Monday, 21 May 2012

Twitter + Theatre = Addiction;


When you think of theatre, the last thing that would come to mind is the social networking site Twitter, yet somehow Small Crown Productions has found a way to bring the online performance of The Three Tweetle Pigs to a twitter feed near you.


Based on the classic story of The Three Little Pigs, this performance fills in the background of the three pigs and the wolf. Told through a series of tweets from various accounts, characters would tweet another and slowly drop hints about activities, events and places that allowed the show to advance. Also, followers had the chance to interact with the characters and involve themselves with the plot line. Over the ten days of the show's run, the 5 performers totalled an impressive 1700 tweets between them. With each tweet slowly giving clues to the story, followers of the accounts attempted to piece together what really happened between the pigs and wolf. Why did the wolf huff and puff? Why did the pigs go to the market? Why are the pigs such a close family? All these questions are answered in one of the most engaging and addictive performances you'll find.

The concept of an online performance is hard to understand at first, and even harder to believe it can work but as soon as the show started, it's hard to believe this hasn't happened sooner. Theatre run entirely on Twitter does not sound possible, but with characters constantly tweeting through all hours of the day, followers cannot help but get attached and addicted to keeping up to date. The interaction of characters is the highlight of the show. Unique to this medium of performance, followers can talk to characters, and even involve themselves in the story. This opens a whole new door for performance, creating an experience that just can't happen in other styles of performance. This interaction with the audience could be a focus for future shows and might cause a greater audience size and production success.

The show does however cause audience members to be dedicated followers of the production. Constantly checking Twitter, reading past tweets and keeping up to date is essential to being able to follow the plot line developments. An afternoon missed, and audience members could miss a vital part in the story. This was where the show fell down a bit, if Small Crown Productions was to find a way to make provide daily updates, or a site where the tweets of the day were uploaded, so followers could quickly check what they've missed, this would make the show a lot easier to follow.

This is the second Twitter show from Small Crown Productions, but there is a bright future a head for them. They have pioneered an entirely new concept in performance and despite only being new to it themselves; they know how to make it work. With very minor problems with following the performance, the show was fast paced, entertaining, and downright addictive. There were no boring moments in the show, with characters constantly tweeting, even at moments where there was little action, the banter between characters and random tweets from characters were laugh-out-loud funny, and thoroughly entertaining.

This type of performance needs to continue and get more of a following, such a creative and entertaining form of performance that has not received the attention it deserves. Small Crown Productions need your following, check out this performance and follow them in the future, this is only just the beginning for Small Crown, there is no doubt they will go far.

1 comment:

  1. I've been waiting for this post! What happened to all the characters?

    ReplyDelete