Orient Productions/SEE Foundation in partnership with International Arts Partnership (IAP), collaborated on a project to rediscover the audio drama heritage of Egypt and use of that heritage to inspire a new generation of audio drama producers.
The project included a track of activities, which focused on building skills in the art form amongst a new generation of artists and to create a new slate of work to be showcased in Cairo in the Audio Drama Festival.
The Mentoring Programme:
A mentoring programme was created and two 3-day workshops were held in June and October of 2019.
First workshop held by Stefan Escreet & Kamal Kaan (UK) the participants started working on developing their ideas in weekly sessions with two local mentors (Asmaa Samir and Abeer Soliman). They were asked to create short pieces (no longer than 7-minutes) that would be then showcased by the end of the project during an Audio Drama Festival. By October, the participants had already written their scripts
Second workshop held by Michael Chappell, Stephen Tiller & Tomáš Soldán (UK) focused on introducing them to the technical skills of directing, producing and sound design. By the end of the second workshop the participants had recorded demos with some ideas for sound effects.
The participants went on to develop further and finalise their short form pieces. The final outcome was recorded in December 2019 and will be showcased during the Audio Drama Festival that is scheduled to take place as an online event by end of May 2020.
The programme aimed to:
• Introduce a group of participants to audio drama including Egypt’s heritage in this field
• Explore current trends in the art form in Europe and globally; introducing participants to different approaches to audio/radio drama from straight narrative to sound art
• Provide a practical introduction to the art form and how it differs from, for example, live theatre.
• Provide the space and time to start exploring the different methods of writing, directing and producing and audio drama, both theoretically and practically.
Workshop 1 – from 27th – 29th of June 2019 at Studio Emad Eddin
Workshop 2 – from 18th – 21st of October 2019 at Studio Emad Eddin
*This project was funded by the European Union and supported by the British Council