The One Hour Plays
The Matey Institute Presents…The One Hour Plays
The Show…
Bereft of inspiration, we start our show with nothing – no script, no ideas, no direction. All we have to offer is one writer, three actors, a director, a seamstress and a technician. But what we lack in material, we more than make up for in enthusiasm and derring-do. With suggestions from the audience we create the characters, improvise the plot, make the costumes, write the script and take over the world.
With the first germ of audience input we start a 60-minute countdown and it’s all hands on decks. What ensues is a high-octane flurry of creativity with live playwriting (projected real-time onto a screen,) costume making (our pimped up silvercross pram complete with hand-operated Singer sewing machine is a show on its own,) prop making (we invite the audience to dig into our craft boxes and create the props – Art Attack! meets Anneka Rice) and rehearsing. At the forty minute point the writer MUST have finished and the script MUST be printed exactly as it is at that second. The actors are each handed a script and after a ten minute rehearsal with director’s notes the ten minute three-act play begins.
The audience can come and go as they please. They might stay for the whole ride and watch as we dash from concept to production in one hour. They might amble in at the end and be wowed by our fully staged and scripted play. They might only catch the middle and watch our seamstress whizzing up a frenzy on her Singer as our actors practise their accents and our writer types with fiendish abandon, blood flying from her fingertips. Whenever they drop by, whichever snippet they see, we guarantee a richly sensory spectacle which lays bare the nuts and bolts of the theatre in all its eccentricity.
Our show is an embodiment of the Matey Institute ethos – to share what we know (about theatre, in this instance) and invite others (the audience) to share what they can in return (ideas, inspiration and helping out with props/costume making.)
The Matey Institute
The Matey Institute is a twice-monthly skill sharing group, free to join and open to all. The founding group in London is the most active but there are also two fledgling groups in Exeter and Liverpool, and we are happy to help out anyone who is inspired to start a group elsewhere!
Our story…
We tried to join Highbury Women’s Institute a few years ago and were turned away because they were oversubscribed. We went home rejected, dejected, licking our wounds. We were a bunch of knitters without a tribe.
We moped for a few months feeling sorry for ourselves, and then thought ‘screw the WI, let’s make our own club!’
And so the Matey Institute was born. From humble beginnings in a tiny studio flat with seven mateys, we have grown and grown, and now have residency at The Drapers Arms in Islington and 155 members on our Facebook page.
We like to think of ourselves as a radical breakaway alternative to the Women’s Institute. Our group is similar in that we have a leaning towards arts and crafts, and we love jam. But we think our workshops are richer for their gender integration and embracing of all ages! We have been running workshops for over a year now and have garnered a cult following in North London.
Workshops…
Every month we run a different workshop, and all of our workshops are led by members of the group, who we invite to share their particular skills. Workshop leaders don’t have to be pros in their fields: odds are they know a heck of a lot more about their subject than anyone else in the group! We have not had to hire any teachers, nor do we feel we’ll ever need to. Each time a new person joins us, our skill-base increases.
We have run classes as varied as willow basket weaving, knitting, massage, bike maintenance, origami, wine tasting and kung fu. The next months will see us learning ventriloquism, boxing, croquet, cocktail mixing, poker skills and faces, chinese calligraphy, felting and tapdance.
We also run a regular life drawing class upstairs at The Drapers Arms, Barnsbury Street. The next one is Weds 15th June.
Guerrilla mateys (shhhhh….)
Date TBC – secret locations…but mainly around the Southbank
The Matey Institute will be hitting the streets of London to teach skills to the public! Sewing, knitting, kungfu, cider tasting, portrait sketching, gory make-up, cycle maintenance, origami, poetry, juggling, plate spinning, diablo… Look out for a band of eccentrically dressed gypsies with wheelbarrows, parasols and a silvercross pram…
The One Hour Plays Events:
The One Hour Plays - Larmer Tree Festival
Wednesday 11th July to Sunday 15th July 201215th, 16th, 17th July 2011 at Larmer Tree Festival.See more about this event here.
You can book tickets here.
The One Hour Plays - Edinburgh 2012
Thursday 2nd August to Sunday 26th August 2012, 14:20 at Edinburgh Underbelly - 'Belly Laugh'.See more about this event here.
You can book tickets here.
The Matey Institute Present...The One Hour Plays!
16th January 2012;13th February 2012;
12th March 2012;
16th April 2012;
14th May 2012;
18th June 2012, 20:30 at Leicester Square Theatre.
See more about this event here.
You can book tickets here.
The Matey Institute at No Direction Home
Friday 8th June to Sunday 10th June 2012, 10.00 at No Direction Home Festival.See more about this event here.
You can book tickets here.
The Matey Institute at End Of The Road Festival
Friday 31st August to Sunday 2nd September 2012 at End Of The Road Festival 2012.See more about this event here.
You can book tickets here.
The One Hour Plays
18th, 22nd June 2011, Sat 19:30, Weds 21:30 at Leicester Square Theatre.See more about this event here.
You can book tickets here.
