Getting To Know You...

We're getting towards the end of our Organisational Development process, and there's lots of new developments:
- we've welcomed Harriet Anscombe to the team as Administrator.
- our brilliant production manager Helen Mugridge has become a company director alongside Hannah, Liam and Ric.
- regular collaborator Lewis Hetherington has formally become an associate artist.
- and we've become an Associate Company of Shoreditch Town Hall in London, alongside our long-term associate relationship at the brilliant Farnham Maltings (where we're now administratively based).

Most excitingly, we've developed a three year plan with four brand new touring theatre productions, a series of intimate audio experiences, a pilot for a radio series and more.  We'll be sharing information about all of that soon.

For now, we're thinking about audiences.  As part of this development period, we're wanting to learn a bit more about our audience or those people who are interested in the work of the company (ie you!), before we build a brand new website (to replace this rather basic blog site) and tweak the Analogue brand.

We want to understand who you all are a little better; we want to find out why you come to see our work; and most importantly, we really want to know what you think about it.  Developing our understanding of these areas will really help us improve the ways we communicate with you, and will help us grow our audience in years to come.

We'd love you to fill in this small questionnaire for us, if you have a spare few minutes.  As a thank you for taking the time to complete it, we'll enter you into a draw and later in the Summer we'll give one of you a brand new iPad mini.  The questionnaire can be found here:

ANALOGUE AUDIENCE SURVEY

Thanking you in advance.
Hannah, Helen, Liam and Ric
Analogue

Happy 2013!

2013 is going to be an exciting year for Analogue.

We're currently in the first phases of an Organisational Development project, funded by Arts Council England, which gives us the opportunity to really think about the company's future, develop our business model and build a brand new online home for Analogue.  This work will take place throughout the Spring, with a new site launching in early Summer.

Around that time, we'll be working on our next show - an evolution of a piece we developed in Autumn 2012 as one of the shortlisted projects for the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust awards, which you should be able to see in Autumn 2013.  Details will be on the new site when it launches.

And throughout the year, we'll also be developing two new shows that will premiere in 2014 - both promise to be exciting next steps for Analogue, details of which are under wraps for now.

Thanks for all your ongoing support - here's to a great 2013 for you and for us!

love
Hannah, Helen, Liam and Ric
Team Analogue

Patient HM Behind the Brain: A free event to mark the end of the 2401 Objects tour...

Patient HM: Behind the Brain

18 May 2012, 3pm, Theatre Royal Plymouth Drum

An Arts/Science outreach event in association with Analogue Theatre Company, The Wellcome Trust and the 2012 international tour of 2401 Objects

ABOUT PATIENT HM

'In 1953 Dr William Beecher Scoville removed the hippocampi from Henry Molaison's brain and left us with this artefact – which sort of makes archaeologists of us all – this artefact, Patient H.M.'

Henry Molaison died in 2008, endowing one of the most important brain in the modern history of medicine to The Brain Observatory at the University of California, headed by neuroanatomist Jacopo Annese.

In 2009, Annese and his team dissected H.M.’s brain into 2401 slices, live on the internet. The aim? To create, with the help of other donors, an equivalent of a Google map of the brain that would allow us to delve deep into its recesses and learn about its finer details so that we may gain a better understanding of neurological disorders in the future.

Analogue were among the 400,000 watching that live brain dissection. It spawned the beginning of a show that later became known as 2401 Objects.

ABOUT THE EVENT

How do we reconcile a person with their brain? What have we learnt from Patient HM? And what will become of the 2401 Objects? As part of the tour of the award-winning 2401 Objects at Theatre Royal Plymouth Drum, Analogue, in association with The Wellcome Trust, invite you to join them for an afternoon of eye-opening, interactive activity with neuroscientists from all over the country.

This includes a Q&A with the scientist behind HM’s live brain dissection, Dr Jacopo Annese, who will be joining us via live link up from The Brain Observatory in San Diego; and interactive activities offered by Dr Thomas Wennekers and his team at the Centre for Robotic and Neural Systems (CRNS) and the Cognition Institute, University of Plymouth.

Between 3 – 5pm on Friday 18 May 2012 we will be offering the opportunity for our audiences to ask questions, meet experts and take part in hands-on neuro-inspired systematic experiences and see for themselves first hand what Patient HM has taught us and more generally how our brains work.

BOOKING DETAILS

To book a free  ticket for the event contact: sarah.field@theatreroyal.com 01752 230410. 

For more information on booking tickets for 2401 Objects playing at the Drum from Tue 15 – Sat 19 May 2012 at 7.45pm visit here. 

2401 Objects coming to a theatre near you...

2401 Objects will be making its way around the country and further afield over the coming months. All the dates are below so bring friends and family and come and say hi after the show - we love to meet our audiences...

March

Fri 9/ Sat 10          The Brewhouse Taunton

Wed 14                 The Junction Cambridge

Thu 22                  The Point Eastleigh

Wed 28/ Thu 29    Harrogate Theatre Harrogate

Fri 30/ Sat 31        Traverse Theatre Edinburgh

April

Fri 13/ Sat 14         Derby Theatre Derby

Tue 17                   Parabola Arts Centre Cheltenham

Thu 19                   The Civic Barnsley

Tue 24/ Wed 25     ARC Stockton-on-Tees

Sat 28/ Sun 29      Pazz Festival Oldenburg, Germany

May

Thu 3/ Fri 4            Oldenburg Staatstheater Oldenburg, Germany

Wed 9                    The Lowry Salford

Sat 12                    The Dukes Lancaster

Tue 15-Sat 19        Drum Theatre Plymouth

The product of a non-product driven process...

It is so often the way that before you know what show you are making, you are required to summarise your project into a pitch, in order to secure money enough to make it.

Of no more than [number] words please describe your idea and indicate all intended outcomes and audience outreach… Upon receipt of funding, please display the appropriate logo of no smaller than [size] in all publicity and be sure to [list of rules to which your company must comply in order to be eligible]… Following your funded period of R&D it is a requirement that by means of scratch, feedback forms or other materials, please supply evidence of your impact on [list of demographic groups]…

Having just returned from the Darkroom, an initiative devised and organised by China Plate where two companies are invited on a two-week blind date with two writers, I am now convinced there is a better way to get the most out of an artist.

I will admit to having my doubts before embarking on the Darkroom: What’s the catch? What do the organisers of a non-product driven initiative get out of this? And how do they sell something without a tangible output to an output-orientated funding body?

However it now occurs to me that these producers know a little something about the ingredients needed to create a product and that, in fact, a product can take on many forms. So perhaps there is no such thing as a non-product driven process? For whether you leave the Darkroom with a Three Act play, 400 pages of beautiful prose, the solution to that troublesome stumbling block in your process which has long been responsible for the flaw in your final shows, a regained pleasure in making work with your collaborators, or simply the knowledge that you don’t want to - or can’t - continue as you have, a product will emerge.

They choose companies that find themselves at a very particular point in their development, a point 5 or so years into their company’s life, where they are attempting to define themselves and, in part, the act of doing so is affecting how they make work. They are asking themselves who they are, how they are perceived, whether they are enjoying themselves, what they need, who they need, who they are, what they want as individuals and what that means to their collaborative work. They have experienced the ecstatic highs and crushing lows that come with the industry and have an understanding of how life can get in the way both to the detriment and the benefit of the work they make. And mostly they want to know, what next?

Returning from the Darkroom, I am awash with what I have learnt and fearful that I may not be able to keep hold of it. I feel armed with the teachings of an invaluable exposure to an entirely different writing process and excited at a potential piece of work that didn’t exist in any form whatsoever less than two weeks ago. But also there is everything in between. The stuff that would not fit into the cordoned off answer boxes on a funding application.

In the middle of nowhere, there is the space and distance you are allowed from the common distractions that hamper your creativity, the knowledge that someone is looking after you, relieving you of the day-to-day routines that otherwise occupy your mind. There is the enlightening conversations with those five to ten years your senior over a pint or an avocado and marmite sandwich where both the more and less experienced leave having learnt a little something about where they are and what they might want in the future. There’s the opportunity to witness another company’s process, share the concerns and difficulties that you think are just your own but are in fact everyone’s, and identify what might be lacking from your own work by the impact of theirs on you, without any sense of competition.

Of course this is a luxury and it would be naïve to expect such an opportunity from every working process from now on. And yet why shouldn’t we demand more of this kind of thinking? Why does the Darkroom stand alone among a sea of initiatives with a very one-dimensional view of product? We have long since known that arts do not deliver in the same way as other sectors – proven if nothing else by our annual wrestle with HM Revenue and Customs – so I wonder why it has not had more of an effect on the opportunities offered to artists to encourage them to make work?

Either way, we feel very lucky to have been involved in the Darkroom and grateful for the combination of artists, thinkers and facilitators that made it what it was. It is no overestimation to declare that Analogue has only been made better by this opportunity, the difficulty China Plate has, of course, is how they communicate that to their future funders…

Analogue meets the world of Neuroscience: The Man Behind the Brain, University of Edinburgh, 2011

After the final performance of the award-winning 2401Objects at the Edinburgh Festival on 28th August 2011 Analogue, in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh and supported by Wellcome Trust, brought together Professor Richard Morris (Neuroscientist at the Centre for Neural and Cognitive Systems at Edinburgh University) and Dr Jacopo Annese (Via live video link up from his lab at The Brain Observatory at the University of California) together with members of our team to discuss The Man Behind the Brain.


Attended by in excess of 150 people, this cross-discipline event offered the opportunity for the general public to access experts at the cutting edge of their field who had met Henry Molaison in his lifetime.

We were keen that audiences should be able to ask questions - both ethical and technical - that came out of the show and to have the opportunity to hear directly from those involved in Henry's case about the details of his condition and equally what we can learn from him in the future.

Edited by the very talented Alex Markham, click here to watch the event.

An incredible Edinburgh for Analogue's 2401 Objects...

A big thank you to everyone who came and saw 2401 Objects in Edinburgh - It has been an absolutely incredible year for Analogue up at the festival!

Our last show on 28th August was followed by a very special Q&A event entitled 'The Man Behind the Brain'. Organised in association with the University of Edinburgh and supported by Wellcome Trust, we heard presentations from Professor Richard Morris, Neuroscientist at the Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems who met Henry Molaison in his lifetime, and Dr Jacopo Annese, the neuroscientist who cut HM's brain into 2401 slices, who joined us via live Skype link from The Brain Observatory in San Diego. Attended by over 150 people, we organised the event to allow audiences the opportunity to ask questions that emerged out of watching the performance. The event was filmed and we will make the edited video available online very soon.

Having returned from Scotland just a few days ago, we are already in Exeter where the show has been invited to be part of a new and exciting annual conference entitled Isolated Acts at the University of Exeter on 2nd September.

2401 Objects is due to tour in Spring 2012, but for now here is a brief round-up of how the show was received up at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2011...

Winner of a Fringe First 2011

Short-listed for the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award 2011

**** The Scotsman Hot Show

**** The Times

**** The Telegraph

**** The Sunday Times

**** Exuent Magazine

**** Broadway Baby

**** Three Weeks

**** Fringe Guru

**** WhatsOnStage

**** Edinburgh Fringe Review

***** Theatre Review London

'Pick of the Festival' The Sunday Express'

'2401 Objects is a solid, well-researched piece of theatre that adds to Analogue's ever-growing canon of work.'  Total Theatre Magazine