Fight Night: The Study Guide
About the Creators Fight Night was created collaboratively by The Border Project and Ontroerend Goed. The Border Project, based in Adelaide, Australia, is a contemporary performance ensemble that explores the future of language in live performance. The shows engage and communicate with the audience and use language to reflect the time and place we live in, in addition to the sophisticated aesthetics of pop culture. The Border Project was founded in 2002 and has been nominated for awards for innovation. As the company continues to grow, it strives to engage and challenge audiences with a team driven by creative passion for taking risks on unique theatrical events. Ontroerend Goed is a Belgian theater collective whose name translates roughly to feel estate. The goal of the work they make is, according to cofounder Alexander Devriendt, to "show how your view of the world is mostly a projection of your inner world. In an interview with The Guardian, Devriendt also says that while he struggles to find the balance between confronting people and offending them, he thinks that audiences who feel manipulated by Ontroerend Goed s work might be shying away from a fact of modern life: that in a world of political spin and untrustworthy media, "we are being manipulated all the time." Both The Border Project and Ontroerend Goed are well known for their groundbreaking work throughout Europe. They frequently present at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world. How does work like that made by The Border Project and Ontroerend Goed differ from more traditional theatrical works? Do you feel theater presentations need a plot, narrative, and/or traditional story structure?
Other Works by Ontroerend Goed A History of Everything is based on the works of Richard Dawkins on evolution theory, of Braine Green s cosmology, and E. H. Gombrich s Little History of the World. The production takes the audience on, as it suggests, a history of everything from the big bang up until present day. The performers strive to create a feeling of completeness of the astronomical history of the world and universe, where mankind is a small piece of the increasing time-line. Sirens features an all-female cast. Alexander Devriendt, Ontroerend Goed s artistic director, and the team researched issues in feminism and statistics on violence and sexual abuse, and drew on their own experiences, to create the piece. The performances involve a type of concert, where voices speak in a rhythmic way and the cast dresses like opera singers. The play allows for the cast and audience to challenge and confront issues they and women generally face throughout their lives.
Once and For All (2008), directed by Alexander Devriendt, is a show where a group of thirteen teenagers perform and repeat the same scene over and over again in different moods and styles to explore every aspect of teenage life. The explosive energy is corralled by choreographed forms of teenage life, from ballet and first kisses to rave parties and drug-induced happenings. With the combination of repetition and variation, the piece allows the actors to perform freely and act naturally. Live Arts produced this show as part of the 2013 Teen Theater Workshop, directed by Bree Luck.
Other Works by The Border Project I Am Not An Animal, recipient of the Ruby Award for Innovation, was produced by The Border Project in association with Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Zoo in Australia. The production transformed the zoo into an installation project, where the animals became subjects of works of art, engaged with objects, environments, and human co-performers. Audiences were provided a guided audio tour that allowed them to observe the animals and ponder the way humans are viewed in relation to animals. Escape from Peligro Island is another interactive production in which the audience determines the decisions of the characters, with the premise being that the characters crash on an unknown island, and face perils such as vampires, time machines, and supernatural happenings. The audience gets to steer the play with hand-held controllers. Half-Real, co-produced by The Border Project and Country Arts SA s Local Stages Initiative, is a whodunit murder mystery play. But unlike other plays that involve audience choosing the killer in some way, this production involves movement tracking, 3D video mapping, and projected imagery. Onlookers can look back at events, view them from different perspectives, and enter the minds of the subjects.
Other Works That Rely Heavily on Audience Interaction Shear Madness is a murder mystery play by Paul Pörtner. The comedy is set in a unisex hair salon where the landlady, who lives above the shop, is murdered and the audience helps question the actors to solve the crime. Based on what they gather, the audience votes on who they think is guilty. Among the options are a flamboyant hairdresser, his flirty and ditzy assistant, and an older man who is a used antique dealer. Dialogue in the show is mostly improvised to derive humor from topical references to current events, and to appeal to the demographics of the audience. The Heritage Theatre Festival in Charlottesville performed a production of this play in 2014. Shear Madness is currently running at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Night of January 16 th is a play by Ayn Rand where audience members are chosen to participate in the jury of a murder trial. In the play, Karen Andre, a former secretary and lover of the businessman Bjorn Faulkner, is accused of his murder. The play s ending depends on the verdict, determined through character testimony and how the jury members react. Night of January 16 th was first produced under the title Woman on Trial in 1934. It wasn t until Producer Al Woods took it to Broadway in the 1935 that the show was retitled.
Drood (or The Mystery of Edwin Drood), a musical based on the unfinished Charles Dickens novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, is credited as the first Broadway musical with multiple endings, determined by audience vote. At the 1986 Tony Awards, Rupert Holmes received the awards for Best Book and Best Original Score, and the show won for Best Musical. The musical presents Charles Dickens story through a performance within this show. The show opens at the Music Hall Royale where actors proceed to introduce the narrative. Into the show, the audience, typically judged by loud cheers from their seats, chooses the identity of the character Datchery from the options of Bazzard, Reverend Crisparkle, Helena, Neville, or Rosa. The chosen character to play Datchery laments in a confession song Out On A Limerick where they express why they donned the Datchery costume to find Drood s killer. Later, through more direct audience interaction, the ensemble goes out into the house and collects votes to determine who will be the killer (and sing a confessional song) upon the reveal of being Drood s killer. The final form of participation comes by having a conventional happy ending: the audience cheers from their seats and helps to determine which characters, of those available as options, will play the lovers and share a duet professing their love.
The 25 th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, is a long one-act musical that takes place at a spelling bee at the geographically ambiguous Putnam Valley Middle School. The show was on Broadway in 2005 and was nominated for six Tony Awards, winning two, including Best Book. While it s not a show that involves voting, this interactive musical invites three or four real audience members to compete in the spelling bee along the six young characters. The audience members capability affects their stage time, but eventually all exit in time to progress the show with the remaining characters. Four County Players in Barboursville, VA is mounting a production of this play this summer, opening Friday, July 24, 2015. These are some of the more well-known plays and musicals that involve audience participation whether through voting, competing, or even providing clues to the characters. What is the allure of bringing the audience into the show such that they can dictate who has more stage time, who gets eliminated, and who is incriminated? If you have been to a show that involved voting on the outcome, what influenced your decisions? Was it your peers, how the characters made you feel, or something else?