Shock Waves

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Shock Waves: Playwright and Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah

Playwright and Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah

BBC Radio 4 - Shock Waves, Playwright and Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah

Kwame Kwei-Armah explores the impact of the pandemic on the future of theatre.

Kwame Kwei-Armah looks at how theatre makers have been responding to the past year, the role technology has played, and how theatre-going might change in future.

When a shockwave hits the world, how do artists respond? Public performance has all but halted, silence and solitude reign in our performance spaces and places. In this five part series, artists chronicle how they have responded to the crisis over the past year and the challenge of performance. Dare they dream and imagine what work might emerge out of the pandemic?

In the fourth episode of the series, Kwame Kwei-Armah, playwright and artistic director of the Young Vic in London, looks at how theatre makers have been responding to the past year.  

Canadian playwright Jordan Tannahill was in pre-production in Germany with his play on the climate crisis, 'Is my microphone on?', when the lockdown began, and has had to pivot towards other kinds of writing since March 2020.  Already at the cutting edge of technology and theatre before the pandemic with his Virtual Reality piece 'Draw me Close', Jordan reflects on how VR and other innovations that have come to the fore over the past year might continue to have a role when theatres open again.  In looking at the kind of work that might come out of the hearts, minds and souls of theatre makers in future, and how technology will feed into that, Kwame also talks to actor and writer Daniel Bailey of London-based arts collective The Palace of the Dogs.  Daniel reveals the impact of the summer of racial reckoning on his work, and how he's had the chance to reflect on the changes that he thinks theatre needs to undergo when it returns, to reflect a changed world.

And with Kirsty Sedgman, Lecturer in theatre at the University of Bristol, Kwame considers how the move to communicating online with audiences has opened up new possibilities, and what it means for theatre-going in future.


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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Five artists chronicle how they have responded to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Five artists chronicle how they have responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. Dare they dream and imagine what work might emerge out of the crisis?

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