Steven Vevers-Webb of D-Live! tells us about their forthcoming production of Frozen Snow Queen

D-Live! are currently preparing for their winter production of Frozen Snow Queen which opens on 6th December in London before moving onto a few more venues in the South West.

I know from the rave reviews of their production of ‘Scrooge’ last winter that their shows are extremely well received, and I’ve also seen some great examples of their Visual Vernacular styles online – complete with painted faces and white gloves. But who are D-Live! and what inspires their work? I chatted to artistic director, Steven Vevers-Webb to find out more.

Hi Steven, thanks for getting in touch with us! So how did D-Live! come into fruition?

I am lucky to have been involved in the formation of two previous theatre companies, Deafinitely Theatre and DRoots. At the time when DRoots was winding down, myself and Joseph Collins wanted to create a cabaret style of entertainment to showcase the skills and talents of deaf performers to the mainstream world and casting agents and so we came up with the idea of a Cabaret night – purely for entertainment which we performed to large audiences.

Seeing the success of this made me want to take it further and create an entertainment company that was unique and so D-Live! began with myself and Joseph leading the company. Our first productions were the Cabaret and then Cirque VV (which is where the painted faces come in). It took us a while to discover our brand and our aims and now we have got it with the use of video technology to create the scenes/background/other characters for live actors to interact with.

We’ve now developed into creating full length productions for families as well as leading workshops to encourage literacy skills in deaf children.

As you mentioned discovering your brand was important – what would you say makes D-Live! different from other theatre companies?

Our use of video technology, 3-D video production makes us unique amongst theatre companies. We have live actors on stage interacting and having conversations with other digital characters on screen and so we can use technology to increase the number of actors we work with and the scenes we create.

We also go in to many schools, all over the country, to lead literacy workshops using drama, art and video as the stimulus to encourage deaf children to read more books. This is something we are currently developing further and have very exciting plans for 2020.

Was Scrooge your first show that used video and live performance? Can you tell us more about that?

Our first production that used video projection was actually a short piece called “Jack O’Kent” at the Oval House Theatre. I’ve always wanted to do an adaptation of Ibsen’s “Peer Gynt” but was put off my the number of characters needed to do it. In this work-in-progress, we had 3 live actors interacting with digital characters for the first time and we hope to develop this work further in the future.

We then had the idea to do “Scrooge”, a festive piece with one live actor on stage and all the other characters being digital, pre-recorded and filmed. It was a big challenge and one we learnt a lot from. We had 5 months to complete this project, which we did but to develop the work further, we need a longer lead-time to be able to deal with all the technical complexities that this work creates. We’re excited about “Frozen Snow Queen” this December/January as we’ve now got two live actors interacting with all the digital characters.

I enjoyed watching your videos on your website, what is your personal experience with acting?

I remember being 7 or 8 and I was given the lead role in my school production of “The Pied Piper” and after that experience, I was hooked. I knew that I wanted to work in theatre forever. My mum made excellent Pied Piper costume for the show, I was the only one with a costume in the play!

Since then, I attended Performing Arts College & Theatre Arts Education Studies at Reading University and was one of the co-founders of Deafinitely Theatre with Paula Garfield and Kate Furby.

My first acting experience was at the Unicorn Theatre with Ilan Dwek and Jason Taylor in a production called – “The Spirit of Clown”, a children’s theatre show directed by Ray Harrison Graham back in 1996. And although I enjoyed acting, I decided that I wanted to study and so did various courses over a five year period, all with a focus on theatre.

I started working with Theatre Resource (now Zinc Arts) and did some workshop facilitation and I realised how much I enjoyed working with people to create something. So yes, I’ve always loved acting, but actually prefer theatre workshop facilitation/directing/creating something with people.

Can you tell me where you trained in Visual Vernacular? This seems to be a core element of your work?

As you know, VV is a new and evolving theatrical communication system. I created some sign poetry back in the Deafinitely Theatre production of “Two Chairs” and thought it was theatrical sign.

A few years after that, we did “Motherland” – again with Deafinitely Theatre and one of the actors, Daryl Jackson, had been travelling in Europe and said, that’s VV – what you did in “Two Chairs” and what we are doing here. This was 15 or so years ago when the concept of VV was very new and still evolving (which it still is today).

I’ve always tried to be experimental and visual in my performances and so am fortunate that this is something I can bring to productions. At D-Live! we’re always trying to make our performances visual so that the actor has the freedom with their body, face, movement and sign language use to be as expressive as they can be. I hope your readers will come along and see our new production to see that for themselves.

With the use of painted white faces and white gloves in your performances – is this related to the mime style?

The use of make-up/gloves was to give the company a recognised brand/image that people would remember. This was mainly for the Cirque VV – one production that fitted the style. We wanted to reference the Circus influences as well as the VV and so decided to use make-up (as they do in Japanese Kabuki Theatre as well) to make us as expressive as possible and so that audience members would be able to read from long distances too.

We wanted to reference the history of mime and that culture that has influenced theatre and the white gloves created characters in that production who followed certain rules.

How interesting! So now you’re gearing up for the launch of Frozen Snow Queen, what inspired you to produce an adaptation of the famous story The Snow Queen?

I’ve always been a fan of Hans Christen Andersen’s fairy tales and after the recent success of the Disney film -“Frozen”, I thought it would be great to create an adaptation of the original work tailor-made for an audience of deaf children as well as families that have deaf people within them.

When we produced Scrooge with one live actor on stage interacting with video projection design and we saw the appetite that there is amongst deaf and hearing people for a family-friendly festive show to watch together.

That production was quite a bit dark in places and so this year we wanted to lighten the mood and produce a show that families can come together at Christmas time and watch and so here we have, “Frozen Snow Queen” with two live actors interacting with a video projection design with many other characters bringing new challenge of choreography work with two live actors working with set stage screen.

How did you go about casting for the show?

Some of the actors in this production were cast as we’ve worked with them before – Stephen Collins and Jim Fish. We saw Naomi Gray perform in Deafinitely Theatre’s recent production of “Horrible Histories” and so asked her to be in our show and for the other actors, we put out a casting call on social media and invited people to audition.

We held an audition day back in July – for a winter-themed show! Our two live performers are Julian Peedle-Calloo and Naomi Gray. The other actors featured in the production are: Emily Rose Salter, Will Lewis, Fatima Niemogha, Jim Fish and Stephen Collins.

How is pre-production coming along?

Rehearsals will begin on Monday 18th November for the production but we’re hard at work already and had two-weeks in August where we filmed all the content for the video projection design that is currently being edited together. The process is going well and we can’t wait for audiences to enjoy this festive themed production near to Christmas.

Is the show in BSL, with voice over? Can we expect any sign songs or Visual Vernacular?

The production British Sign Language, spoken English, captions and yes there will be some Visual Vernacular and potentially some singing too! Watch this space!

What sort of feedback have you had from previous shows?

The feedback from Scrooge last year from deaf and hearing people was overwhelmingly positive. They enjoyed our use of technology with the actor interacting with the video projection. We even had people flying in from Europe to come and watch the show – shows the demand!

What challenges have you faced as a theatre maker and how do you overcome these?

My biggest challenge is always building relationships with theatre venues and selling the idea of the show. We’ve had so many requests to tour our work further afield and have exciting plans for next year.

What’s next for D-Live?

After Frozen Snow Queen, we’re doing a literacy project with a deaf school to run story workshops – it’s called – Big D collection stories and we’re very excited about that. I’m also doing a new showcase production in the late spring at Camden People Theatre which I’ll be writing a new play which will be published into a book based on short collections stories and monologues about our culture, identity, language and experience and we are already planning for our next festive show for December 2020. Busy busy!

Anything else you’d like to share with us?

Please come and see the show if you can and to deaf people in the Midlands and North, i’ve heard your feedback and we’re trying to put a show there next year – watch this space!

Check out D-Live and their forthcoming tour of Frozen Snow Queen at www.d-live.org.uk/current-shows