The Karaoke Theatre Company: History
Alan Ayckbourn's The Karaoke Theatre Company premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in July 2016. It is a piece unlike anything he had written previously and, despite being a full-length work, it is not considered his 80th full-length play due to the improvisational elements within it. Instead the playwright has dubbed it a 'live entertainment' or a 'party'.Behind The Scenes: Karaoke Fears
The original idea for The Karaoke Theatre Company goes back to at least 2005 when Alan Ayckbourn had an idea for an interactive and improvised piece called The Karaoke Play (and initially The Karaoke Theatre Company was known as The Karaoke Play). The reason for not producing the play was given by the actor Adrian McLoughlin, who noted the playwright had said to him: "I woke up in the night in a cold sweat and thought: 'Do I really want the audience on the stage with the actors?' No….". As with many of his discarded ideas, Alan would later return to it.
The original idea for The Karaoke Theatre Company goes back to at least 2005 when Alan Ayckbourn had an idea for an interactive and improvised piece called The Karaoke Play (and initially The Karaoke Theatre Company was known as The Karaoke Play). The reason for not producing the play was given by the actor Adrian McLoughlin, who noted the playwright had said to him: "I woke up in the night in a cold sweat and thought: 'Do I really want the audience on the stage with the actors?' No….". As with many of his discarded ideas, Alan would later return to it.
However, the idea of the piece continued to hold interest for the playwright and by 2015, it's time had come. Given the risk involved in producing something entirely unlike anything previously attempted by either the playwright or the Stephen Joseph Theatre, it is worth noting this was perhaps an odd choice of main house play given it was a difficult period for the venue: Alan's relationship with the Artistic Director, Chris Monks, was exceptionally strained by this point and between The Karaoke Theatre Company being commissioned in 2015 and being performed in 2016, both Chris Monks and the Executive Director, Stephen Wood, left the company which was experiencing financial difficulties.
Behind The Scenes: Original Ideas
Alan's earliest notes on record for The Karaoke Theatre Company from 2015 feature only four actors and their stage manager (Karen, Anna, Rufus, Olly and Edie) having lost Kane to a freak accident with his fiancée Aisla having also left. The evening consists of three plays (The Plumber, The Sister and The Puppet) with all three plays restaged with audience members (although The Puppet's 'volunteer' is actually a planted actor). The Puppet, dropped from the final play, is described as a 'period fantastic' piece which during its second outing becomes increasingly macabre and bloody as revenge is sought for the dead member of the company.
Alan's earliest notes on record for The Karaoke Theatre Company from 2015 feature only four actors and their stage manager (Karen, Anna, Rufus, Olly and Edie) having lost Kane to a freak accident with his fiancée Aisla having also left. The evening consists of three plays (The Plumber, The Sister and The Puppet) with all three plays restaged with audience members (although The Puppet's 'volunteer' is actually a planted actor). The Puppet, dropped from the final play, is described as a 'period fantastic' piece which during its second outing becomes increasingly macabre and bloody as revenge is sought for the dead member of the company.
The Karaoke Theatre Company was written in October 2015 for a summer 2016 production and originally featured three short plays performed in the first act, two of which would be re-staged with members of the audience taking over key roles in the second act. During writing, this was refined to four short plays and a magic act with one of the plays being re-staged in the second act with a member of the audience. The pieces covered a variety of genres: The Plumber (a farce), The Sister (a period drama - which is restaged), Whodunit? (a thriller), Horror Story (a gothic drama) and Find The Girl (a magic act). The evening begins with a mimed game of tennis to set up the idea of an interactive evening.
The conceit of The Karaoke Theatre Company is it based around a fictional touring company - allegedly founded during a meeting with Alan - of five actors (Karen, Anna, Rufus, Alyssia, Oliver
and stage-manager Edie; a sixth actor - Kenneth - having mysteriously vanished). They present an evening of entertainment in which the audience are encouraged to contribute in some way, from providing sound effects to participating in the action. The piece is designed to work depending on various levels of interaction with the audience (from the shy to the lively). Whilst the hope is everyone will get into the spirit of the piece, there is no compulsion for any audience member to participate if they just wish to sit back and enjoy the evening.
Behind The Scenes: Saki Inspirations
The playwright admits he was heavily inspired by Saki's 1914 short story The Open Window for one of the short plays - The Sister - in The Karaoke Theatre Company.
The playwright admits he was heavily inspired by Saki's 1914 short story The Open Window for one of the short plays - The Sister - in The Karaoke Theatre Company.
Behind The Scenes: Looks Familiar…
The Karaoke Theatre Company makes two distinct nods to Alan Ayckbourn's plays with an opening mimed tennis match inspired by the tennis match from Mr Whatnot. The gothic horror play is an adaptation of a rarely seen earlier work called Dracula, which was presented as part of the revue What The Devil! at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, in 1975.
The Karaoke Theatre Company makes two distinct nods to Alan Ayckbourn's plays with an opening mimed tennis match inspired by the tennis match from Mr Whatnot. The gothic horror play is an adaptation of a rarely seen earlier work called Dracula, which was presented as part of the revue What The Devil! at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, in 1975.
Originally advertised (and written) as The Karaoke Theatre Company, the SJT altered the title for promoting the work in late May 2016 to Alan Ayckbourn's Karaoke Theatre Company to emphasise the playwright's connection with the piece, which had largely been played down as part of the playwright's desire to build up the illusion the theatre company was a real organisation which had been inspired by the playwright himself; this even extended to the programme in which the characters are credited rather than the actors (their real names can be found subtly inserted into the character's fictional biographies) with no mention of Alan as director and with a programme note by Alan detailing how he came into contact with the company and inspired its creation. This did lead to a certain amount of confusion with some audience members, who believed the company was real and that it was not all a fiction created by the playwright; this is despite the fact a similar device had previously been used for Alan's revue 1998 Cheap & Cheerful.
Behind The Scenes: A Star Is Born
One of the plays, The Sister, requires that an audience member actually play one of the parts; the play is initially performed in its entirety with a volunteer watching, who then chooses which part they wish to play. It is then re-staged later with the volunteer appropriately costumed and led through the piece by the actor they have replaced, moving them into position and feeding them the lines via a flip-book. Every night, each volunteer was given a Karaoke Theatre Company T-shirt to mark their involvement in the play.
One of the plays, The Sister, requires that an audience member actually play one of the parts; the play is initially performed in its entirety with a volunteer watching, who then chooses which part they wish to play. It is then re-staged later with the volunteer appropriately costumed and led through the piece by the actor they have replaced, moving them into position and feeding them the lines via a flip-book. Every night, each volunteer was given a Karaoke Theatre Company T-shirt to mark their involvement in the play.
Given the nature of the work, it was inevitable that changes would occur and - with the playwright's approval - more improvised elements were incorporated into the four plays to accommodate and acknowledge the audience interaction.
The original production of The Karaoke Theatre Company toured with the playwright's revival of Henceforward… to the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme, following the end of its run in Scarborough.
The Karaoke Theatre Company has not been published nor is available to produce.
Article by Simon Murgatroyd. Copyright: Haydonning Ltd. Please do not reproduce without permission of copyright holder.