Back in my first year of Uni, I was working on a small site-specific project with a few others - including Alan Fielden. Recently inspired by dreamthinkspeaks’s extraordinary show Underground, We were briefed to create a piece about the Orpheus myth. We looked around the school for locations to use, and settled on an alleyway behind it, a rarely-used design studio, and a courtyard that connected the two.

But we came across a problem. Above the rarely-used design studio was an often-used design studio, and part-way through the process we discovered there was to be a public design showcase going on upstairs on the night of the performance. This meant that there’d be another stream of audience going backwards and forward between the main building and the other design studio. This would happen at exactly the point we needed to shepherd our small crowd from Orpheus, distraught in his alleyway, to Euridice, now a dancer in the sleazy 30s-style nightclub we were planning to set up in our studio* - a route we didn’t think was obvious enough anyway..

We were worried about losing audience, them not knowing where to go, or mixing them up, or whatever. Particularly as I wanted us to stay ‘in character’ all the way through the process.

I had a solution I thought was pretty simple. The audience would have just met Orpheus and discovered he was seeking his lost lover. I wanted him to give them photos of her, and ask them to try and find her. They would be encouraged to ask around. Set up at the door of the studio would be a poster of Euridice, advertising her as playing inside. The audience would either spot the poster - and know where to go - or ask around. If they asked an audience member from the other show, they’d reply honestly that they hadn’t seen her. If they asked one of the characters we’d have planted in the area, they would give them a lead in the right direction. Some audience would find it on their own, but most would probably just follow the crowd.

What’s more, it moved the story along, giving Orpheus a suitable bridge between “where on Earth could my Euridice be” to “Oh look here she is”.

The group didn’t adopt the idea in the end, but Alan and I were both keen on it. And I suddenly felt I’d stumbled upon something very exciting, something that would perhaps enable those childhood ambitions: a site-specific piece of theatre, that the audience could ‘play’.

*Hey, we were first years. Stop guffawing.