The Academy
Part immersive theatre, part interactive game, this playful experience for adults challenges adult audiences to a series of fiendish fast-paced painting challenges - individual, group, and deathmatch - for the chance to win their place in art history.
With influences including the instruction-based visual art of the US conceptual artist Sol LeWitt, the game app Draw Something and the absurdist American cookery gameshow Cutthroat Kitchen, this five-star production challenges audiences to be creative, and to see painting, art and creativity as an enjoyable, accessible activity for all, not the preserve of professional artists.
★★★★★ The Independent
“By the end of a series of paint-based “exams”, strangers are working together to draw pictures of the festival using paintbrushes wedged in their elbows, toilet brushes and hand mirrors, grinning in their plastic sheets”
The Academy of Painting and Decorating was commissioned by Sounds From The Other City Festival and supported by Arts Council England.
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Individual Challenge
First, an individual figurative challenge, with Draw Something-esque prompts such as ‘bubble overload at the laundromat’, ‘unexpected item at the grocery’ and ‘that’s not what I asked for at the tattoo parlour’
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Group challenge
Next, an abstract challenge: teams are set a prompt inspired by the instruction-based work of Sol LeWitt, such as ‘250 lines in 4 colours in 5 directions’ and work together to interpret and complete them against the clock
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Deathmatch
Finally, the Deathmatch. Teams are set a pictorial challenge: to paint a depiction of the host festival. However, they are each given a sabotage they can inflict on another team, such as swapping their brushes for potato mashers, or having to hold their paintbrushes in their elbows.
Writer, Director and Producer Carole Keating
Production and Stage Manager Jude Jagger
Volunteer Manager Emma Horridge
Set and Prop Designer Mariel Osborn
Graphic Designers Textbook Studio
Marketing Consultant Jamie-leigh Hargreaves
Crew Ashley Van Dyke, Joe Kondras, Jack Makin
Volunteers Alexandra Prodan, Sharon Connor, Lucy Buckingham, Mariam Moon-Begum, Paola Rzuffi, Katie Golds, Nieve Tao, Lily Harrison, Florence Pinsent, Catherine Manning, Rachel Hewitt, Kitty Dodd
Performers
Spacey Emin Anna Phylactic
Georgia O’Queefe Emily Spowage
Sarah Mucus Sal Maguire
Damien Worst Ben Mellor
Sounds Town concept Stina Puotinen & David Bailey
With special thanks to Rivca Burns, Mark Carlin, Amalie Briden, Clare Goodchild, Sian Roberts, Matthew Durrant, Chris Horkan, Bren O’Callaghan, Kate Keating, Becca Hamilton, Joe Daly, Ross McDonald, Chris Mullany, Michelle Bineda, Laura Drinkwater, Kate Feld, Isabelle Croissant, Gemma Saunders, Nadia Balfe, Jamie-leigh Hargreaves, Tobenn Whitaker, Tania Wilson, Rowena Hamilton, Dan Parrott, Tania Kotsokechagia, Jack Thompson, Paul Hallows and Arts Council England.
