Punchdrunk (theatre company)

Punchdrunk is a British theatre company, formed in 2000 by Felix Barrett.^[1]

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Punchdrunk

Company type	Theatre company
Industry	Arts & Entertainment
Founded	2000
Founder	Felix Barrett
Headquarters	Woolwich, London , United Kingdom
Website	punchdrunk.com

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The company developed a form of immersive theatre in which no audience member will have the same experience as another. The audience is free to choose what to watch and where to go.^[2][3][4] The format is related to promenade theatre, but uses audience immersion more extensively.^[5][4] The company has been recognized for its unique uses of sound, light, movement and environment. In 2015, Punchdrunk formed a new company, Punchdrunk International, which produces a selection of Punchdrunk's commercial productions for national and international audiences.

The company is a National Portfolio Organisation with Arts Council England.^[6]

In a typical Punchdrunk production, audience members are free to roam the performance site, which can be as large as a five-story industrial warehouse. They can either follow the performers and themes (there are usually multiple threads at any instant), or simply explore the world of the performance, treating the production as a large art installation.^{[citation needed]}

Masks are another signature element of Punchdrunk's work. Barret says when the company "...introduced masks, suddenly inhibition fell away and people found a sense of freedom in their anonymity, allowing them to fully explore their surroundings and become totally absorbed in the world around them."^[7]

Former Secretary of State for Culture James Purnell cited Punchdrunk as an example of "access and excellence" in modern British theatre.^[7]

• The Cherry Orchard (2000), based on the play by Anton Chekhov^[13]
• The Moonslave (2000), an experience that saw single audience members taken to an old mansion house by a masked chauffeur, following candlelit paths through a dense forest where the story unraveled.^[14]
• The House of Oedipus (2000), an adaptation of Oedipus Rex and Antigone by Sophocles, staged in the garden of Poltimore House, Devon.^[13]
• Midsummer Night's Dream (2002), an interactive, promenade reworking of the Shakespeare classic set in a private house and garden.^[13]
• Chair (2002), an adaptation of Eugène Ionesco's The Chairs, performed in the Old Seager Distillery in Deptford.^[15]
• The Tempest (2003), an adaptation of the play by Shakespeare, again performed at the Old Seagar Distillery, using its five floors to create a dark vision of Prospero's island.^[16]
• Sleep No More (2003); see below for the 2009 and 2011 reinventions. An adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth in the style of a Hitchcock thriller, using reworked music from the soundtrack of classic Hitchcock films. Staged at the Beaufoy Building in London, an old Victorian school.^[17]
• Woyzeck (2004), an adaptation of the play by Georg Buchner. Performed at the Big Chill Music Festival.^[18]
• Marat/Sade (2005), an adaptation of the play by Peter Weiss. Performed at the 2005 Big Chill Music Festival.^[19]
• The Firebird Ball (2005), inspired by Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird. Staged at Offley Works, a disused factory in South London.^[20] The Firebird Ball ran for six weeks and received The Observer Review of the Year award for Best Out-of-Theatre Experience.
• Faust (10 October 2006 until 31 March 2007), an adaptation of Goethe's Faust Part One, relocated to a small town in the 1950s Midwest. Staged across 150,000 sq ft (14,000 m²) of a derelict 5-storey archive building at 21 Wapping Lane in the London neighbourhood of Wapping.^[21][22] The production, which was presented by Punchdrunk and the National Theatre, earned the company a nomination for the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Most Promising Newcomer and won the 2006 Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Designer.^[23]
• The Masque of the Red Death (play) (2007–8), a co-production with Battersea Arts Centre (BAC). An adaptation of stories by Edgar Allan Poe including "The Masque of the Red Death". Performed at the BAC from 5 October 2007 until 12 April 2008.^[24] While each performance culminated in a ball scene, Friday and Saturday night performances were followed by Red Death Lates, an elaborate after-party with interactive performance, celebrity guests, live bands and cabaret.^[25]
• Tunnel 228 (2009), a collaboration with the Old Vic theatre, in the abandoned tunnels beneath London's Waterloo station.^[26]
• Sleep No More, a 2009 reinvention in Boston of the 2003 London production. An adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Produced in association with the American Repertory Theatre at the Old Lincoln School in Brookline, Massachusetts.^[27]
• It Felt Like A Kiss (2009). Commissioned by the Manchester International Festival and produced in collaboration with documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis and musician Damon Albarn at a deserted office block in Spinningfields, Manchester. It depicted "America's rise to power in the golden age of pop, and the nightmare that came back to haunt us all."^[28] The production won the Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for Best Special Entertainment.
• The Duchess of Malfi (2010), an operatic adaptation of the play by John Webster with a score by Torsten Rasch. Produced in collaboration with English National Opera and performed in a vast, decommissioned pharmaceutical headquarters at London's Great Eastern Quay.^{[28][dead link‍]}
• Sleep No More a 2011 reinvention in New York of the 2003 London production (also revived in Boston in 2009). Performed in disused warehouses at 530 W 27th Street in Manhattan, which was transformed into a faded hotel.^{[29][30][31][32]} Sleep No More won a Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience and a Special Citation For Design And Choreography at the Obie Awards.
• The Crash of the Elysium, commissioned by Manchester International Festival, BBC, London 2012 Festival and Salford City Council. A 2011 one-hour show for children aged between 6 and 12, made in collaboration with the television series Doctor Who.^[33]
• The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable (2013-2014), an adaptation of Woyzeck set in a sixties film studio, performed in a disused postal sorting office in Paddington, London.^[34] Presented by Punchdrunk and the National Theatre.
• The Burnt City (2022-2023), a production based around the fall of Troy, performed in Woolwich's Royal Arsenal, London.^[35][36]

The Punchdrunk Encyclopaedia was published by Routledge in 2019, edited by the theatre scholar Josephine Machon.^[44] Development of the book began in 2014, after Machon interviewed Felix Barrett for a book on British theatre companies.^[45] Machon interviewed further members of Punchdrunk and visited Barrett's parents' home.^[45]

The book is structured as an encyclopaedia to allow non-linear exploration of its contents, mirroring Punchdrunk's non-linear performances.^[45] It was reviewed by The Times Literary Supplement,^[44] and nominated for the Theatre Book Prize in 2020.^[46]

• Site-specific theatre
• Postmodern theatre