It’s fair to say that we’re quite enamoured with Exeter’s Bike Shed Theatre. We first performed twenty minutes of Beneath the Albion Sky in their bar in November 2012 as part of SCRATCH!. We went away from that night with lots and lots of useful feedback and questions that we used to develop the full length version of the play. We then took this finished version back to the Bike Shed – and their auditorium proper – for two nights as part of Ignite Festival in June this year. Now we’re decamping to Exeter for two weeks from 22nd October – 2nd November for our first residency there. And, this is what we’ll be doing…
After winning a Wildfire Critics’ Choice Award at Ignite Festival Beneath the Albion Sky will return to the Bike Shed for a full run, with eight performances over the fortnight. Telling the story of Paul who embarks on walking the St Michael’s Ley Line Beneath the Albion Sky is a walking-story exploring our relationship with the land around us, England’s past and the things our imaginations do to cope with loss.
Alongside Beneath the Albion Sky we’ll be spending our days in the theatre developing a new play – tentatively titled Blueprint. In this play we’re exploring biography, storytelling and the science of big and small things as we explore the life story of a character named Kate as filtered by her brain in the moments before she dies. We’ll also be hosting four work-in-progress showings of the play on 25th, 26th, 29th and 31st October, where we’ll be giving audiences a chance to feedback on the show.
Finally we’ll be running Walking Stories, an engagement project linked to Beneath the Albion Sky where we’ll be exploring walking and journeys. As well as offering audiences of the play the opportunity to contribute to our journey map we’ll be working with two community groups and some local theatre makers to create a very WBN-style culmination to our residency. We’re currently recruiting theatre makers to take part – and you can find out how to apply here.
Write By Numbers’ Bike Shed residency is supported by Arts Council England through Grants for the Arts.