Past Shows

Remember; if you’re ever lost, retrace your footsteps

Performers from UnderConstruction Theatre Company led audiences on a journey throughout the beautiful city of Oxford in the summer of 2011, unravelling a mystery that still haunts its streets.

Reflecting back in time, the piece explored the idea that Oxford was and still is the original Wonderland, littered with eccentric and absorbing characters.

Cast & Team:

Christopher Wren: Lee Woodward
Susan Holder: Jodana Janse Van Vuuren
James Sadler: Gavin Moore
John Scott Haldane: Jeremy Allen
Naomi Mitchison: Elsa Petit

Director: Lizzy McBain
Assistant Director: Blayne George
Writers: Kamran Zeb, Jeremy Allen & Lizzy McBain
Devised by the company
Designer: Grace Hailstone
Graphic Designer: Tania Grillo
Musical Direction: Steph West
Photographer: Robert Viglasky

As the World of possibilities struggles to remain intact, what will you make believe?

Performed on 7th and 8th May 2010, at The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, High St. Oxford.

Tightrope invited the audience to join us in ‘the citadel’ where the authority had banished all Make-Believe. In this barren land of the faithless, all those who visited for the night were asked to discover how the seeds of faith, music, science and fairytales could grow in a community that walked a fine line between safety and oppression, amongst which was woven a sad tale of a girl who had a story so absurd that no one would listen, let-alone believe her.

Cast & Team:

Lizzy McBain – Artistic Director
Tania Grillo – Performance Direction and Design
Izzie Martin – Script and Production
David Bannister – Musical Director
Diana Scrivener – Choreographer
Owen Evans – Lighting Designer
Photographer – Robert Viglasky

Performers: 
Dominika Akuszewska
Chelsey Burden
Paola Esposito
Blayne George
Nicola Harrison
Francis O’Neill
Nick Tingay
Anthony Turner
Merika Vine
Michelle Witen

Musicians:
Esha Neogy – Viol
Emma Park – Recorder
Irene Anderson – Recorder
Lydia Dougan – Recorder
Kathryn Corrigan – Recorder
Avalina Künzel – Soprano
Jane Goodenough – Alto
Matthew Silverman – Bass

An explorer discovers the garden and the endless and repetitive circle of time

Following Underconstrucution’s A Walk Between (2007), the company were reunited in Brazil in 2009, to redevelop the work for the gardens of Instituto Moreira Salles in Rio de Janeiro. A cast of six Brazilian performers was brought together to collaborate in a new reading of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and interpret it for the new space.

Working over a period of three months, the cast brought their own stories to weave in to the pre-existing narrative of an explorer discovering the garden and the endless and repetitive circle of time. Accompanied by the Brazilian band Baile Convulsão with an original score, the characters walked through a place abandoned by time in a quest to complete their purpose and share their stories. The house at Instituto Moreira Salles was designed by Olavo Redig and its gardens by Roberto Burle Marx, Brazil’s most famous landscape designer. Completed in 1951 and initially the residence of the Moreira Salles family, the house is now a public cultural centre. Sobre o Caminhar was performed in the gardens as part of the centenary celebrations of the birth of Roberto Burle Marx.

Cast and Team:

Tania Grillo – Artistic Director
Lizzy McBain – Assistant Director

Performers:
Renata Bastos
André Grabois
Julia Grillo
Tania Grillo
Tony Lima
Alexandre Mendonça
Lizzy McBain
Natalia Warth

For Baile Convulsão

Tiago Leite – Guitar
Michel Klejnberg – Guitar
Guilherme Lozinsky – Drums
Bruno Emílio – Bass