We spoke to Molly Freeman, Co-Artistic Director of Smoking Apples Theatre, about the challenges of keeping their work free for audiences, including their latest piece of work.
One of our main strands of work at Smoking Apples is making and creating free, outdoor shows, for all kinds of audiences to enjoy. We’re often asked how making this type of work differs from our indoor touring work or to put it more bluntly, why on earth do we do it?! It’s no secret that it’s definitely a different process, there are mostly no ticket sales, so it’s risky for both artists and programmers/venues as we never know exactly how many people are going to turn up. But one of the main reasons we keep coming back to making free outdoor shows is because of the raw connection it allows us to make with our audiences.
We Are More Alike, our latest outdoor show, which will premiere on Folkestone’s Harbour Arm in August, is no different in the sense that it allows us complete selfish access to our audiences, without any of the “etiquette” of theatre. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the formality of an indoor space and everything that goes with it, we do that a lot too, but there is something magical about being able to instantly see and read every single moment on your audience’s faces.
There are, of course, some inherent challenges of making work that is free and in an outdoor space. The first one is that you have to earn their attention. You have to make them stop in their tracks and want to stay. We’re not talking for a few minutes, we’re talking the full 30 and we are often performing in spaces where there are many other, plentiful, distractions. It’s watch us or maybe go and get a delicious gourmet burger or look at the sea (she’s a real beauty in Folkestone so we’re going to have a fight on our hands!) When creating our outdoor shows, we really think about this process and our way of grabbing attention is to make sure that we have a spectacle element, something that intrigues and reads from a distance, drawing people in to have a closer look. In We Are More Alike, this is the steampunk inspired set, which transports our two central characters, the Anthologists, around multiple dimensions. They’ve crash landed in Folkestone and are now trying to find their way out, by collecting local stories. The set is so much more than a bit of eye-candy for us in this show, it’s our stage, it’s our playground and it enables us to bring some of that theatrical magic without the bells and whistles of a theatre space. During the show it facilitates all different kinds of wonders; a story printer, a Punch & Judy inspired booth, a hat hanky catapult and a flibberty skibbet to name a few. We’ll let you imagine what that last one is.
The other absolute joy of this kind of work is there are people who will come specifically to see you. They have read the posters, seen the social media posts, followed the hype and come. Some of those will be people who know us and our work, others will be people who thought we looked interesting. Then there’s the people who stumble upon us by accident and these are often my favourite encounters as they have come expecting nothing and leave having watched our work! The beauty about free outdoor shows is that all barriers are removed, so more often than not, we’ll also get people who don’t normally engage with theatre or even better don’t like it! These are my favourite interactions because the gauntlet is thrown down and our challenge is to keep them engaged. An important part of this for us is creating really personable characters, whether that be in actor/performer or puppet form and most importantly finding the fun and the joy in the storytelling. This might come as a bit of a surprise, as the subject matter of our work is complex and We Are More Alike is no different with it spotlighting the migration and movement of people through the town.
Perhaps most importantly, what the lighter parts do is allow people an entry point and this then leads to further conversation and the staying power to see the show from start to end. That way, we can get across the story in the best possible way and explore the subject as a whole, rather than only in parts. It’s really wonderful that over the years, we have been some people’s first entry point to theatre and performance, particularly young people. This is really key to what we do and it’s honestly a joy and a privilege to make work that people can see for free, planned or not planned.
Despite its challenges, we wouldn’t have it any other way and we can’t wait to share We Are More Alike with audiences old and new. It’s a chance for us to share some brilliant stories about our home town, with a strong dose of silliness and artistic license thrown in. We hope that audiences will watch it and understand that our work, just like Folkestone itself, is a tapestry of the people who made it, with each one adding something of value.
Smoking Apples’ new piece, We Are More Alike, opened on the 3rd of August, and is directed and co-written by Molly. You can learn more about the project on their website.