Sarah Berger – actress, director and founder of The So & So Arts Club – has launched a brand new and innovative playwriting festival, in collaboration with LIVR – the world’s first virtual reality content platform dedicated to theatre. The Capsule Theatre Festival will have a distinguished panel of judges, including actors Kevin McNally, Phyllis Logan, playwright Rex Obano, writer Ming Ho, director Simon Naylor, Artistic Director of Hackney Empire Yamin Choudury, producer and Artistic Director of the Boulevard Theatre Rachel Edwards, and agent Lucy Fawcett, as well as executives, distributors, producers, composers and creatives from the world of film.
Alongside the theatre festival is a short film festival for films of all genres, inventively filmed in lockdown – this festival is produced in collaboration with actor and writer Callum McGowan, with a judging panel of executives, distributors, producers, composers and creatives from the world of film. Film submissions can be made here. All shortlisted films will be available to view free online, and a public screening planned for later in the year.
Submissions are now being sought for plays that can be eventually performed in a socially distant way in a black box theatre space, no longer than 60 minutes total length, and with a maximum cast of 4.
The deadline for submissions is 2 September 2020, and the winners will be announced by the end of that month, hopefully allowing for rehearsals, performance and filming during the month of October (situation permitting).
The judges will choose ten pieces of work, with the first four being offered the chance to rehearse and perform in the So & So Arts Club’s new fully equipped black box theatre space in West London (that had just opened and was about to host its first production when lockdown came into force in March this year). In addition, Sarah Berger and some of the judges will help mentor and creatively produce the pieces, assisting with help in kind with dramaturgy, casting and finding directors.
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These four productions will be filmed in the space by the team at LIVR. LIVR currently offers an on-demand fully immersive 360° VR experience that transports viewers at home into live performances. However, for The Capsule Festival finalists, LIVR will use a brand-new technology, which will mean that audiences at home can watch the shows in 3D without the use of VR headsets.
The filmed shows will then put up online with a box office system, enabling people to buy a ticket to watch. All monies raised from the box office will go back to the creatives involved in the project. The remaining 6 selected plays will receive full feedback and will be uploaded onto the website for sale to prospective companies for future production.
Sarah Berger said, “We are not looking for pieces about Covid 19 but writing that uses the new restrictions in an inventive way and uses the added bonus of being filmed in 3D inventively. For example, you might make the camera one of the characters. You are free to adapt a play you have already written using the new mixed medium of theatre and 3D film. We look forward very much to seeing how we can develop a new hybrid performance which is tailor made for our current situation but keeps the idea of interactive theatre alive.”
The film panel of judges consists of David Wilkinson (Guerilla Films), Denise Parkinson (TI / Future Media), Dom McKvey (DOP), Gary Phillips (Moviehouse Entertainment), Christopher Barnett (composer), Michael Ryan (GFM Films), Natalie Brenner (Metro International Entertainment), Faisal A. Qureshi (freelance producer, editor and screenwriter), Helena Mackenzie (Film London), and Tom Abell (Peccadillo Pictures).
