The RSC had over 18,000 visitors
December 10, 2010
The RSC is absolutely huge. There are over 700 members of staff and on the first week of the reopening there were over 18,000 visitors. On my first weekend in the Reading Room there were 4000 visitors on the Saturday and 2700 on the Sunday. I sat in the room and tried to talk to a lot of people. It was great. But I needed to begin to experiment with different systems to aid my collection of people's stories and I needed some way to collect stories during the week, when I was back in London. It was also the coldest weekend in living history and anyone who knows me knows that I cannot stand the cold.
My main problem was: How do I start to connect with some of these people? How do I develop a system where people can contribute their stories even when I am not in the Reading Room? That was the first challenge. I met with Tom Cross (a wonderful artist) to discuss strategies. I am great at writing and having ideas about writing. I am also good at knowing that I needed something tactile, something that would entice people to respond, would entice them to write their stories and leave them for me, but I am no good at designing or thinking about systems. Tom was a great help. I knew I wanted memories. I wanted first times, I wanted favourite actors, best productions. I knew that I needed a way in. I needed to try something.
So Nicky Salmon and I brainstormed, building on some of Tom's ideas, looking at ways that we could make my collection a reality. We soon agreed on the materials needed for our initial venture. We decided on post it notes, wallpaper lining, flipchart paper, blue tack, little flags, pens and pencils. The idea was to start off with a timeline. People would be asked to leave little stories behind along the time line laid out across the wide old period table in the reading room. I also stuck some flipchart paper on the wall and asked people to contribute their first time experiences with anything Shakespeare.
The next weekend I came back to a table full of stories. I began to catalogue these into different categories...
by Malika Booker
| 1 comment
Share this