Hydrocracker Theatre Company’s 'The New World Order'
By Harold Pinter
Directed by Ellie Jones

‘A shattering experience that brings Pinter’s world directly home’ The Guardian *****

In November and December 2011 Hydrocracker and the Barbican will bring the critically acclaimed site-specific production 'The New World Order' to Shoreditch Town Hall in Harold Pinter’s home borough of Hackney.

We are fundraising to build on and develop our outreach work with the local community of Hackney, AKA The Hackney Project.

ABOUT US & THE PRODUCTION

Committed to theatre as an event, we want more for our audiences than to sit in the dark and watch. We give our audience a visceral experience of other worlds, of stories that challenge beliefs and set imaginations alight.

Originally commissioned by Brighton Festival and premiered in May 2007, 'The New World Order' is an amalgamation of five of Harold Pinter’s later and more political plays: 'One for the Road', 'The New World Order', 'Precisely', 'Mountain Language' and 'Press Conference'.

‘The sense of being trapped within a brutal state machine builds and intensifies during this brilliant site-specific production’ The Independent *****

The political relevance of these plays is perhaps even more acute today - Britain’s role in rendition (the ‘outsourcing’ of torture such as ‘waterboarding’ to other countries), and MI5’s questioning of suspects they know have been tortured, has been reluctantly acknowledged by the government despite attempts to suppress the information in the courts. If MI5 could prevent another July 7th tube attack how many people are prepared to avoid the questions about what methods they employ to do it?

WHY ARE WE FUNDRAISING?

One of our core aims as a company is to involve and work with our local community whenever possible and we have a track record of delivering successful community engagement projects.

The company for 'The New World Order' comprises a cast of seven professional actors and a supporting cast drawn from the local community. We will be recruiting 15 people from the local community to form a community cast performing a range of small parts in the production as guards, soldiers and civil servants who create the world of the play. The Hackney Project will enable us to expand the offer to this group.

Having completed our evaluation from the Brighton Festival presentation of 'The New World Order' in May 2011, we are keen to further develop how we work with our community to offer more opportunities, as well as build a wider reaching outreach package by taking high quality workshops to GSCE and A Level students that will support and enrich the National Curriculum.

Whilst Arts Council England are meeting some of our project costs we still need to secure £4,000 from this Wefund campaign so that The Hackney Project can go ahead - to extend the reach of the project through outreach workshops to schools (exploring; An Introduction to Pinter; Political Theatre; and Site Specific Theatre) we need to secure a further £2,000. Workshops in schools would be delivered after the run.

WHAT DIFFERENCE WILL YOUR PLEDGE MAKE?

OUTREACH: INVESTING IN THE COMMUNITY

Your pledge will help us to deepen the engagement for the community cast, enabling us to –

• deliver a series of training workshops aimed at developing vocal and physical skills, team building and confidence - workshops that can not happen without your support

• cover basic expenses so to enable a breadth of community members to take part

• work with a dedicated coordinator who will work closely with the community cast in the lead up to and during the run to support and nurture them, providing pastoral care and encouragement

• show our appreciation for the hard work the community cast will put into making the production a success by providing a celebratory picnic tea for the group, a chance to get together and reflect on our achievements together

OUTREACH: EDUCATION WORKSHOPS

As Education and Training Associates at the National Theatre, we are highly experienced in devised and delivering workshops to young people, running many workshop programmes nationally and internationally.

THANKS

We strongly believe in the value and long term impact of developing this model of working, not just for the individuals that will make up the Hackney community cast but also to inform how we work in the future.

We’d like to thank you for taking the time to read about our project and hope very much that you are able to support us to achieve and go beyond our £4,000 target.

Jem Wall & Richard Hahlo
Co-Directors, Hydrocracker Theatre Company

FIND OUT MORE

The New World Order will be at Shoreditch Town Hall from 16 – 27 November and 6 – 11 December 2011. For more information or to book tickets please visit: http://www.barbican.org.uk/theatre/event-detail.asp?ID=12498

Jem Wall will be participating in the Barbican’s Performance and Ethics Debate, 5pm on Saturday 15 October at Silk Street Theatre, a facilitated conversation exploring the ethical aspects underpinning the production: http://www.barbican.org.uk/education/event-detail.asp?ID=12488

This production is delivered in partnership with Amnesty International and has received support from the Arts Council England and Barbican. It was originally commissioned by Brighton Festival in 2007.

Hydrocracker is an Associate Company of the Brighton Festival.

For more information on Hydrocracker please visit our website: www.hydrocracker.co.uk or contact Lucy Moore on lucy@artsagenda.co.uk