| Glass Hero: An Introduction |
| by PóL Steele of the E.I.I.Festival 2002 |
| When I first started the Edinburgh
International Internet Festival in 1999, there was one particular person in the UK who
immediately grasped the potential of my online event and the possible implications it
might have for artistic projects based in the 'real world'. Jim Grover is a London based playwright and theatrical director who is also the creator of the Naked Theatre website. In July 1999, Jim was in the closing stages of producing Glass Hero as the very first play to be written live on the Internet. Centred around the mysterious disappearance in the 1920's of the socialist icon Victor Grayson, Glass Hero is a fantastic piece of work containing mystery, humour and suspense. A political drama which raises questions of great relevance with regards to the world we find ourselves living in today. When Jim approached me about including the Naked Theatre website in the first E.I.I.Festival, I immediately asked if Glass Hero could also be included in the event. This lead to a series of delightful e-mail conversations which resulted in the inclusion of Glass Hero as the official online theatrical production of the Edinburgh International Internet Festival. In the years following Jim has been deeply involved in the festival and has produced two additional online productions. Provenance Helpline & Beating Time, both of which I have had the great honour of including in the web festival. In June of 2002, the aims of the web festival changed completely when I joined the campaign to convert Edinburgh's historically important Dalry House from a (former) day care centre for the elderly into a community arts project. As Dalry House contained it's own theatre and was looking to stage events during this year's Edinburgh Festival season... I immediately thought of Jim and Naked Theatre. Once again a frantic series of telephone calls and e-mails went back and forth between Edinburgh and London. Both Jim and myself were keen to bring the world premiere of Glass Hero to the Edinburgh Festival but with only a few weeks to organise, cast, rehearse, promote and perform the play... could it be done? The simple answer was Yes! Despite a huge amount of problems and a series of last minute changes within the venue, through the sheer hard work and dedication from all involved in the production... The Real World premiere of Glass Hero was presented within Edinburgh's Dalry House on Saturday 17th August. Almost four years to the day since Jim had presented the final scene on the web... Glass Hero had become a physical entity in its own right! I am delighted to present this online programme as both a permanent reminder of the spectacular success of Glass Hero's premiere and as a taster for future productions of the play. The Dalry House premiere is only the start of the story of Glass Hero and there are already plans afoot which will once again see the reappearance of Victor Grayson. |
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PóL Steele |