Latitude in a Minute: Dan Coleman from Theatre 503

In the first of Whatsonstage.com’s one-minute interviews with theatre folk at Latitude, director Dan Coleman tells Whatsonstage.com about Theatre 503′s project, Urban Sprawl.

Tell us about Urban Sprawl

Urban Scrawl is a project we’ve been working on for about eight months with theatreVOICE and Rose Bruford College. The idea is to create an online audio drama, with one play for each of the stations on the Piccadilly line. At Latitude we’re doing Urban Sprawl, which is just four pieces, including a new play by Mark Ravenhill. We’re trying to create the sense of going on a tube journey; each stop has a different story.

Who’ll enjoy the show?

It’s slightly London-centric I have to say; there are a few references there that you’d only ever get if you were aware of the stations on the Piccadilly line, but hopefully it’s for everyone. There’s a lot of quite funny pieces. There’s this fantastic mini-musical at the end, which is about Heathrow Terminal 4, which everyone will get. Hopefully it’s for everyone, but if you know the Piccadilly line fairly well there’ll be extra little things for you.

Will people be able to see the show anywhere else apart from at Latitude?

We’ve just pulled this together for the festival. The other pieces, you can hear them but you can’t seem them. We wanted to do something specifically for Latitude because we went up last year for the first time and it was great and it seemed so obvious to try to tie it in. So essentially it does have a life after Latitude, but an audio life, rather than a life in live performances.

How does performing at a festival compare to working in a traditional theatre context?

It’s a different theatre tent this year and it’s quite a lot bigger so it’ll probably feel a bit more like a theatre. Last year was our first time out there and you’re very definitely in a tent and it’s very much in the middle of a festival so it’s a very transient audience, quite loud, quite noisy. We’d taken up some quite quiet, quite intimate pieces and found that you’ve kind of got to shout because otherwise people are going to get up and walk off. So we’ve taken that on board. But I think this year because of the new theatre tent, it’s a lot more enclosed, it might be a bit more of a stationary audience.

Who are you hoping to see at the festival?

I’ve going to have to spend a lot of time in the theatre tent because quite a lot of mates and associates are doing stuff. nabokov I would like to see because I know Joel Horwood quite well. A big thing is watching Nick Cave on Sunday to be honest. And Thom Yorke. Nothing is going to make me miss those two.

- by Jo Caird