Genesis
In 2002, Stellar Quines Theatre Company commissioned playwright Judith Adams to create a site-specific play for performance at the soon-to-be-opened Scottish Plant Collectors’ Garden on the hillside behind Pitlochry Festival Theatre.
Conscious of Stellar Quines’ status as a company that existed to give voice to women artists, Judith noted with some amusement that the Scottish Plant Collectors in question - those whose legacy had effectively changed the landscape of Scotland, and who were being celebrated in this memorial garden - were exclusively men.
Early discussions with Stellar Quines’ artistic director Muriel Romanes - herself a passionate gardener - set Judith off on a twelve month research and development project (including three public workshops at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh) during which she assembled a huge repository of textual, visual and aural material from memoirs to fairy tales which would later form the backbone of the first script.
Stellar Quines existed as a company to give voice to women artists, but it was noted with some amusement that the Scottish Plant Collectors in question were exclusively men.
But there was a problem… Both Judith and Muriel were emphatic that this production would not only be site-specific, but also simultaneous. Rather than directing the audience around the garden as scenes were played out in a linear fashion, they wanted the experience to be more nebulous, and as unique for each audience member as possible. This meant allowing them to make their own decisions as to where they went, wandering freely, and encountering elements of the play as they explored.
After spending a significant time with vast sheets of paper and coloured felt pens, Judith decided that she needed a new medium to work in; one which would allow her to work on not just the specifics of individual scenes, but also to get a snapshot of the bigger picture at any time. This would ease the almost impossible task of working out which characters needed to be where, when, how they would get there, and how long it would take.
With the play by this stage existing in the form of virtually hundreds of fragments, scenes and pieces of paper (dutifully colour-coded with felt pen of course), Judith enlisted the help of Leo Warner and Robert Sharp of digital design company FIfty Nine Ltd, to help her to develop a scripting method that would open up some of the other dimensions in which Judith wanted to work.