Proto-type Theater

Presented by Contact + Word of Warning

####In Brief A tangle of relationships, technologies and a live laptop orchestra; an operatic and lushly visual take on Camus’s L’Etranger.

Watch trailer here.

####Venue + Booking Details
Date: Tuesday 18 February 2014, 8pm
Venue: Contact, Oxford Road, Manchester, M15 6JA
Tickets: £11/6 | Special offer: buy ten + get one free
Box Office Tel: 0161 274 0600

####Access Information
The performance lasts approximately 70 minutes with no interval; it is entirely sung with a live, generated sound-track (Proto-type can can provide a copy of the lyrics in advance, please email info@habarts.org); there are large-scale projections. Age advisory: 14+

####Q&A
Following a short break, there will be a post-show talk with the company.

####More
A show that steals its style from the gig, the opera and the recital; a music-driven piece of theatre like no other — The Good, the God and the Guillotine is a personal answer to the universal question, inspired by a reading of Albert Camus’ powerful 1942 novel L’Étranger (The Stranger).

A long walk, the beach. A fight, a murder. The heat, and the barking of dogs. We’re travelling out of the sun and towards darkness.

Three performers and three laptop musicians create an atmospheric, cross-genre journey through a tangle of relationships and technologies, all set against reactive objects, lights and hand-drawn animations.

Proto-type Theater, collaborating with the musician/composers of MMUle, lighting designer Rebecca M. K. Makus and animator Adam York Gregory, present a performance sung and spoken across thirteen distinct chapters.

####Who are they?
Proto-type Theater are a company of multi-disciplinary artists interested in live performance. They make original theatre and media work that is diverse in scale, subject and medium. Currently, they are exploring distributed narrative, city as source/site, the relationship between technology and intimacy, the sung-through format of music theatre and the nature of love and death.

Proto-type are an ensemble company, based in Manchester and led by Co-Artistic Directors Gillian Lees, Rachel Baynton and Andrew Westerside. Their work has been performed throughout England and in the US, Korea, Zimbabwe, Armenia, Scotland, Russia, China and Mongolia.

The company experiments with different media and forms, developing site and subject responsive work and have made (amongst other things) installation work in a Roman garden in Chester, multi-media theatre that unravels the stereotype of American suburbia, a two-week long performance-experience for pervasive technologies, a delicate two-hander that looks at the mythology surrounding two of history’s most notorious criminals and a unique sight-read performance for a revolving cast of 3 performers that has been performed hundreds of times in locations across the globe. All of their work has a focus on precise execution and in making complicated material accessible.

####What people have said about them
Two 4* reviews of TGTGATG at Contact, by The Public Reviews + the Good review.
Two previews of TGTGATG at Contact, by Manchester Confidential + The Skinny.

This is beautifully crafted stuff that has a broader relevance and audience than a traditional theatre company based in one city could manage.
Tina Jackson, The Metro (Manchester)
… one of the more adventurous, innovative, and worthy cutting-edge groups that I know of.
Martin Denton, The New York Theatre Experience

####Credits
Directed by Andrew Westerside. Concept + text by Peter S. Petralia. Performed + devised by Leentje van de Cruys, Gillian Lees, Andrew Westerside + MMUle (Martin Blain, Nick Donovan, Jonas Hummel + Paul J. Rogers). Original music composed by Blain, Donovan + Rogers. Lighting design by Rebecca M. K. Makus. Animation by Adam York Gregory. Dramaturgy by Rachel Baynton + Jane Turner. Production Manager David McBride
Commissioned by Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, Manchester Metropolitan University (Crewe) and Tramway (Glasgow). Supported by Live at LICA. Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

####Websites
http://proto-type.org | @Proto_type