Dogs Of War Theatre

Invention Theatre – Stanley Halls Initiative
February 9th-13th 2015

Nine different theatre companies, including Dogs of War, spent a week in the halls creating new work and exploring the venue’s labyrinths, using every nook and cranny they could find.

Every single part of this unique building was used for the performances, from staircases and cellars to lofts and offices, allowing audiences to see the spaces nobody had seen,
in ways no one had seen them before.

Including dance, storytelling, theatre, performance art and more, the pieces ranged from using one audience member in an intimate room, to site-specific/walkabout theatre in the cellars, or up the stairs to a large set piece in one of the halls. This was an evening of performances in continuation of the legacy of Sir William Ford Stanley.

Our project within the Invention Week at Stanley Halls entailed holding workshops and discovering the history surrounding the building, and William Ford Stanley himself. Using real-life stories from local residents, we blended verbatim, site-specific/site-responsive and immersive theatre to create an intimate and personal one-woman performance that was purely community focused.

Michelle lived ten minutes up the road from the halls, and very kindly gave us her time during the week to help create an extremely personal and moving combination of true local stories. Her diverse acting meant she was able to shape her physicality and accent into those of the real people we interviewed, and what made this project so moving for us is that the stories many local people had kept for years, stories that they thought may never be told, were able to be shared for one night only in an emotional and affecting performance.