Production Images (from above): The Cracks In My Skin written by Phil Porter. Royal Exchange Studio, Manchester, 2008. 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, 2010. The Digital Dream, a touring production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, E15 Acting School, 2011. Its creation was supported by a bespoke digital collaboration platform and a participatory network of FE institutions. Pub, Royal Exchange Studio, Manchester, 2009.

Tis Pity She's A Whore , Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, 2010. * * * * ‘Chris Meads's terrific revival of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore at the Liverpool Everyman took m e s t r a i g h t b a c k t o t h e oppressive Sundays of my childhood...It's a wonderfully judged production and well worth seeing...’ Lyn Gardner, The Guardian ‘Chris Meads’ direction has not only imbued each character with vitality, colour and depth, it’s also provided a spectacle that is every bit as shocking and thought provoking as surely it was on the play’s original opening night.’ The Stage The Cracks In My Skin written by Phil Porter, winner of the Bruntwood New Play Awards 2 0 0 8 , R o y a l E x c h a n g e Studio, Manchester. * * * * ‘Outstanding...Matti Houghton's performance is so heartfelt I was moved to the point of tears on more than one occasion.’ Manchester Evening News ‘ T h i s e v e n i n g a b s o l u t e l y captures the terrible pain of being 16…there are some lovely performances, most notably from Matti Houghton, whose look-no-hands portrayal of Janie would sweep the board at awards time if this play was in London rather than Manchester.’ Lyn Gardner (Why theatre awards need to get outside London/stage/guardian.co.uk) Nominated for Best Production and Best Actor, Manchester Evening News Awards.

Hello Thank you for reading. I'm Chris Meads, I'm based in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and over the last ten years I've directed numerous professional theatre productions for venues throughout the north of England, most frequently for the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, and Northern Stage, Newcastle. You can see examples of my work on this page. I also work as an acting tutor for E-15 Acting School. However, there's a particular aspect of my theatre practice that I'd love to tell you more about. Over recent years I've been successfully utilising digital technologies, and building and managing co-creation open networks, to enable dramatists, inter-disciplinary artists, theatre organisations and audiences to share knowledge, exchange ideas and create together in inventive new ways. Within the next three pages I'd like to briefly share with you the story of two recent, but very different, digitally facilitated new writing projects - A Wondrous Place and You Were Me Once...

* * * * 'Four short dramas with an emphatically original sense of place.' The Guardian.

'A trans-Pennine voyage of r e g i o n a l r e - d i s c o v e r y . . . ' The Stage.

' T h i s u t t e r l y c o m p e l l i n g production certainly delivers fresh thinking about true north.' The Stage.

'An excellent example of collaborative working at a new and challenging level for the north area.' Arts Council of England.

Nominated 'Best Studio Production' Manchester Theatre Awards 2014.

During 2011 - 2013 I developed, artistically led and directed A Wondrous Place, produced by my company Northern Spirit in association with New Writing North, Northern Stage, Sheffield Theatres, the Royal Exchange Theatre and the Unity Theatre and funded by the Arts Council of England.

The A Wondrous Place theatre production was a story sequence of four original short dramas, written by Luke Barnes, Alison Carr, Matt Hartley and Sarah McDonald Hughes, and it featured original animation, film sequences and a musical score. The inter-regional acting ensemble played to audiences in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield in the summer of 2013.

A Wondrous Place aimed to tap into the spirit of mutuality and co-operation that's such an important part of the North of England's story. We wanted as many people as possible to join us in generating a more imaginative idea of 'the North', challenging the cliches and habits of imagination surrounding this part of the world. Digital technologies and open networked systems helped us achieve this.

Here's how A Wondrous Place utilised digital technologies and more open and networked collaboration processes:

• We created a new inter-regional and inter-organisational open collaboration network, for knowledge, ideas and resource sharing, supported by collaborative technologies.

• Our artistic model was devised in collaboration with the project's participating inter-disciplinary artists, a process facilitated by an online co-creation platform. Each of these award winning artists - from the fields of animation, film making, sound art, music composition and digital art - were new to theatre-making processes.

• 18 award-winning bloggers - poets, photographers, novelists, visual artists, musicians...people making fantastic things within the north - were each offered a week on our website to share their passionate perspectives on Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield. Together they not only generated fresh, compelling and regularly updated content, but also helped to build audiences for the production by introducing our website and the project to their networks of on-line followers. The four short dramas were inspired by, and much of the visual content featured within the production was sourced through, this on-line participatory archive.

• Nine inter-disciplinary artists from across the north created artistic content for the production through an on-line collaboration process, facilitated by a bespoke digital collaboration platform.

• The production featured original music, composed by Caroline Churchill, and performed by musicians from across the northern region collaborating together on-line.

• The prologue to the show, performed by the A Wondrous Place ensemble, was generated through public participation via Twitter, Facebook and post-it-note post-show audience responses (see the image, right). New prologue content was added to the show throughout the tour and highlights of the public's responses were archived on our website.

• The artistic process utilised Creative Commons licensing and materials, to enable others to engage in new networked creativity inspired by our work.

For the full A Wondrous Place story and archive, visit: northernspirit.org.uk

What's The Story With Magpie...?

I was awarded Arts Council England funding in 2012 to engage in an Artist Residency with Action Transport Theatre, a company dedicated to finding new ways to engage young people in theatre-making processes. My residency involved leading the You Were Me Once project, which explored how young people aged 12 -18 could learn playwriting skills in a playful and engaging way. The professional playwright Kellie Smith joined us in our process, and to complement and enhance the physical workshops I created an innovative digital new writing platform: What's The Story With Magpie?

The private, non-public platform enabled the group to directly participate in the creation of an evolving character universe and dramatic story, led by Kellie. Our young collaborators could contribute ideas and experiences in response to story questions from Kellie, sometimes using her own voice and sometimes through the voice of the central protagonist, Magpie. The young collaborators were provided with a wide palette of creative tools to articulate their thoughts and ideas - including the ability to embed images, music, video, their own voice recordings, and also to collaborate on creating visual ideas boards. The platform also used gameplay incentive systems to help motivate the group to share ideas and join together to help solve 'story problems'.

Open To Collaboration I'm about to commence practice-led doctoral research at the University of Northumbria. My practical research is driven by the question:

How might digital collaboration tools, social media and networked systems be optimally utilised to enable organisations, artists and audiences to engage with one another in new, innovative and more complex forms of collaborative theatre-making processes?

My practical research over the coming years will be led by new theatre projects that build upon and advance the skills, knowledge and best practice that I have acquired as a result of leading the projects that I have shared with you, and a range of other theatre projects of this nature. This skill base includes:

• A comprehensive knowledge of current free/open source digital software and tools that can be utilised for creative knowledge sharing and artistic collaboration.

• The creative application of digital tools and technologies within a wide range of artistic processes.

• Networked collaboration relationship management, and digital community management, best practice.

• A knowledge of how digital tools and software can be used in combination with one another for more sophisticated interaction and collaboration: creating an inter-connected digital toolbox for networked collaboration.

• How digital platform functionality choices impact upon usability, the quality of artistic collaboration, and audience engagement.

• Using digital collaboration and ideas sharing tools in combination with non-digital, analogue tools.

• Using social media creatively for building and engaging audiences in artistic processes i.e generating curated and reciprocal content and feeds, rather than one-way, information sharing.

• Utilising digital tools to facilitate complex, networked collaborative relationships.

• Utilising Creative Commons content and licensing for innovative collaborative networked creativity.

If you are interested in developing work of this nature in the future, I would very much welcome having a conversation with you. Organisations that have so far welcomed collaboration during the next three years include Hull Truck Theatre and New Writing North.

Thank you for reading.

Chris Meads

Contact information:

Email: cmea-1@hotmail.co.uk

Mobile: 07598397194