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Image belongs to Darren Bell photography: http://www.darrenbellphotography.com
I was lighting Operator.
The Streets Project: http://www.streetsproject.co.uk
A fresh and vibrant musical set during the London riots but about the desperate times young people live in.
The piece has been nominated for 2 OffWestend.com awards (‘best new musical’, ‘most promising new writing’) and by rights needs to be seen by a wider audience.
In one of my favorite scenes, Agnes, daughter of the Gods (the spritely/puckish Natalie Codsi) meets the Quarantine Master (Robert Daoust).
Ownership of the image is with the photographer – Nev Brewer.
City Lit.
I programmed and operated the lights for this show as part of some training I was undertaking. Lighting Designer = Chloe Km. Photographs remain the property of the photographer – Nev Brewer
A dark courtroom, sparsely furnished. An eagle-faced Judge, THE GRAND INQUISITOR presides over the courtroom. Accused is the SWEEPER OF DREAMS who quietly leans back in his seat and rolls a cigarette. Beside him are the tools of his trade, two brooms, a mop and bucket as well as a cup of tea and a newspaper. As council for the DEFENCE who is dressed in black. The PROSECUTION, a teenager lies passed out on a sofa.
THE GRAND INQUISITOR: You stand accused of multiple counts of theft of intellectual property. You attempted to dispose of the evidence by burning all of the dreams you stole. How do you plead?
THE SWEEPER sips a cup of tea and glances at the sports pages of a newspaper.
THE GRAND INQUISITOR: Council for the Defence. Begin.
DEFENCE: If each dream could be separate; if each image, thought or idea was some distillate whose golden notes dreamers long to hear then there would be a case to bring to bear.
DEFENCE: But the dread cacophony that is the slumber, the tide of consciousness that pulls dreamers under is a deception and no relation to any inception.
DEFENCE: Some ideas are born there it is true, but the emulsion of connections upon whose inundations float these gifts is inseparable from the effluent. A dream is a turd! Detritus tangled upon the mind which my client here is honour-bound to unwind. He does not deny them out of spite, rather unclutter the mind in the night.
PROSECUTION stirs.
THE GRAND INQUISITOR: Please elaborate on what vow the Sweeper of Dreams is honour bound to now.
DEFENCE: Without a Sweeper, client mine, the unendingly creating mind would blanket the world in dreamings tide. A tide of MADNESS is what he fights against, to be the unsung hero is his lament.
THE GRAND INQUISITOR: His task is self-appointed?
THE SWEEPER lights his cigarette and the lights warm. He stands and addresses the sleeping PROSECUTION.
THE SWEEPER: If no one is prepared to clean, the reality becomes the dream.
The GRAND INQUISITOR looks between the SWEEPER and the PROSECUTION
THE GRAND INQUISITOR: An alternative proposal you may present to me
DEFENCE crosses to the sofa and picks up a broom from behind it, singing as they go. DEFENCE places the broom beside the sleeping PROSECUTION.
DEFENCE: We propose that if the artist wishes to retain, in order for their own gain, any inspiration, idea or goal that could wash up on dreaming shore that they comb that desert for themselves and leave my client to his chores.
The lights start to dim as the SWEEPER OF DREAMS picks up his broom and starts to dust the floor.
THE GRAND INQUISITOR: Can anyone be the sweeper of dreams?
DEFENCE goes to answer but falls silent as the SWEEPER brushes past him. The stage dims aside from a breaking dawn light shining on the sofa.
(my submission for the ENO mini-opera competition.
April 22, 2013
pjcarrington
cupboardelephant 