We were given the task of finding out who this guy was and what was special about what he did in Nottingham, and then deliver a site-specific live performance on him in the city somewhere.
I have never attempted anything like this - ever. A similar level of experience ran throughout the group. So we gathered what scraps of imformation we could together. We found he was a slave, turned metalwork apprentice, turned brass forging entrepeneur. We found that a couple
of Nottingham churches and a house near the Lace Market were import in his life. After finding no eveidence of him at one of the churchs and the house is now a tram junction, we found a small plaque with his name on at St. Mary's church near the Pitcher & Piano.
Fantastic. Oh well, better than nothing.
We decided this would be the most likly site for the performance. The idea of a guided tour seemed a good one, but the lack of Afrucanus-afiliated hotspopts around the church was a slight issue. So we made our own. With a few of us dodded around the grounds ready to blow our audiences minds with history and details, a tour guide stringing them along and a handy plant in the group to prompt questions (me), the fact that only one square metre of the church was important was missed by the audience.
To add some fund raising element to the task (fullfilling one of the aims of the task) and adding some interactivity and hands-on factor for the audience I came up with the idea of cutting a laminated picture of Afrucanus into as many pieces as we had stations. Then for the audience to bid on each piece so at the end they could see what he looked like. The idea then pooped up that we wouldn't tell who our audience was learning about untill they put the image together and were standing on his grave (or possibly his grave).
Some late thinking prompted the filming of our tour from the POV of an audience member, presumably to show whoever (lecturers, other interested members of the public etc...). But the cameraman never got that tape... out of the camera? So no post production got done. In fact, we never got to check that ant production got done. So that was a bit of a waste of effort.
And there we have it. The evolution of ideas towards our performance - which went pretty well in comparison to other groups as I've heard. I think we made just over a pound profit. Result!
