A NARRATIVE NETWORK 

The play is about closeness, distance, fractiousness, modernity, politics, space travel, mental illness, public transport, office parties, everything in between, and the network that binds us inside of it all. Churchill’s quick-fire script brings together over 100 characters in a kaleidoscopic 57 scenes about almost everything in the world. It’s ambitious and challenging and that’s why we decided to just INVOLVE A LOT OF FOLKS. It’s a (mostly un-)tangled web we’ve woven, a dense network of people with over 100 branches stretching out and connecting back with each other, every which way. 

The nexus of this network is director Cameron Rhodes, nationally and internationally acclaimed theatre practitioner. His branch divides into 16, one for each student of The Actors’ Program facing their final challenge before graduating and plunging headlong into the industry. They’ll be inhabiting those 100+ characters, each with a connection, a disconnection, a misconnection, and we never see the same one twice. 

The musical branch of our network begins with Paul McLaney, he of Gramsci, Fly My Pretties, The Impending Adorations, various solo projects, and just so much else, including composing for the theatre (ATC’s Englightenment, Silo’s Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography and Speaking in Tongues, Last Tapes’ Fallout: The Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior). He told his muso mates how cool soundscaping is and now they’re joining him for Love and Information. Julia Deans and Jol Mulholland, both respected Kiwi tunemakers with zero theatre sound design experience, will be working under McLaney’s watchful tutelage to create beautiful noise for each of the play’s seven chapters.

Executive producer Michele Hine, set designer Rachael Walker, costume designer Gayle Jackson, and lighting designers Rachel Marlow and Brad Gledhill, each have branches, which split and creep off into the distance connecting their professional networks with the Love and Information nexus.

The mid-town indie theatre juggernaut that is The Basement gets a branch. The play forms part of their spring season and each manager, producer, box office person, usher and bar-back has a network branch to clasp.

And then there’s Last Tapes, which has a branch-split of four, connecting variously back to The Basement team, the musicians, the actors, the director, the executive producers, and the designers. Getting a sense of that (mostly un-)tangled web yet? Our industry is alive and pulsing and the Love and Information network is pushing its branchy fingers in and digging around.

Oh by the way, having seen this press release you’re part of the network, too, and you can watch it unfold on our facebook event page and The Basement website.

LOVE AND INFORMATION
The Basement Theatre, November 18-21, 8pm 
Saturday Matinee 3pm 
Bookings: www.iticket.co.nz
Phone: 09 361 1000

@TAPloveandinfo @Lasttapestc @ActorsProgram #LOVEANDINFO 

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