After the After Life Experience

Posted on July 16th, 2021

At the start of June, we launched After Life Experience in collaboration with the National Theatre and Headlong – a companion piece to After Life, running at the National Theatre from 02 June – 07 August.

If you could select one memory from your life to live inside for eternity, what memory would it be?

After a successful collaboration with Headlong on The Ghost Caller, and inspired by Jack Thorne’s beautiful new adaptation of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film — After Life Experience was first conceived of in March 2021. Excited by the potential to make a layered experience around this near impossible but beautiful question at the heart of the story, Coney was also thrilled by the chance to collaborate with Headlong and The National Theatre again to bring audiences closer to the story and themselves.

Tasked with building an interactive companion piece to the theatre show, the team began by exploring how to design a facilitation that would offer a meaningful experience, while effectively supporting the audience so that they could make the best decision – both for themselves and the listening experience of others.

Sending the first prototype to just family, friends and the After Life cast, the team began receiving the first submissions of memories in May. Since opening to the general public in June, participants have described the experience of playing and recounting their chosen memories, as cathartic, often joyful, sometimes difficult but always a rich experience. Others have described the facilitation as helping them remember and relive the details of their most precious memories that photographs weren’t able to capture. Variety, textures, details.

Co-Director for Coney, Tassos Stevens, would like to shout out TD Moyo, the brilliant creative backbone of the project; Suzannah Hurst, who after training as a programmer over lockdown has built something truly elegant and supportive; and Danielle Henry, the voice of the facilitation, whose presence and warmth provides the curious and welcoming space audiences are invited to enter.

You can play the piece whether or not you’ve seen the show – have a go here.

Credits

Co-directed by Tassos Stevens & TD. Moyo
Interaction Design by Tassos Stevens
Script by Tassos Stevens & TD. Moyo
Voice by Danielle Henry
Sound Design by Tom Gibbons
Memory Curation by TD. Moyo
Digital Programming by Suzanna Hurst
Producing by Ellie Browning & Vicky Hawkins

Devised in dialogue with Jeremy Herrin and the creative team of After Life