Critically acclaimed Big Telly Theatre Company, known for their pioneering and groundbreaking approach to playmaking, is making a triumphant return to this year’s BELFAST INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL [BIAF] with not one but THREE exciting new audience offerings. Building on the resounding success of their previous BIAF collaboration, “FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER…” (New York Times, Wall Street Journal), Big Telly is poised to once again challenge and entertain festival-goers with a diverse range of theatre, talks and cutting edge tech.
AND YOU WILL STAND ON WINDSWEPT BEACHES (THEATRE)
Owen Booth | Big Telly Theatre Company In Collaboration With Gavin Peden
Off the back of the critical acclaim of FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER IS DRUNK AND THE SHEEP HAVE ALL JUMPED THE FENCES’ Owen Booth joins Big Telly again with this poetic deep dive into toxic masculinity and the editable self. And You Will Stand on Windswept Beaches is about how we live in a graveyard of our forgotten selves, it’s about men, about how they navigate the legacy of toxic masculinity – and, ultimately, how to find a way beyond it…
This work-in-progress has been developed with Gavin Peden as part of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Artist Career Enhancement Scheme (ACES) and SARC (QUB) with John D’Arcy as Creative Consultant.
REAR WINDOWS (ONLINE)
Dr Eleanor Dare & Dr Dylan Yamada Rice | Big Telly Theatre Company
Join the innovative and creative minds of Big Telly for an online interactive and immersive experience based on Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1954 thriller Rear Window.
Who’s watching you and who are you watching?
AI & CREATIVITY – FRIEND OR FOE? (PANEL DISCUSSION)
Dr Eleanor Dare & Dr Dylan Yamada Rice | Big Telly Theatre Company
Can you tell whether a piece of work was created by a computer or a human? Advances in machine learning have led to the generation of forms of art, written word, music and more, all by AI technology. But does this show true creativity?
Join an expert panel of Dr Eleanor Dare, a critical technologist who works with Game Engines and virtual spaces based at Cambridge University, and Dr Dylan Yamada-Rice, an artist and researcher specialising in storytelling and play, based at Plymouth University alongside Zoe Seaton, Artistic Director of Big Telly Theatre as they explore whether AI just gives an illusion of novel thinking, or whether it is possible for software systems to exhibit creative behaviour.
WHAT THE PRESS SAY ABOUT OUR WORK
‘a winsome cartwheel of a show’
-The New York Times
“loving, fractious, moribund, on occasion crazy-making”
-Wall Street Journal
“unexpectedly delightful, unpredictable, unmissable”
-Theater Scene
“an invention of hysterical, dramatic madness”
-Irish Echo
“Magical and awakens our imagination”
-Front Row, BBC Radio 4
“Best Theatre to Watch List”
-Time Out New York
WINNER: Theatre Innovation Award at Origin First Irish Festival, 2023
Artistic Director Zoe Seaton is credited in the STAGE 100 List.
**Winner of The Off West End OnComm awards for Alice – A Virtual Theme Park.
Zoe Seaton, Artistic Director of Big Telly Theatre Company said: “We couldn’t be more excited about these three events – they all feel genuinely experimental and collaborative, it’s an absolute honour to be working so closely with artists and innovators like Gavin, Owen, Eleanor and Dylan, John Darcy and the team at SARC – an army of alchemists!”
Dr Eleanor Dare, says about Rear Windows: “We are bringing some urgent themes to this production, asking questions about AI and the ownership of images and words. What do young people think about artificial voices and scripts written by ChatGPT? What would happen if actors and musicians started to sabotage AI driven artworks? All of this is set in the world of Hitchcock’s famous thriller, Rear Window, where curiosity drives the main characters into dangerous situations. This production is half comedy and half thriller with a bit of virtual reality and absurd dancing thrown in,….oh! and it’s set in the quality control department of a double-glazing firm”
For more informations or booking, go to internationalartsfestival.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows