The Karaoke Theatre Company: Facts

Key Facts relating to Alan Ayckbourn's The Karaoke Theatre Company.
  • The Karaoke Theatre Company is considered by Alan Ayckbourn to be a 'live entertainment' or 'a party' and is totally different to anything he has written before..
  • The world premiere was held at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, on 12 July 2016.
  • It is the first work by Alan Ayckbourn to feature improvisational elements.
  • It is also the first Ayckbourn play to physically involve the audience in the action (as opposed to the live voting element of Mr A's Amazing Maze Plays).
  • Despite being a full length work, it is not considered to be Alan Ayckbourn's 80th play. Due to its improvisational elements, the playwright describes it instead as a 'live entertainment.'
  • One of the mini plays featured within the work, Horror Story, is loosely inspired by an earlier sketch by Alan Ayckbourn called Dracula, which was part of the What The Devil! revue.
  • Alan Ayckbourn has carried the idea for the play in his head for many years dating back to at least 2005, when a piece called The Karaoke Play was almost scheduled and produced at the Stephen Joseph Theatre.
  • The play was written in conjunction with his 80th play Consuming Passions with the casting of Consuming Passions incorporating four of the five members of The Karaoke Theatre Company cast.
  • Uniquely for an Ayckbourn script, there are sections which are set and have to be delivered as written and other sections which can be improvised upon or changed completely providing the pertinent information is delivered to the audience.
  • Although it is the first play to involve the audience in the action, Alan Ayckbourn did toy with the idea of having the audience interact with the action in the original concept for A Chorus Of Disapproval (admittedly this would have slightly cheated by having a large number of plants from local amateur dramatic companies performing the interaction).
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