Chronic Insanity Will Open A New Venue in Nottingham's Cave System

Nottingham-based theatre company Chronic Insanity are to launch a new, intimate multi-discipline arts venue in the system of caves below the city. The Void will become the city's first dedicated performance space to be housed in one of the 544 currently discovered subterranean dwellings, housing atmospheric and intimate work that takes advantage of the space's unique surroundings. It will be the company's main producing space for their multi-discipline work.

The venue's launch season will include What Really Happened To Vine?, a new digital-theatre piece that investigates the demise of popular social media platform Vine. The production will be shown in the venue with accompanying live elements, whilst also being accessible to those who cannot make it to the venue. Medusa Reloaded, written by Nicki Morley, is a new piece of gig theatre based on Medusa and the Gorgons, and a bespoke horror escape room experience developed with The Void's unique ambience in mind, entitled Penumbra.

The concept for The Void has been developed with affordability in mind, giving artistis and companies, both local and touring, a low-cost space to rehearse and showcase their work to intimate audiences. Chronic Insanity also will give opportunities to their stable of associate artists to develop new work, as well as working with their digital literary department (which is the first of its kind in the UK). The digital literary department welcomes applications from writers with little-to-no experience, and offers workshops as well as the opportunity to have work produced.

Chronic Insanity are building accessibility into its productions, vision for the space, with each production available online on-demand, and will feature captioning and audio description, utilising Artistic Director Joe Strickland's experiences working with Liverpool's accessibility-focused organisation DaDa to ensure access for those who cannot visit the venue in person.

Artistic Director Joe Strickland said, "We see so much creativity happening in Nottingham and we love the challenge of creating theatre for a particular found space, of which Nottingham has many. However, it can be hard to find these spaces and convince the people who own or run them to let performances take place there. So, now that we've found one, we want to be able to easily and affordably offer that option to other creatives in the East Midlands, and even further afield. With the sprawling network of caves and underground tunnels under Nottingham it's the perfect place for a subterranean performance space that can suit all styles of theatre, immersive experience, and exhibition. Normally a lot of theatre makers only write or envisage work for those spaces that they have access to so that their work has the best chance of getting put on. We're here to tell you all that we have a cave system and we want your performances to happen here. Let's get creative!"

Chronic Insanity is a Nottingham based theatre company that creates and facilitates live events in a variety of traditional, found, and digital spaces. They make work accessibly, affordably, sustainably, and inclusively, and seek to change the definition of what theatre can be by playing with form, genre, medium, and technology. They follow Staging Change guidelines, actively providing opportunities for theatre makers from all backgrounds, and record how each production is made so people can learn from them. Chronic Insanity run the UK's first dedicated digital theatre literary department, and recently began a new scheme of producing twelve shows in twelve months.

Listings information

The Void, 107 Upper Parliament St, Nottingham, NG1 6LA

What Really Happened To Vine? | 26th Sept

Mon 7.30pm

£5 | thevoidnottingham.com

Medusa Reloaded | 30th Sept - 1st Oct

Fri 7.30pm, Sat 2.30pm & 7.30pm

£10, £8 conc. | thevoidnottingham.com

Penumbra | 31st Oct - 6th Nov

Mon-Sun 12pm, 2pm, 4pm & 6pm

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