Following a critically acclaimed digital version work.txt online, audiences will take centre stage as work.txt returns for an in-person run at Soho Theatre.
work.txt is a play about a person in a city who has stopped working, and the audience must work together to attempt to figure out why through various means. The audience read a projected text together out loud, with lines assigned by categories (“people with brown hair”, “people who earn more than thirty thousand pounds a year”), follow instructions onstage and are fed lines by headphones as part of a collective, interactive experience.
Nominated for an Innovation Award at VAULT Festival 2020, work.txt is written by Nathan Ellis who was previously a member of the Royal Court Invitation Writers’ Supergroup 2018-19 and in 2020 was shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award.
The full play was nominated for an innovation award after a run at VAULT Festival, and was programmed at Incoming Festival and Summerhall for the Edinburgh Fringe before the pandemic. work.txt online (originally launched under the title work_from_home ) was commissioned by New Diorama Theatre during the first lockdown, and received 4 star reviews from the Guardian and The Scotsman.
Nathan Ellis said, “I wrote the show as a sort of satire of the always-on, never-stopping work culture, and then the whole world stopped because of COVID. As the pandemic recedes, it’s fascinating and depressing to see how the energy of just-getting-going-again is mirrored by the play. I hope work.txt asks big questions about why we’re all working so hard, and if we can’t imagine a different sort of relationship to work. The show is about community and working together and play – it literally doesn’t happen without the audience, so I’m thrilled it’s happening in-person again at the Soho Theatre. I’m excited to get to work.”
work.txt is at Soho Theatre 28th February – 12th March
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