Event

'Play' Symposium

In the PLAY Lab six emerging theatre makers and six games design students worked closely together for two days of practical exploration and creative play with a mixed group of professional theatre makers, games designers, artists and producers. The intention was to see what happens when we cross over immersive theatre making for non theatre spaces and new thinking in games design and application of games theories.

We covered a wide range of material from werewolves to rats, the language and structures of games, what is play, what is theatre, rules, narratives, short men, ethics, morality, freedom, choice, black pudding, and how we feel about little girls who might lie to us.

B arts team: Susan Clarke, artistic director of B arts and highly experienced immersive theatre maker, Maya Chowdhry, an immersive theatre maker with experience in creating augmented reality experiences, Sean Hewish, a theatre maker with a history of playful immersive work in non-theatre spaces, Ian Douglas, a story-teller, and Matt Andrews, an arts producer and gameologist, Trevelyan Wright, executive director of B arts and keen gamer, Rebecca Frankenberg, Partnerships Director for B arts and family gamer, and Isla Telford B arts Assistant Producer and from a gaming family.

Staffordshire University Games Design Department: Dr Bobbie Fletcher, Head of the Games Technology Group; David Edwards, Senior Lecturer in Games Design; Bradley McAvoy-James, journalist, ludologist, lecturer and Phd student at Staffordshire University.

The emergent theatre makers and student games designers forged alliances, applied for micro-bursaries to continue to develop pieces of work initiated during the lab.

This event is an opportunity to see the results of those micro-busaries, to participate in discussions with members of the team and to hear about plans for the future of PLAY, and the playing community in North Staffordshire.