Public to be film stars for a night in new show
Night-time revellers in Glasgow are to become movie stars for a night – in one of the flagship productions to staged by the National Theatre of Scotland as it enters a new era.
Members of the public will feature as unscripted co-stars in Super Night Shot, a multiscreen film “in which the city becomes a film star for a fantastical mission.”
It will be filmed on the city’s streets by four performers armed with video cameras exactly an hour before it is shown to audiences at free outdoor screening events.
Due to be staged over at least two nights in August, Super Night Shot, which is billed as “an experience halfway between theatre and film,” is among the first shows unveiled by new NTS artistic director Jackie Wylie.
Other highlights include a revival of Edwin Morgan’s version of Cyrano de Bergerac and a comedy-musical inspired by Oscar-winning film My Left Foot, starring disabled artists.
A new outdoor adaptation of best-selling book The Reason I Jump will be staged in a series of mazes created in a children’s wood in Glasgow’s west end, while the Traverse Theatre’s much-loved musical comedy hit Midsummer will be reimagined at the Edinburgh International Festival.
Created by Berlin-based collectivegobsquad,supernight Shot has been staged early 200 times around the world since 2003. It celebrates “unplanned meetings with strangers and delights in the randomness of urban existence.” A member of the public will star in a climatic final kissing scene.
A spokesman for Gob Squad said: “Both comical and moving, Super Night Shot attempts to elevate the banality of everyday life into the glamour and glitz of a big screen blockbuster. It’s a completely unpredictable show that elevates the everyday into the epic and plays with your perceptions of the familiar. Anything can happen, and usually does.
“The film begins exactly one hour before you come to watch it when the four performers meet, arm themselves
0 NTS artistic director Jackie Wylie and her team announce the 2018 programme with their video cameras and start them simultaneously.”
Ms Wylie, who was appointed last October, said: “The actors will be creating a live film starring the people of Glasgow, which will be shot all across the city at the time of night when that amazing energy happens. The point where the filmmaking ends is where the theatre begins.
“Were going to be reliant on the joyous community of the people of Glasgow. We can’t say where it will be shown, but it will be a free event and there will be an opportunity for everyone to see it.”