Nominate us - go on! Please, please, please...
If you could, take a moment to nominate an audio play I'm rather pleased with - it's a solo play The Project After and features two great performers, but we're hoping for a general production nomination. Below are the details - it takes literally thirty seconds if you're a fast typer. Obviously, I wouldn't want you to nominate something without listening to it first, so here it is in the player below. If you like it then follow the instructions underneath. Any questions, tweet me @RobertCrighton
How to nominate us...
1. Go to - www.audioverseawards.net/site/nominate
2. Enter your name/details
3. Enter nomination for PRODUCTION
4. Click next
5. Add the show name - The Project After
6. Put in the full link - https://audioboom.com/posts/6144050-the-project-after-by-robert-crighton
7. Submit for one lonely episode
8. That it's over twenty minutes
9. That there are no more than 6 actors
10. That it's a Drama
11. And that, Yes, it's new
Showing posts with label the project after. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the project after. Show all posts
Monday, 18 September 2017
Wednesday, 26 July 2017
The Project After - New Audio Version
I've finally finished editing and producing the last audio version of Fantasy Terrorist plays, The Project After. The previous two plays were online the other year, but the last has taken longer, partly because I wanted to get the original cast together, but also because there was another version online and that took any sense of urgency out of the equation.
I am now working on creating a whole new sequence of works that will play around the world of the War on Terror, so finishing this trilogy seemed important. Each play can be listened to separately, or together, they exist on their own, but there are little links between each. Ideally start with Fantasy Terrorist League, then Keynote Speaker and then The Project After acts as a little coda.
Thanks to the original cast, Keith Hill and Simon Nader, for recording this on location one very windy day this spring.
The Project After by Robert Crighton
With Keith Hill as Mark and Simon Nader as Art
Fantasy Terrorist League - written and performed by Robert Crighton
Keynote Speaker - written by Robert Crighton
With Simon Nader as Sir John Spencer
The Project After - by Robert Crighton
Alternative version by Frequency Theatre (External Link) - http://www.frequencytheatre.co.uk/play/the-project-after/
A Little Learning - by Robert Crighton
I am now working on creating a whole new sequence of works that will play around the world of the War on Terror, so finishing this trilogy seemed important. Each play can be listened to separately, or together, they exist on their own, but there are little links between each. Ideally start with Fantasy Terrorist League, then Keynote Speaker and then The Project After acts as a little coda.
Thanks to the original cast, Keith Hill and Simon Nader, for recording this on location one very windy day this spring.
The Project After by Robert Crighton
With Keith Hill as Mark and Simon Nader as Art
Fantasy Terrorist League - written and performed by Robert Crighton
Keynote Speaker - written by Robert Crighton
With Simon Nader as Sir John Spencer
The Project After - by Robert Crighton
Alternative version by Frequency Theatre (External Link) - http://www.frequencytheatre.co.uk/play/the-project-after/
A Little Learning - by Robert Crighton
Saturday, 10 September 2016
Fifteen Years
It's fifteen years since the World Trade Center was attacked on September 11th 2001. I find it hard to believe it was so long ago. Could it really be so long since the world took that turn, a turn largely for the worse?
In the aftermath of the attacks it became very clear, very quickly, that a knee jerk reaction of violence and aggression was the worst possible course of action, and that this was precisely where the world was headed. The wars that followed 9/11, and the wars that have fed off them, seem no nearer to burning out.
Since 9/11, intolerance of different cultures has increased, terrorism has got worse, religious fundamentalism in its many guises has retrenched, and millions of people are on the road possibly never to return home. In my home country there have been many attacks on our way of life, both physically and in legislation - especially in terms of civil liberties that in some places are in open rout.
Within a day of the attacks I'd started to write about them - mostly not very well. My first effort was presented a year after the events and was truly awful. I feel quite ashamed of it, but I was only twenty at the time. It took me a few years to find what I needed to write about - and, since 2005, our failed response to terror as a society has been a major part of my work.
On this anniversary of those attacks I'm releasing as radio dramas two short plays I wrote around ten years ago - both are about how terror is a catch all excuse to take our rights away. The first is Fantasy Terrorist League, which is about the abuse of detainees, torture and internment. The follow up, Keynote Speaker, was a comic variation to the original story - about a man who wants to get interned so that he could sue the government for compensation. I had hoped these two plays would cease to be relevant after a few years, but both keep popping up. They are available to listen for free, for the first time, see below.
I have recorded a number of variations on this theme - a related but slightly different story is The Project After which another company recorded a few years ago and is linked below. It's a short comedy about censorship, often self censorship, in the modern world - I presented it with the first two plays as The Fantasy Terrorist Variations in 2012.
Lastly, there's the short drama, A Little Learning, based on accounts of the kidnapped school children in Nigeria, but which has been a repeated troupe throughout history. Whilst all the plays below have their moments, that is the only piece I would class as requiring a trigger warning - loath them though I do.
Despite the generally depressing nature of these events in the world, there is hope. Hope that if we treat people with decency and don't club innocents in with genuine 'evil doers', then we might get through the next few decades with our humanity intact. I'm currently planning a large scale account of the post 9/11 world. I fervently hope it will become swiftly irrelevant and that the audiences wonder what the fuss is about.
Fantasy Terrorist League - written and performed by Robert Crighton
Keynote Speaker - written by Robert Crighton
With Simon Nader as Sir John Spencer
The Project After - by Robert Crighton
External Link - http://www.frequencytheatre.co.uk/play/the-project-after/
A Little Learning - by Robert Crighton
In the aftermath of the attacks it became very clear, very quickly, that a knee jerk reaction of violence and aggression was the worst possible course of action, and that this was precisely where the world was headed. The wars that followed 9/11, and the wars that have fed off them, seem no nearer to burning out.
Since 9/11, intolerance of different cultures has increased, terrorism has got worse, religious fundamentalism in its many guises has retrenched, and millions of people are on the road possibly never to return home. In my home country there have been many attacks on our way of life, both physically and in legislation - especially in terms of civil liberties that in some places are in open rout.
Within a day of the attacks I'd started to write about them - mostly not very well. My first effort was presented a year after the events and was truly awful. I feel quite ashamed of it, but I was only twenty at the time. It took me a few years to find what I needed to write about - and, since 2005, our failed response to terror as a society has been a major part of my work.
On this anniversary of those attacks I'm releasing as radio dramas two short plays I wrote around ten years ago - both are about how terror is a catch all excuse to take our rights away. The first is Fantasy Terrorist League, which is about the abuse of detainees, torture and internment. The follow up, Keynote Speaker, was a comic variation to the original story - about a man who wants to get interned so that he could sue the government for compensation. I had hoped these two plays would cease to be relevant after a few years, but both keep popping up. They are available to listen for free, for the first time, see below.
I have recorded a number of variations on this theme - a related but slightly different story is The Project After which another company recorded a few years ago and is linked below. It's a short comedy about censorship, often self censorship, in the modern world - I presented it with the first two plays as The Fantasy Terrorist Variations in 2012.
Lastly, there's the short drama, A Little Learning, based on accounts of the kidnapped school children in Nigeria, but which has been a repeated troupe throughout history. Whilst all the plays below have their moments, that is the only piece I would class as requiring a trigger warning - loath them though I do.
Despite the generally depressing nature of these events in the world, there is hope. Hope that if we treat people with decency and don't club innocents in with genuine 'evil doers', then we might get through the next few decades with our humanity intact. I'm currently planning a large scale account of the post 9/11 world. I fervently hope it will become swiftly irrelevant and that the audiences wonder what the fuss is about.
Fantasy Terrorist League - written and performed by Robert Crighton
Keynote Speaker - written by Robert Crighton
With Simon Nader as Sir John Spencer
The Project After - by Robert Crighton
External Link - http://www.frequencytheatre.co.uk/play/the-project-after/
A Little Learning - by Robert Crighton
Wednesday, 7 January 2015
Responding to Attack...
Even though I've been online all day, didn't pick up on what was happening in France until now. It's another blow against everything I believe in - freedom of expression, freedom of thought. It's violence as a weapon to stop people from saying what they think. It seems to have been happening with greater frequency every year - despite the opportunities of the internet and technology to open ideas to the world there are those who are determined to stop this and are willing to kill to do it. They attack satirists, writers, teachers, poets, artists and anyone who happens to be around them at the time. And with every attack we are tempted to say less. We question whether we should risk saying anything. And so they win.
My natural reaction to events like this is to write, to create, and many people have already done so. Cartoonists and artists are posting images on twitter at a rate of knots at the moment. I haven't quite got that far yet. I'm still a bit numb. But I've written a number of pieces about this over the years - and I've a new piece coming very soon which is in editing hell - but I think this is the best work I written about self censorship in art. It's called The Project After - and it can be heard here.
http://www.frequencytheatre.co.uk/theprojectafter.htm
When I first presented this piece I also put together a trailer for it and this video sums up the choices we face rather well. It's only a few seconds long. Have a watch.
Finally, my thoughts are with those who lost someone today in these attacks, and with everyone who stands up for freedom of expression, of learning, of thought anywhere in the world.
My natural reaction to events like this is to write, to create, and many people have already done so. Cartoonists and artists are posting images on twitter at a rate of knots at the moment. I haven't quite got that far yet. I'm still a bit numb. But I've written a number of pieces about this over the years - and I've a new piece coming very soon which is in editing hell - but I think this is the best work I written about self censorship in art. It's called The Project After - and it can be heard here.
http://www.frequencytheatre.co.uk/theprojectafter.htm
When I first presented this piece I also put together a trailer for it and this video sums up the choices we face rather well. It's only a few seconds long. Have a watch.
Finally, my thoughts are with those who lost someone today in these attacks, and with everyone who stands up for freedom of expression, of learning, of thought anywhere in the world.
Wednesday, 14 August 2013
Recording 'The Project After'
The Project After - discussed below - can be heard here.
"Just got back from recording 'The Project After' with Frequency Theatre. Fucking knackered..." was the less than subtle post I made last night about a little trip to Colchester. For those new to me, and those who know this blog well but have not been paying attention (quiet at the back there), here's some background.
The Project After was a play I wrote as part of a series of short plays now collectively known as The Fantasy Terrorist Variations which has been quietly growing over the past decade or so. The Project After is the latest performed addition (technically Variation 3) and was premiered at the Barons Court Theatre last November. It is a tricksy little play, designed to provoke thought and unease among'st those watching (or very soon, listening). The run at Barons Court was well received but shorter than planned and seen by few people, so it's still in the category of 'unfinished business' and ripe for revival.
Frequency Theatre is an online audio play producer, based in Colchester. I've done a few recordings with them over the last year and passed on the script, which they liked very much. So, I got cheeky and asked if I could be in the play as well. They said yes.
The studio is based in an arts project called Slack Space, utilising the slack space (hence the name) in an unused retail outlet - I believe the old co-op store. So, off I toddled and met up with Bethany Sharp-McLeod the director and Tom Edwards my fellow actor. I was determined to not talk too much, not to impose myself and make it difficult for the director to do her job. I think I got the balance reasonably right, I wasn't not going to talk about my play and the ideas within it, but then again I could be deluding myself and Beth wanted me to die for not shutting up. I did have a coffee before hand (which I really shouldn't have), so I might have been a bit high.
Anyway, we chatted about the play, read it twice and chatted some more. We were all pretty much on the same wavelength, no one was missing the point of the play, I was very happy.
Then we stood up in front of mics and actually did it. And fuck me, to quote myself, it was exhausting. It's twenty plus minutes of two people having a bit of a go at each other and my legs were shaking after just a few minutes into the first take - which was a straight run through. When I directed it for London I don't recall the cast complaining about exhaustion - maybe I wasn't listening? But then again, if by the end you aren't drained, have you really given it your best? Discuss.
The problem for me was trying to get the old show out of my head - both in the sense I didn't want to play my character Mark as Keith Hill did (you're not getting royalties if I did) and in the sense that the pauses and flow of the dialogue was different because different actors find different rhythms. It helped that Beth gave me many slightly different directions for certain lines; I couldn't do it the way Keith did it before, I had been told to do it differently. Which was useful.
We (well I) crawled out after the recording well after 10 o'clock and made my way home. I stopped briefly in a pub for a swift one and sat in a comfy armchair and tried to switch off. Shouldn't have had the coffee. Shouldn't really have had the beer. But I'm glad I did. In the background Elvis was playing. A gentle refrain, to which I quietly hummed along. And then it hit me that it was a perfect song to go in a play I'm planning to do next year. Out came the notebook.
So, regardless of how the recording comes out (and it comes out on Friday, free online) I'm delighted to have done it - because if I hadn't come to Colchester and done the play and felt so knackered I needed a sit down, I wouldn't have been reminded of the music that changed the whole direction of a play that hopefully you'll get to see next year... something something something the House that Jack Built.
"Just got back from recording 'The Project After' with Frequency Theatre. Fucking knackered..." was the less than subtle post I made last night about a little trip to Colchester. For those new to me, and those who know this blog well but have not been paying attention (quiet at the back there), here's some background.
The Project After was a play I wrote as part of a series of short plays now collectively known as The Fantasy Terrorist Variations which has been quietly growing over the past decade or so. The Project After is the latest performed addition (technically Variation 3) and was premiered at the Barons Court Theatre last November. It is a tricksy little play, designed to provoke thought and unease among'st those watching (or very soon, listening). The run at Barons Court was well received but shorter than planned and seen by few people, so it's still in the category of 'unfinished business' and ripe for revival.
Frequency Theatre is an online audio play producer, based in Colchester. I've done a few recordings with them over the last year and passed on the script, which they liked very much. So, I got cheeky and asked if I could be in the play as well. They said yes.
The studio is based in an arts project called Slack Space, utilising the slack space (hence the name) in an unused retail outlet - I believe the old co-op store. So, off I toddled and met up with Bethany Sharp-McLeod the director and Tom Edwards my fellow actor. I was determined to not talk too much, not to impose myself and make it difficult for the director to do her job. I think I got the balance reasonably right, I wasn't not going to talk about my play and the ideas within it, but then again I could be deluding myself and Beth wanted me to die for not shutting up. I did have a coffee before hand (which I really shouldn't have), so I might have been a bit high.
Anyway, we chatted about the play, read it twice and chatted some more. We were all pretty much on the same wavelength, no one was missing the point of the play, I was very happy.
Then we stood up in front of mics and actually did it. And fuck me, to quote myself, it was exhausting. It's twenty plus minutes of two people having a bit of a go at each other and my legs were shaking after just a few minutes into the first take - which was a straight run through. When I directed it for London I don't recall the cast complaining about exhaustion - maybe I wasn't listening? But then again, if by the end you aren't drained, have you really given it your best? Discuss.
The problem for me was trying to get the old show out of my head - both in the sense I didn't want to play my character Mark as Keith Hill did (you're not getting royalties if I did) and in the sense that the pauses and flow of the dialogue was different because different actors find different rhythms. It helped that Beth gave me many slightly different directions for certain lines; I couldn't do it the way Keith did it before, I had been told to do it differently. Which was useful.
We (well I) crawled out after the recording well after 10 o'clock and made my way home. I stopped briefly in a pub for a swift one and sat in a comfy armchair and tried to switch off. Shouldn't have had the coffee. Shouldn't really have had the beer. But I'm glad I did. In the background Elvis was playing. A gentle refrain, to which I quietly hummed along. And then it hit me that it was a perfect song to go in a play I'm planning to do next year. Out came the notebook.
So, regardless of how the recording comes out (and it comes out on Friday, free online) I'm delighted to have done it - because if I hadn't come to Colchester and done the play and felt so knackered I needed a sit down, I wouldn't have been reminded of the music that changed the whole direction of a play that hopefully you'll get to see next year... something something something the House that Jack Built.
Thursday, 6 December 2012
Pictures of the Fantasy League
Usual plea, buy tickets, etc...
And now some pictures... I haven't done any work to them - there are a couple that will need adjusting... but I'm rushing around at the moment so here they are. All photos (bar one) from The Fantasy Terrorist Variations.
And now some pictures... I haven't done any work to them - there are a couple that will need adjusting... but I'm rushing around at the moment so here they are. All photos (bar one) from The Fantasy Terrorist Variations.
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| Keith Hill in Fantasy Terrorist League |
 |
| Keith again, in The Project After |
 |
| Robert Crighton... mucking about with camera |
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| Simon Nader in Keynote Speaker |
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| Simon Nader in The Project After - sans trousers |
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| Keith and Simon in The Project After |
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