OVERVIEW – THE WALL
We are looking for four actors for our new production of The Wall, co-produced with Teatro de La Abadia in Madrid and funded by a British Council International Collaboration Grant.
We require performers to be based in Bristol or the South West, and to be available for five mornings of work from 11 – 21 November 2022.
The sessions will last from 10am – 2pm (including a break) and will be paid at £80 per session. We are unable to cover travel and accommodation expenses.
We are looking for performers who fit the following criteria:
- Speakers of second languages – especially Arabic, Spanish, French, Mandinga, Wolof, Lingala, Bielorussian and Russian
- People with lived experience or a family history of migration
- Confident with improvisation, and have an interest and ability with live translation
- Interested in collaborating as part of an international ensemble, working together remotely as well as in person to devise and create
- People of all ages, gender identities, backgrounds and abilities are warmly encouraged to apply
About the project
The Wall is a co-production between two theatres and a collaboration of artists in several countries.
It is a piece of documentary theatre that will bring to the stage structured conversations between bodies who are unable to meet physically.
A virtual live encounter between two people who aren’t there physically will take place in front of an audience. This encounter is projected onscreen and is also embodied by two actors onstage, in an exercise of real time verbatim.
The two people who are not in the theatre, will be in other countries from which they can’t travel. This may be due to their rights being decimated for political reasons or impediments of a different nature (economical, physical condition, age, etc.). The two actors translate simultaneously and also embody the person talking.
The project explores the impossibility of travelling and (non-) freedom of movement.
It’s also a reflection on encounters and how they are mediated through geography, culture, technology and layers of representation.
The project plays with documentary theatre, liveness, the possibility of representation and the epic dimension of a journey and/or its impossibility.
The show is conceived and directed by Juan Ayala, and co-directed in its Spanish version by Egly Larreynaga.
The show will be presented at Tobacco Factory Theatres on 22, 23 and 24 February 2023. The first R&D rehearsals will happen from 11 to 21 of November 2022.
How to apply
We will be holding a workshop audition. This will happen on Monday 31 October 2022 and will last for 3 hours at Tobacco Factory Theatres in Bristol either between 11am to 2pm or 5.30pm to 8:30pm.
If you would like to be considered please send us an email to theatre@tobaccofactorytheatres.com adding THE WALL in the subject line and including the following attachments:
- Your CV
- A completed Equal Opportunities Monitoring form (please download from the yellow box on this page)
- No more than 200 words explaining your relationship to mobility or migration and what other language (s) you speak and your connection to it/them
- Your preferred time slot when attending the audition on Monday 31 October, 11am to 2pm or 5.30pm to 8:30pm.
The deadline for email submissions is Wednesday 26 October.
About Juan Ayala
Juan is a director, dramaturg, performer and designer based between London and Madrid. He originally trained as an architect before attending the Jacques Lecoq School in Paris and the London International School of Performing Arts (LISPA).
His work deftly combines abstraction with complex narrative to create poetic, comic and politically charged work. Specialising in physical theatre, improvisation, devised works and adaptations his work responds with sensitivity and risk-taking irreverence to site, space and audience.
Over the last 20 years he has been working with companies from London, Madrid, Barcelona, Paris and Athens. Commissions and support has come from: Teatro Español, Matadero and Teatro de la Abadía in Madrid, MAC Birmingham, BAC, Greenwich Dance and Jerwood Space in London, BeirutSpringFestival inLíbano, TeatroMania in Polonia and PhysicalFestival Chicago.
He has also directed and produced a number of ambitious community projects for the theatre and a variety of outdoor sites mixing professional and non-professional intergenerational performers.
Recent projects include dramaturgy for The 4 Seasons at the Greek National Opera, directing a radical adaptation of The Wizard of OZ at Conde Duque in Madrid, Fatherland an immersive project using Motion Capture and Virtual Reality for Limbik Theatre (UK). The solo performance Reject all cookies presented at BE festival last edition and the dramaturgy for Language, a community dance project for Siobhan Davies Studios in London.
Posted on 10 October 2022
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