Royal Shakespeare Company launches interactive project

Inspired by Shakespeare’s As You Like It, part of the current Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) Roundhouse season, Adelaide Road is a new interactive project linking the RSC’s work at the Roundhouse with its season of three world premieres at nearby Hampstead Theatre from April 2011.

Adelaide Road is a web-based map and iPhone application which will give access to audiences around the world to the project, as well as enabling a location specific interaction on Adelaide Road itself.

Adelaide Road, the road that connects the Roundhouse and Hampstead, is a typical London street of mixed housing and small businesses, about a mile long. And the project, named after the road, aims to engage the local community in exploring work inspired by the themes of belonging and identity that Shakespeare grapples with in As You Like It.

Poet in residence Aoife Mannix will be asking Camden residents to respond creatively to the history and people of Adelaide Road. “As poet in residence, I want to empower local people to tell stories inspired by Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Exploring themes of love, exile and betrayal, I will be using Adelaide Road as a 21st century ‘all the world’s a stage’”.  Through a series of themed creative writing workshops and storytelling activities, she will use Shakespeare’s play as an inspiration for modern tales of love, betrayal and exile.  She will work with local libraries and Camden archives, who will host some of the workshops and provide artefacts and historical background, to inspire participants to create work.

The project will include live and online experiences which will be produced by Sarah Ellis  – the live element including performances with RSC actors and readings in both the Roundhouse and Hampstead theatres. The digital element will include a web based map that allows online audiences to access the project, as well as an iPhone app  specially designed by Calvium supported by the Pervasive Media Studio. The project will culminate on Saturday 14 May with a promenade performance by the participants along the length of the road, ending in a finale at the Adelaide Road Nature Reserve.

To take part in the Adelaide Road project, please contact aoifemannix@rsc.org.uk.