Promenade

Theatre

Vintage photograph of a textile mill complex with labeled buildings including a sorting shop, packing shed, wash house, boiler house, mules spinning, spinning mill, and fire station, set in a rural landscape.

Black and white photo of a quaint town street with a vintage car parked, a café sign, and various traditional storefronts.

Or perhaps, outdoor promenade theatre, which has been a form I have enjoyed making, and people seem to have liked.

It’s not difficult.

It requires a story with a strong through line, and ideally this story has multiple locations (Pericles or The Odyssey), or a reason to go from the city to the woods (A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like it), or from Earth to another dimension (The Sirens of Titan or Lords And Ladies).

You need good nature (Williamson Park in Lancaster is pretty nigh perfect), or Oxleas Woods where you can easily get lost.

Then a brave cast, a crew who are up for a challenge and an audience who are willing to slowly turn into a wandering tribe.

Children on rugs, adults on stools or standing.

Small ones to the front, tall ones at the back.

The actors play to the edges of the net drawing in the attenders. Slowly as it gets dark (and perhaps some rain is felt or the moon emerges), we lean in and the story binds us.

It’s basic and intergenerational.

It’s a gathering that generates a communal glue.

And there’s not enough of it about.