The Lost Room, a unique immersive performance experience first seen at Greenwich Dance and Greenwich Theatre has now been custom-built and will be resident at Greenwich Theatre during the last week of May and first week of June.
The room takes just two people at a time who enter without any actors or performers, wearing headphones with some music and narrative asking them to crack codes, solve puzzles and create parts of their own story. "It's up to them to take control of the experience," said James Haddrell, Greenwich Theatre's Artistic and Executive and Director.
The Lost Room started life last year after Greenwich Dance and Greenwich Theatre teamed up to offer a small financial commission for an artistic project that could be enjoyed by people from two different generations at the same time.
The winning submission came from a company called Art of Disappearing - Tristan Shorr and Rachel Champion based in Brighton - who came up with the idea for The Lost Room.
"We had a trial run of some of the features planned for the room at Greenwich Theatre and at Greenwich Dance, without the bespoke room that's been built, and the feedback from people that participated was brilliant. It was particularly interesting to see adults and children together because children are so much freer in their reactions and tended to encourage the adults to get involved."
After the pilot run, the
Arts Council contributed £15,000 to the next stage of the project and a Kickstarter campaign raised another £2,500, enabling the company to have the room fully constructed.
"Basically you create your own stories in The Lost Room while you're in there, which is so different from what theatre audiences are used to. At Greenwich Theatre we try to confound people's expectations with a show that works in a different way or in a different space, and that's what The Lost Room does."
The Lost Room has been built by furniture maker Joe Pipal, who studied product design at the Royal College of Art and cabinet making at London Guildhall University.
"I studied with Tristan and I designed The Lost Room with them when they ran the pilot last year," said Joe. "It's a wooden, oak-panelled room held together by a network of steel galvanised tubes. The panels are bolted together so they can be dissembled and reassembled for other venues. We will install it at Greenwich Theatre a day or two before the show. It was nice to work with Art of Disappearing because they had a particular vision in mind and felt passionate about it."
The short two-week run of the Lost Room is already attracting visitors from major theatre, art galleries and performance venues from across the country.
"It's definitely a very special project," Haddrell concluded. "We have presented theatre all round the building and all round the borough, we've had shows in offices and shows in fields, but we've never done anything quite like this - and when the room is on tour around the country, we'll be able to say it all started in Greenwich." *The Lost Room runs from Tuesday, May 26, to Monday, June 8. Suitable for ages 8+ Tickets: £11, concessions £8.50 (includes £1 booking fee)
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