Precise of Hannah Nicklin's ‘How (can) we ask audiences to act?’ http://www.hannahnicklin.com/2013/03/how-can-we-ask-people-to-act/

1. HOW (CAN) WE ASK
PEOPLE TO ACT?
Hannah Nicklin

2. WHO IS HANNAH?
Hannah classes herself as a theatre maker, game designer, poet,
producer and an academic. She studied play writing at the
beginning but since engaging more with contemporary
performance and games culture her work became pervasive and
digitally influenced. She is interested in community story telling,
tools that break the system and the spaces in-between what is?
and what if?
What is this?
This is where new thinking happens.
‘Audiences turn away from what is to conspire together to hold
between them what if – what if this were true, what if this was a
different place and you were a different version of you?’

3. HOW (CAN) WE ASK PEOPLE TO
ACT?
Nicklin advices that the important part in her performances is asking
the questions and really listening to the peoples stories. She makes
community theatre, finding regular people and listening to their
stories, setting out to find common voices, common experience, a
common city, a community.
‘Plagiarism is necessary. Progress demands it’
The stories she collects are real, they are not exaggerated or fictional.
She knows that these people are interesting and everyone's story is
different and has worth. These are their own words.

4. HOW (CAN) WE ASK PEOPLE TO
ACT?
Audiences support the performance, they want to go with what's
being shown as its their ‘escape’. An escape in which they readily
believe in the performance.
The core of her project is asking people about their regular lives, she
creates performance from the audiences context, including their
ideologies and experiences.
‘tell me about York that night’
‘tell me about an encounter with a stranger’
‘tell me about a journey’
Sometimes her projects centre around issues like government cuts
and there effect on the people. Some of the problems she faced

5. HOW (CAN) WE ASK PEOPLE TO
ACT?
Sometimes her projects centre around issues like government cuts and there
effect on the people.
Some of the problems she faced were that people didn’t identify themselves
as a story to be retold. They didn’t feel deserving of the questions because
their lives may appear ordinary and not interesting. Due to institutional
industries like ‘Hollywood’ and capitalism which Nicklin mentioned in the
article.
‘Capitalism has stolen our stories.
It sells them back to us like bottled water.
They are never about us.
They never listen.’

6. HOW (CAN) WE ASK PEOPLE TO
ACT
Her main components is audience action –
•Knowing that you will be listened to.
•Thinking you have something worth saying.
•Listening to other people.
The root of her work is to inspire people to believe in their own being,
which is opposite to the industries like capitalism.
‘we can only offer them a space were they might recognise their being
in the world, their being together with others, and the implications.’