Thanks for all the fantastic responses to our Year 5 announcements last week.  We've really enjoyed launching our new programme in such a unique way, and we're glad you all seem to have enjoyed our week of video gifts!

But why stop there?  As well as the five large-scale productions we told you about last week, there are lots of other things going on at NTW, including five more projects which will be central to our work for the year. 

Here are the details:

THE KAREN PROJECT  

Building on its track record in digital innovation, NTW has been working with digital performance pioneers Blast Theory to develop a new theatre production for the smartphone generation: an app that mixes gaming and storytelling.

Karen is a life coach and she’s happy to help you work through a few things in your life. When you begin, she asks you some questions about your outlook on the world to get an understanding of you. As the story unfolds and she gets to know you, she gets more and more curious. She seems to know things about you that she shouldn’t. Where exactly is this going to end?

Co-commissioned by The Space and 539 Kickstarter backers. Karen has been developed with support from the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Nottingham and in collaboration with Dr Kelly Page.

Those wishing to take part can just download the free Karen app from the iTunes store - where it will be available very soon.

TRANSITION

National Theatre Wales in association with Theatr Iolo & Run Ragged

10-11 April 2015

Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

April 2015 sees the premier of the first full NTW production to grow out of our WalesLab programme for new theatre ideas: Transition.

Jem is 50 next year. Ella is 11. They are father and daughter. Ella is ballet mad and has just started going en pointe. Jem is a professional, contemporary dancer and doesn’t approve. They have always danced together on the kitchen rug. In Transition, they explore their shifting relationship through dance, conversation and film. 

THE SHOPS

PeerGrouP are a Dutch theatre company who live and work alongside the farmers of north Netherlands. With NTW, they’ve been visiting the town of Rhayader, in the heart of Powys, for the past three years, preparing a new production. Working with the shopkeepers of the town and a range of Welsh and Dutch artists, they will create The Shops – a transformation of the life of the town’s post office, laundrette, grocer’s, butcher's, electrical supplies store, and dozens of other shops into a fully immersive theatrical experience.

THE BIG DEMOCRACY PROJECT

National Theatre Wales has been asking Wales what the big questions for the future are - and how we should go about making changes - in a series of performance-debates around the country, which form the first part of the company’s Big Democracy Project. In March 2016, everyone involved so far will be invited to take over the Senedd building, heart of Welsh Government, to choose the biggest issue facing the nation - and to decide what kind of a theatre production NTW should make about it.

In the meantime, the South Wales BDP event will be held on Friday 13^th March 2015, at Oasis Cardiff, and will ask why identity is important.