Crouch Touch Pause Engage – production information

★★★★★
“Brilliant. It wrenches the gut and makes the soul sing”
The Times

On the eve of one of the most important games of his career, Welsh rugby legend Gareth Thomas received a warning. The Sun newspaper was going to “out” him as gay.

Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage is the story of two Welsh names bruised, but not beaten, by media speculation: Gareth ‘Alfie’ Thomas, 100 caps for Wales, once its Captain, now the world’s most prominent gay sportsman. And his hometown Bridgend, itself the subject of media intrusion and speculation in the wake of a number of suicides. Working with Alfie himself and young people in Bridgend, some of the UK’s most exciting theatre companies team up to tell a moving and often hilarious story about sport, secrets, courage, friendship, and learning to be yourself.

Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage toured Wales and England in 2014 and 2015, to great acclaim from critics and audiences.

Read reviews and audience comments.

Writer Robin Soans
Director Max Stafford-Clark
Set & Costume Designer Angela Davies
Lighting Designer Katy Morison
Sound Designer Dyfan Jones
Movement Director Scott Graham

• Running Time: 1 hour 50 minutes including an interval
• The production includes swearing and adult themes
• The production can be presented in spaces from 100-800 seats, and in both end-on and thrust/horseshoe seating layouts.

The Writer

Robin Soans is a master of “verbatim theatre” – theatre made from interviews with real people at the heart of an event or community. His previous successes include the much talked-about Talking To Terrorists, Mixed Up North, Life After Scandal, A State Affair and The Arab-Israeli Cookbook. Other successes include the much-praised drama Perseverance Drive.

The Director

Max Stafford-Clark is one of the most influential directors in the UK. A champion of writers and new theatre writing, he has commissioned and directed plays by writers including David Hare, Caryl Churchill, Mark Ravenhill and many others. Max founded Out of Joint following his artistic directorship of the Royal Court Theatre.

The Producing Companies

Epic, inquisitive and authentic: Out of Joint develops, produces and tours entertaining and socially-engaged theatre that broadens horizons and ask questions of our times. National Theatre Wales has made theatre in forests, up mountains, on beaches, in nightclubs and across entire towns. They collaborate with storytelling poets, visual visionaries and inventors of ideas making theatre rooted in Wales with an international reach. And in its converted paint factory in Dalston, East London, Arcola Theatre presents new writing and forgotten classics to a local and international audience. World-class productions of plays, operas and musicals appear alongside exciting young companies.

Touring Information and Technical Specification

On The Road

Out of joint will provide all cast, stage and production management, set props and costumes. There will be a maximum of 9 people on the road, plus creative team for opening only.

Promoter/ Venue to Provide:

• Marketing support
• Front of House staff

For international bookings, the venue/promoter may need to provide:

• International travel (including travel between accommodation and venue if applicable)
• Hotel accommodation
• International freight, or the services of a local workshop
• Artist visas and innoculation
• Per diems / living allowances
• A full day’s rest between arrival and starting work at the venue.
• A full archive recording of the show, press pack and production photographs are available on request.
• An education pack and programme of workshops (led by Max Stafford-Clark and/or Out of Joint artists) are also available on request.

Venue Requirements

• Minimum stage size 8 metres x 8 metres
• Ground level load-in
• Sound to be run from QLab system
• Lighting to be run from an Ion desk, and to be rigged in advance.
• A full theatrical lighting system
• At all times that performers are on stage the temperature should be no less than 18˚C

Get In/Fit-Up

• Get in from 9:00am on the day before the performance with exclusive use of the stage.