you give them the floor to go, “Do you know what? Rip it up. Do it differently. Try something else.” If they can’t move from like, the intonation they have set, the physicality they have set, then that would also be a red flag because as we know, the form will demand you change that. Then multi-roling, that’s the last thing. They have to play more than one person.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Yes, and I think that’s the case in most shows, actually, actually theatrical shows. Not maybe so much in brand or IP. You must have come across a huge amount of casting processes. What’s been examples, maybe, of really best practice for you?
Carl Dolamore
I have a lot of gripes with the casting process as a performer, because I would. It’s not perfect, but you don’t expect that. I don’t think it’s wildly different from auditioning for other shows. I think it’s exhausting, is a bit of the problem. You’re asked to do an awful lot, and it’s because people need to see you do an awful lot.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
And not being paid by that point as well. Anyone who has a working job in acting would know this. But anyone who isn’t, be aware of that as well if you’re getting into that.
Carl Dolamore
You don’t get paid to audition, and you have to … I’ve developed this very stoic sense of it’s just a chance to play around and hopefully just test out whatever fun day someone has planned for you. Which is a nice thing to get to because I’ve done auditions where you never hear back after a tape and an impersonal audition, and then a workshop, and then people get no’s, and your friends get cast, and you go nothing, and it’s just been on nothing. I’ve gotten rejections from shows I’ve then gone on to be in, and have one on one auditions with the director, to then be cast in a bigger role in the show. It seems a little messy.
I can’t see behind the curtain. I don’t know that process. I don’t know what it is, and there’s so many things going on. You audition for a show and you don’t hear back, but then you hear the show is going in a completely different direction, and you’re like, “Oh, they’re hiring dancers. Well, of course, you’re not going to hire me. That’s fine. It’s not my profession.” But it’s bizarre. You go into an audition room, you don’t necessarily audition for a specific character, and so you go, what do I display?
I’ve gone into audition rooms and been given a character, and I get to the rehearsal room and they go, “You can do a Russian accent, right?” And I went, “I hope so.” “It’s fine. We’ll give you some time with a vocal coach and everything.” Very good, but at no point do you do that in the audition, so it’s very strange to be like, I don’t know what you saw with the choices I made there. I’m like, I’m glad you saw it. I’m very happy to do it. It’s good fun. But you go and you work with a load of people as well. Often you walk in and you’re … If someone who’s worked in immersive for a long time, you’ll recognize half the room.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
I was going to say you notice everyone.
Carl Dolamore
Often, it’s because people are good. You’re like, these people have come back, and I’m like, “I’ve worked with them before. They’re excellent. I’m glad they’re here. This gives me so much confidence in this project and the casting process.” Sometimes you walk in and go, “It’s one of those shows, and I don’t know these people, but they will know each other, and I wonder how this will go.” Then sometimes you walk in and not many people have done immersive before, and they’re very confused by the process, and you feel like you’re having to teach people immersive whilst auditioning and going, “Look, I’m talented, I can teach people.”
Sometimes you do a stage combat bit in it or a song, and someone will cut you out. I’ve been hit in the face before, and I’m like, “Oh, no, I think you’ve ruined my audition by punching me by accident.” It’s chaos, you can’t think about it. You can’t think, “Oh, I haven’t heard back yet. So what does that mean?” Or I haven’t heard this, or I have heard this, and I got a maybe. What does that mean? Because you’re wrong. It’s not really about you. I don’t think it’s ever about the performer, and that’s really hard to get your head around, especially as this actor mentality of, “This is my work. This is my craft. This is about me.” It’s not.
There’s so many internal decisions being made in that show. You just have to stoically go, “I did my bit. I don’t know what’s happening. Onto the next audition, onto the next show, onto the next job.”
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Well, it’s even the difference, because, like you said, often, it’s different if you’re working in that fringy ensemble space in theatre, because actually, normally, you’ve got together with those people to make a piece of work with them so you know them, or you have a character that you are auditioning for. You’re auditioning for Hamlet, and you’re auditioning for Hamlet, so you’ve prepared Hamlet, and so it’s a bit more challenging to be like, “I want to just basically demonstrate all the potential skills that I might have that might be used here.”
Carl Dolamore
Sometimes you get asked at the end of audition, “Is there anything else you can do? Come and see us.” You go, what else can I do? I should say something.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
You’re like, “Oh, I can play flute.”
Carl Dolamore
I said in an audition I could swim once. I’m like, “They won’t have a swimming pool.”
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Get the Russian accent. Do the stage combat. Do you have any questions?
Carl Dolamore
Anything else?
Dr Joanna Bucknall
With the additional of puppets, does that factor into that casting? Do you teach those skills after you’ve cast, or you have a pool of kind of …
Oliver Lansley
It depends on the puppet.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Who’s your most tricky puppet?
Oliver Lansley
Oh, man, we have some crazy puppets. We have a life size, like a seven-foot frog that is very implex.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
I’ve heard stories about the frog.
Oliver Lansley
That sort of thing. In Alice, we have a track, which is puppeteers, and we cast puppeteers. But there are times, if you have the time, and with certain puppets … The thing that I think is, every puppet works in its own way, ultimately. Ultimately, they will need to learn how to use this specific puppet anyway. But you do obviously get people that have a level of experience that are very good at adapting to it, so it depends. It depends how puppet-heavy the track is. In Alice, we will focus on people’s puppetry, because they do puppetry in every act. But there are other things, like our recent stage show, we had puppets in that, and we worked with people that hadn’t necessarily done puppetry before, and we would then work with them and train them and teach them, so it does vary.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Do you have one, either, cautionary piece of advice or a nugget … You’ve already given loads and loads of actionable advice, but thinking in terms of rehearsal casting that you can give to the folk listening. Maybe if they’re new or emerging either as an actor or thinking about moving into directing or writing, is there one piece you would give to them to take away?
Megan Stewart
Trust your skill, your voice, your practice, and then also know with certainty that you have to stay fluid, don’t hold too tightly. The same as what we’re talking about with the craft of the acting of being disciplined, but staying present and fluid and malleable. I think it’s the same thing is, do the disciplined work in the background. We were talking about the spreadsheets and the planning and the timings and the theory points, know your product, know your script, know your research, know your work, and then prepare to be moved by other people and listen to those people.
Surround yourself with people who you think are experts in a bit you’re not, or if nobody’s an expert on it, then people that like listening to others and working in an ensemble. Work with those people that you trust. Trust with certainty your practice, and then know with certainty that something is probably wrong and that’s okay.
Oliver Lansley
I would say go in and be a good collaborator. Value everyone in the process, and realise you are part of a huge, multi-headed beast, and an important part, and everyone is an important part. But you can’t be an island in that, and you will get much more of it as well if you were open to being part of the piece as a whole. From the director’s point of view, you’re also trying to cultivate and empower your performers to take that on as well. Because it’s not a medium that you can hide or pass the buck in. Everyone needs to be pulling in the same direction for it to really work, and everyone needs to be there and ready to go.
Carl Dolamore
I’d say that’s incredibly important; be a collaborator. Do your work, know your practice, what works for you, listen to other people, take on new ideas. Keep learning, keep exploring stuff for yourself, but also set hard boundaries for yourself, especially within this performative industry of the audience of … Once you have those hard boundaries, you can then communicate them to other people. You can work with other people better. You can create a safer environment where you’re comfortable, and you can reassess them as well. You can have them in flux. You can talk to people.
Communication is the heart of this industry. It is how these shows go on with the audience, with the directors, with the writers, with the creators, with the actors, with your co-ensemble, and the stage management, and the wigs, hair and makeup, the prop design, everyone has got to be talking to each other. When they don’t, that’s when we get problems. That is what I’m sure everyone has experienced; is it can be solved with communication.
Sometimes you’ll notice the people who keep working in any positions are the ones who are really good at communicating, the ones who are making great stories and who are able to express their ideas. It’s not because they’re inherently just good, they’re just good at explaining what they do, and how they do it, and what they want. I think if you can look inwards, do that with yourself, explain what you want, explain what you’re feeling and thinking and your concerns, or anything, that will get you further than anything else, I think.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Thank you so much everyone. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I really appreciate it.
Megan Stewart
Thank you.
Oliver Lansley
Thank you very much.
Dr Joanna Bucknall
Thanks for listening to the Immersive Experience Network: Making Immersive Podcast Series hosted by me, Dr Joanna Bucknall, and produced by Natalie Scott with thanks to our funders at Arts Council England. If you liked this podcast and want to know more about what we do, you can follow us on Instagram, which is @immersiveexperience.net, or find us on LinkedIn, so you can just search for the Immersive Experience Network. For news and updates on our live events, on our research and all of the other things that we do, you can go to our website, which is immersiveexperience.network. If you sign up to our mailing list, then you won’t miss out on a thing, and we do a lot. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you dial in and listen to us again.
