Hi everyone,

I am working with playwright Lucy Hayward to produce her debut play On the Tracks. Lucy was registered blind in her early twenties and struggled to adapt to life with sight loss. Ten years later, after completing a masters in playwriting and showcasing her work with Pentabus at Latitude Festival and creating work for Birmingham Rep, she has decided to focus her writing on making theatre accessible and inclusive of blind and visually impaired audience members.

On the Tracks is designed to be accessible for blind and visually impaired audiences without relying on headphones or visual signposting to move the plot along. It is important to absorb access within the script from the beginning of the process rather than adding extras on at the end. Blind and visually impaired audiences members at the original performance described On the Tracks as ‘Totally accessible’

Phil Hemming and Oliver Davis took on the roles of Ted and Robert, two shunters who work on a country railway station at night. This play explores the loneliness and isolation people can experience in modern society and the segregation they can feel from daily life when working nights. On the Tracks plays with the disconnect people can feel with day to day life, especially if like Ted you have not embraced modern technology, and the ease with which the image of ‘normality' can be created. Lucys’ writing has been described as bold, passionate and haunting.

Lucy has been awarded funding by Arts Council to cover running costs and publicity. We would like to use Just Giving to put towards training for venues where On the Tracks is being performed to support blind and visually impaired audience members and recording our journey on tour. We are developing alternative ways of advertising the performance through film and social media and will start broadcasting On the Tracks via radio link in October 2018.

We will be providing rewards for donations, there are a number of tickets available to see 'On the Tracks' during the tour over 2018/19

On the Tracks tour dates:

Unity Theatre Liverpool (DaDa Fest) November 2018

https://vimeo.com/270672652/f475f88f63

On The Tracks was shortlisted for the New Writing South Best New Play Award 2018 and has a 4 star review from Fringe Guru!

http://brighton.fringeguru.com/reviews/brighton-2018/on-the-tracks

Thank you so much for taking the time to have a look, we look forward to hearing from you.