The Darkened City - A digital theatre experience

Theatre, live performance. The smell of the grease paint, the roar of the crowd! Good theatre starts with a great story. Tallented actors can pull off a poor script but its rare. Can theatre be delivered through the medium of social media? I'm going to find out. The information below is all I have to go on. I have signed up and I am curious and cynical in the same breath. The new wave of digtal participation has inplication for the theatre and those who work within the industry. This excites me. I want to part of it. I want to share it. I want to experience it. Will I feel like a lone audience member? Does that matter?

The Darkened City « marcuslilleyartist

‘The Darkened City’ is A Neo – Noir Transmedia Theatre performance taking place from Monday the 12^th of September 2011 till Friday 16^th of September 2011 as part of ‘Process at Play’ arts festival.

Inspired by Film Noir’s such as ‘Double Indemnity’ (1944) ‘Sweet Smell of success’ (1957) ‘The Big Heat’ (1953) and more recent Neo Noir’s such as ‘LA Confidential’ (1997) ‘Sin City’ (2005) and ‘Shutter Island’ (2010) ‘The Darkened City’ is a theatre performance which presents a city full of corruption, bribery, violence, sex and where no one however innocent they may seem is ever entirely trust-worthy. Also inspired by the work of photographers such as: Arthur ‘Weegee’ Fellig and Gregory Crewdson

Told through tweets, emails photos, live performance, installation and exhibition, ‘The Darkened City’ is an immersive, interactive theatre performance taking place in a fictional city where the rules are there to be broken, corruption is rife, and everyone is out for their own personal gain.

The ‘Darkened City’ begins at 8pm on Monday 12^th of September 2011 at Live at LICA (Lancaster University) in Lancaster and concludes on Friday 16^th of September at 12pm

For anyone who cannot make it to Lancaster the experience takes place through social media and mobile technology so it can be experienced anywhere. Just email your twitter username, email address and contact mobile number to participate.

To sign up to the performance please email: [email protected] with your email address, mobile number and a twitter username.

For further information on the event please click here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=106873956084950

For further information on ‘Process at Play’ please click here: http://processatplay.com/

--- The Rules ---

The Darkened City

(Monday 12th September 8pm till Friday 16th September 2011  12pm)

Artist: Marcus Lilley (@marcuslilley) ([email protected])

Rules:

You can participate as much or as little as you like throughout the week.

There are four characters:-

Harry Marshall / Veronica Haywood / ‘Example’ / George Miller 

The Twitter username you need to follow is: @marshall_harry (http://twitter.com/#!/marshall_harry) 

Follow the hashtag: #thedarkenedcity 

You will receive text messages from: Harry Marshall 

Phone number: 07809 748261

You will receive emails from:

A Police Detective called George Miller: [email protected]

Veronica Haywood: [email protected]

Please remember to check inbox and check as non – spam.

• In order to participate fully, you must provide a twitter username, an email address and a mobile phone / text number (or if you do not have a twitter username, visit Harry’s Twitter page twice a day)

•  The entire performance is experienced remotely, via these methods of communication. However, please feel free to interact with the characters if you wish via these means.

• You will receive text messages, emails, and tweets throughout the week (Monday 12th September to 12pm on Friday 16th September)

• You should check your email account and Twitter page at least twice a day.

*REPLYING TO THE TEXT MESSAGES IS NOT FREE.

*Any issues or problems during the week should be reported to Marcus Lilley ([email protected])