We’ve been getting some lovely feedback -

Have further inspired current contributors -

And have already been approached by a number of people wanting to contribute and participate in the next show: some very talented writers and directors; as well as a London theatre group who are considering partnering with us.  Thrilling stuff.  I’ll be meeting with our potential partner group in London in a couple of weeks, when I go out to speak at Power to the Pixel, and will post some video of our conversation here.

This cross-cultural idea is especially exciting as it throws up a number of opportunities. A few things we have loosely discussed are:

Swapping content with the London group and vice versa: we each perform the other group’s previous pieces for our next show(s). Additionally we could set up either recorded conference calls or webcam chats between select uk/us actors and directors to discuss their differing approaches on the same pieces.

Or, an actor/creatives swap – a couch surfing sort of thing. Or some kind of online writing collaboration – I’m particularly interested in what just happened with the team version of the flash fiction/creative writing championships online.

Online collaborative writing is also an exciting concept because it could mean this is something that could also be done with contributors from different sides of the US, rather than just limited to NY and LDN based groups. I’ve been looking into a few tools for this already – including blog plugins, wikis and looking at previous or current projects such as One Million Monkeys Typing and Story Mash.  A pleasant surprise this time round was to find a strong team of writers through this process and it would be great to fully stretch and utilize their skills.

Another option would be to use Show Two contributors to craft a longer story out of a series of short ones a la Paris J’Taime.

I’ve also been mulling on how to deal with our growing cast/crew (we need a new name for this) that are potentially out-growing our blog resources in terms of community. Should we branch out to set up a community on Ning or is it too soon to dilute our online presence?  Either way, it’s an exciting thought that when one of us wants to make a feature we’ll have a considerable number of talented people we are instantly connected to, worked with before, trust and know their strengths and weaknesses.

Some great feedback I had on the night of Show Two was from a previous contributor, Eric Contractor who while not involved in this show, came down and enthused afterwards that what we thought we had built was a shout-back to old theater where company comes first and individual egos second, allowing a place to try new stuff quickly and without fear: an interesting -and flattering- insight.

Another thought I had was skill-share workshops – it transpired that two of our actors – Eljon & KIra -also trained as cinematographers, and both Laura and Jane are keen to learn more about blogging. Laura also has extensive trained experience working with actors, exercises etc which I would love to know – it’d be good to do this in a more structured environment where people learn valuable skills from each other for free that they can then put to use at a later point helping each other in a more effective way.

I hope to hold a roundtable for the Show 2 writers and directors to learn what was of value to them in this experience and to hear their thoughts and feedback. If we manage to get everyone in the same place for this we’ll post that here too.

It’s an exciting time and our hope is to use the enthusiasm and excitement we have right now to keep this moving forward at the same pace, to keep momentum while making sure we focus on the right elements of what we’ve planted.

Any thoughts, ideas or questions would be greatly received, this is an open conversation. And anyone wishing to join us please email via the form on the contact page, we are always excited to ‘meet’ talented people – wherever you are!