Yard Live Drafts

— This application made us realise we need to think a lot harder about how we would utilise the space/resources of a venue to help develop the show.—

What is your idea? 

Coming Out of My Cage (And I’ve Been Doing Just Fine)

Mr Brightside hasn’t left the UK charts in 14 years. How did it end up like this? It was only a hit, it was only a hit. Through the medium of karaoke we work with the audience to answer the question: what must you do today to be remembered?

The Killers made their career-defining hit in 20 minutes. Now, we want to do the same. Using a single microphone and display of karaoke lyrics, two performers will work with the audience to ask: why do we place more value on accomplishments and records than on each other?  A mix of interaction, clowning and documentary - each night a different audience works to create their own legacy, and see the legacies of audiences before. 

Tell us about you/your company 

Shepard Tone create participatory and playful shows to engage those who feel that theatre isn’t for them and offer unique experiences to those that do. We empower audiences to break rules and stretch the boundaries of theatrical form - whilst giving them an unashamedly fun and entertaining night out in the process. 

Using clowning and DIY tech to explore big, complex ideas through a pop culture microscope, we encourage our audience to take risks as they co-create each performance with us. Not only is each show different to the last, but the decisions they make in one show will alter the shape of the next - the audience truly leaves a footprint on our work.

Our rehearsals are open for anyone to engage with. Every script draft, meeting minutes and bad idea is documented to view on our website - giving unparalleled access to our company unlike any other. 

Coming Out Of My Cage (And I’ve Been Doing Just Fine) is our second show following the ★★★★★ An Abundance of Tims (Bread & Roses Theatre, Tristan Bates Theatre, King’s Head Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe).

Why do you want to develop your idea with The Yard? (Be honest about why you think the heart of your work complements our programme)

Coming Out of My Cage (And I’ve Been Doing Just Fine) is in an early stage of development. As a devised piece, we have not yet developed a script and are still spending our time practically trialling ideas whilst conducting necessary research to enrich the process and performance. We have been fortunate enough to present two scratches of the show so far: a 10 minute performance at Pleasance Scratch in February, and a 20 minute showing at LIVE 11 at the Camden People’s Theatre. However, for the next stage of our creative process it’s vital for us to develop this idea in an environment which will support us in creating a full 60 minute performance and script. 

This is where The Yard comes in. As a piece that’s unconventional in form and fun at heart, we believe Coming Out Of My Cage fits The Yard’s goal of telling contemporary stories in contemporary ways. We want our work to upend traditions and we believe receiving support from a venue which not only pioneers experimental work but understands it would provide us with the environment and knowledge we need to take this piece further. Developing the show and receiving artistic and dramaturgical support from the The Yard would therefore be an unmissable and invaluable opportunity for us. As a venue that also hosts live music, The Yard will also be a fantastic physical space to test out a show about bands, their fans and their legacy!

To create a full production with audience participation, it is absolutely vital to have an audience to test our ideas with during the development process. Doing a showing at Live Drafts will provide us with the chance to experiment and take risks with a live audience without the expectation of a final product. Exposing the show to an audience at this stage will allow us to develop it with a more confident idea of how our audience may respond - offering us something we can’t discover in a rehearsal room with our mates. Having attended scratch nights before and given honest and unbiased feedback ourselves, we would like to be on the receiving end with this brand new show, which simply can’t happen without an audience. 

What do you want to explore with the development time and sharing? (Please try to be specific here - over the past few years we have learned that artists sometimes attempt to do too much in the limited development time available.) 

In the three-day development time we are interested in testing the more experimental sides to our form and wish to work on integrating it into an overarching narrative. This will involve devising exercises to help physicalise the concepts we haven’t yet been able to stage. Having time and appropriate space (we currently rehearse in an abandoned pub) to do this will be a pivotal part of our creating and cutting process and will help us refine the piece into a more complete and coherent script. 

During the sharing itself we want to explore how we invite our audience to join in, and how, with each interaction, we can gradually ask more from them as the piece develops. We want to make sure these interactions aren’t simply tokenistic, but rather are crucial to giving our audience agency.