Punchdrunk Presents VIOLA’S ROOM Written by Daisy Johnson And Conceived, Directed And Designed By Felix Barrett MBE
FOLLOW THE LIGHT
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AN INTIMATE, SENSORY, LABYRINTHINE JOURNEY GUIDED BY LIGHT AND SOUND, VIOLA’S ROOM DISTILS TWO DECADES OF PUNCHDRUNK’S IMMERSIVE PRACTICE
VIOLA’S ROOM IS WRITTEN BY BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLISTED DAISY JOHNSON
PREVIEWS COMMENCE 14 MAY WITH OFFICIAL OPENING ON 22 MAY
TICKETS ARE ON GENERAL SALE FROM 20 MARCH AT 12 NOON
Punchdrunk, the internationally-acclaimed company that pioneered the breakthrough of immersive theatre in the UK, announces the world premiere of new show Viola’s Room, at the company’s home in Woolwich this May for a limited run.
Barefoot, and wearing headphones, small groups of up to six at a time feel their way through a maze-like installation as an unseen narrator guides them on a sensory journey to reveal a story of innocence lost and obsession unleashed.
Written by Booker Prize-shortlisted Daisy Johnson, Viola’s Room reimagines Barry Pain’s classic gothic mystery The Moon-Slave for a new audience. It distils two decades of Punchdrunk’s immersive practice into an intimate, linear, audio-driven adventure that promises to suffuse the dreams of those who dare to follow the light.
Felix Barrett said "When The Burnt City closed, our laboratory opened, and Woolwich became Punchdrunk’s home to experiment, play and develop - allowing us to prototype long held dreams and new ideas. Our ambition over the coming years is to open our doors as never before, offering audiences a chance to experience the evolution of these ideas from limited runs to larger-scale works. It’s with great excitement that we prepare to welcome audiences to the first project in a new era of Punchdrunk shows, Viola’s Room - an uncharted landscape - a moonlit fever dream."
The production is conceived, directed and designed by Artistic Director Felix Barrett, with co-direction by Associate Director Hector Harkness (One Night, Long Ago; The Third Day) and design by Casey Jay Andrews, who was part of the design team on The Burnt City. Working with Punchdrunk for the first time are Lighting Designer Simon Wilkinson (Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Vanishing Point’s Metamorphosis), and Sound Designer Gareth Fry (Complicité’s The Encounter; V&A’s David Bowie Is, Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser and Diva exhibitions).
A limited season is on sale from 18 March (General On Sale 20 March) with previews commencing from 14 May.
Viola’s Room will take place at Punchdrunk’s home at One Cartridge Place, Woolwich.
Tickets are on sale here.
Listings Information
Punchdrunk presents
Written by Daisy Johnson
Conceived, Directed and Designed by Felix Barrett
Co-Directed by Hector Harkness
Design by Casey Jay Andrews
Lighting by Design by Simon Wilkinson
Sound Design by Gareth Fry
Location: Punchdrunk, One Cartridge Place, London, SE18 6ZR
Previews: 14 - 21 May
Press Performances: 22 May
Limited season runs until 16 June
Performance schedule (first and last entry times):
Sundays 11am - 7.30pm
Mondays - no performances
Tuesdays & Wednesdays 4pm - 8.30pm
Thursdays & Fridays 4pm - 9pm
Saturdays 11am - 9pm
Suitable for ages 14+
14 & 15 year olds must be accompanied by an adult/ parent / guardian
Tickets 16 - 21 May from £12.50
Tickets from 22 May from £28.50
About Punchdrunk
Founded in 2000 by Felix Barrett, Punchdrunk has pioneered a game-changing form of theatre which places the audience at the very heart of the action. Recently listed amongst the 50 most influential artists of the last 50 years (Sky Arts, 2022) alongside Bowie, Sir Steve McQueen and Vivienne Westwood, Punchdrunk disrupts the theatrical norm, creating worlds in which audiences can rediscover the childlike excitement of exploring the unknown.
Its iconic “mask” shows, which redefined the genre of immersive experiences, have been cited amongst the 40 creative moments that changed culture (Creative Review), and have found phenomenal success across the globe, with record-breaking productions established in the US, UK and China. Sleep No More in New York has been playing to sell out audiences since 2011, and in Shanghai the show has been running since 2016, making it the longest running show in the city’s history. The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable broke the National Theatre’s box office records when it went on sale in 2013, and Punchdrunk’s last London production, The Burnt City, was the longest-running show in the company’s home city.
Alongside these landmark live theatrical experiences, Punchdrunk has taken its ground-breaking approach to cross-cultural collaborations in music, tech, fashion and TV: from projects with Rihanna to Jack White, Louis Vuitton to Alexander McQueen, and HBO to Brad Pitt’s Plan B Studios – most recently with tv series The Third Day, starring Jude Law, Naomie Harris, Katherine Waterston, Emily Watson and Paddy Considine which included the Bafta-nominated live event: The Third Day: Autumn: a 12-hour live episode, filmed in one continuous take.
Punchdrunk’s past theatrical works include: The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable (with the National Theatre, The Crash of the Elysium (Manchester International Festival), The Duchess of Malfi (with ENO), Sleep No More (with the American Repertory Theatre, Boston, Mass.), It Felt Like A Kiss (with Adam Curtis and Damon Albarn, Manchester International Festival),Tunnel 228 (in collaboration with The Old Vic), The Masque of the Red Death (with Battersea Arts Centre), Faust (in collaboration with the National Theatre), and The Burnt City.
About the creative team
Daisy Johnson is the author of Fen, Everything Under and Sisters. In 2018, she became the youngest person ever to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her short story collection, Fen, was the winner of the Edge Hill prize. In 2022, she was a finalist for the Women's Prize for Fiction Futures initiative. Sisters was adapted for feature film and will be the debut of writer/director Ariane Labed, produced by Element Pictures and BBC Film, to be released as September Says on a date to be announced. Daisy has also co-created and written Robin/Red/Breast for the Manchester International Festival. Her next work of fiction The Hotel, which previously appeared on Radio 4, will be published in October 2024 by Jonathan Cape. She lives in Oxford by the river with her partner and two children.
Felix Barrett MBE is the Founder and Artistic director of Punchdrunk, a world-renowned theatre company whose innovative work has changed the way audiences interact with culture. Recognised as being the “Pioneers of the ‘immersive theatre’ phenomenon” (The Telegraph), this year they were described as being “Hands down the best immersive theatre company in the world” (Time Out). Punchdrunk is also listed amongst the 50 most influential artists of the last 50 years (Sky Arts, 2022) alongside Bowie, Sir Steve McQueen and Vivienne Westwood. Punchdrunk is the only immersive company to have found long-running success on a global scale.
Felix conceived, directed and designed all Punchdrunk shows including the multi award-winning Sleep No More. This acclaimed production has received a Drama Desk Award and has been running in New York since 2011, making it the longest running immersive show in the world. Punchdrunk re-imagined Sleep No More in Shanghai, where it has since become the longest running international production in China, overtaking The Lion King. Previous credits include: The Firebird Ball; Faust; The Masque of The Red Death; It Felt Like a Kiss (a collaboration with documentary film-maker Adam Curtis, and musician Damon Albarn for Manchester International Festival); The Duchess of Malfi (with English National Opera); The Crash of The Elysium (Manchester International Festival and 2012 Cultural Olympiad); The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable and The Burnt City.
Punchdrunk has continued to spear-head experiences across gaming, music and TV. Past collaborators include Roc Nation, Rihanna, Sony PlayStation, Xbox and Louis Vuitton.
Felix also created the BAFTA nominated The Third Day with HBO and Brad Pitt’s Plan B and The Third Day: Autumn, a 12-hour performance broadcast in real-time.
Felix was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours for his services to theatre.
Hector Harkness is a live experience and theatre director. With Punchdrunk he has been part of the devising team for many projects including The Drowned Man, The Masque of the Red Death, Faust and Sleep No More. He has created cross-platform, digital, and VR experiences including ANTIdiaRY, an interactive album campaign with Rihanna, Silverpoint (app game meets live show across London) and the car-based thrillers The Night Chauffeur and The Black Diamond. He conceived Believe Your Eyes, a live VR project (originally Cannes, subsequently appearing in New York, Venice, Miami and Montreal) and Now That You’ve Died, a sound experience in an elevator with Christopher Eccleston.
Most recently, Hector worked with Maxine Doyle in development for Salamander (Brisbane Festival) and directed One Night, Long Ago, an intimate encounter in a forgotten London office.
Casey Jay Andrews is a multi-award winning Designer and Writer. She worked as Assistant Head of Design on Punchdrunk's The Burnt City, and she is Senior Designer at Punchdrunk Enrichment.
She has previously designed for Shotgun Carousel, Migration Matters Festival, Imogen Heap’s Mycelia World Tour, BT Sport, Francesca Moody Productions and The Immersive Great Gatsby in London, New York and Seoul.
Casey Jay has an eclectic design background ranging from large scale immersive theatre design to mural painting, illustration and wood carving, but she has a particular interest in intimate narrative led installations; these have provided a home for many of her independent projects. She has toured internationally with her original productions: The Archive of Educated Hearts, A Place That Belongs to Monsters and The Wild Unfeeling World.
Simon Wilkinson works internationally as a lighting designer for theatre, dance, and opera. Recent highlights include the world premiere of Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks (UK & Ireland), Islander (US Tour / New York / London), Vanishing Point’s Metamorphosis (
For the National Theatre of Scotland, Simon has lit The Panopticon, Interference, The 306: Dawn, Dragon, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish & Roman Bridge. He has designed work for most of Scotland’s leading theatre companies, including Love the Sinner, A Love Beyond, The Metamorphosis, The Dark Carnival (Vanishing Point); Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape, Castle Lennox, Glory on Earth, The Iliad, The Weir, Hedda Gabler, The Caucasian Chalk Circle and Bondagers (Lyceum); Crocodile Fever, Our Fathers, Meet Me at Dawn, Letters to Morrissey, Grain in the Blood (Traverse); I Am Tiger, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Knives in Hens (Perth Theatre); Don Quixote, The Children and Tay Bridge (Dundee Rep); The Stamping Ground (Raw Material); A Mother’s Song (KT Producing); Muster Station: Leith (Grid Iron / Edinburgh International Festival).
Simon has won the Critics Award For Theatre in Scotland for Best Design three times - for Flight, Black Beauty, and Bondagers. Over the years, his lighting has created a Guinness World Record, brought tens of thousands of people to a windswept Highland Forest and caused reports of an alien invasion.
Gareth Fry is a Sound Designer, best known for his cutting-edge work in theatre. His work includes productions for Complicité, National Theatre of Scotland, DV8, at the National Theatre, Royal Court, Bridge Theatre, Old Vic, Young Vic, in the West End and many more. He has also designed numerous exhibitions, such as the V&A’s David Bowie Is, Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser and Diva exhibitions, and events such as the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games.
He is a specialist in the use of spatial and binaural sound, used in Complicité’s The Encounter, the BBC’s The Dark Is Rising, numerous VR experiences, podcasts and advertising campaigns, including for Bose, Volvo and Land Rover. His work in VR has been featured at the Tribeca, Vienna and Sundance festivals.
He is a founder, and spent six years as the chair of, the Association of Sound Designers (now the ASDP), a charity that works to support people working in, and entering, the UK theatre sound industry. Gareth is an honorary fellow of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. He is the author of Sound Design for the Stage, published in 2019 by Crowood Press. He has contributed to BBC Radio 4’s World at One, and the World Service, to talk about sound. Awards include three Olivier Awards, two Tony Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, two Helpmann Awards and an Evening Standard award.
Recent work includes Macbeth (Donmar Warehouse), Free Your Mind (Aviva Studios), Romeo and Juliet (Almeida), Medea (Soho Place), Diva (V&A), On The Ropes (Park Theatre), A Christmas Carol, John Gabriel Borkman (Bridge Theatre), Caucasian Chalk Circle (Rose Theatre), To The Streets (Birmingham 2022), Psychodrama (Traverse), Jungle Book Reimagined (Akram Khan), Bedknobs & Broomsticks (UK tour), The Language of Kindness (Wayward Productions), Harry Potter And The Cursed Child (London, New York, Melbourne, San Francisco, Hamburg, Toronto, Tokyo); The Encounter (Complicité); Bach & Sons, Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads, Beat The Devil (Bridge Theatre), The Arrival (Bush Theatre), The Barber Shop Chronicles, Draw Me Close (National Theatre); Still No Idea (Improbable); Invisible Cities (Manchester International Festival).
Other work includes Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Apollo Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Noel Coward Theatre); Woyzeck (Old Vic); The Master & Margarita, Shun-kin, Endgame (Complicité); Let The Right One In, Black Watch (National Theatre of Scotland); CBeebies Thumbelina, Nutcracker, Alice in Wonderland, A Christmas Carol (BBC); Wings, The Cherry Orchard, Wild Swans, Hamlet (Young Vic); Boy (Almeida); Othello, The Cat in the Hat, Kneehigh’s A Matter Of Life and Death, Attempts on Her Life, Waves (National Theatre, England); Road, B, Victory Condition (Royal Court); Othello (Frantic Assembly), John (DV8, National Theatre). Soundscape Design, Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games.
Gareth trained at the Central School of Speech & Drama in Theatre Design. He is the author of Sound Design for the Stage.
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