After Andrew's visit to National Theatre Wales' first play A good night out in the Valleys a couple of months ago. Both myself and Carwyn managed to get out to see National Theatre Wales' first play in Cardiff, The Devil Inside Him. For me it is the first time I have been to the New Theatre since I was a little boy and my parents took me to see Superted, I think at christmas time. I found the play very interesting on a number of levels. Firstly just through thinking about what life was like years ago and also how a seventeen year old could have written something like this.

We have been working with National Theatre Wales to create Assembly's promotional material, the programme is running alongside their main productions and will offer opportunities to experience theatre as a place for exploration, discussions and shared experiences. Working with various teams from local musicians, artists, hairdressers to dog owners. Assembly will be an evening of performances and discussions about what really matters in this particular place at this particular time. To get involved visit National Theatre Wales website to find where the nearest event is to you.

We have just launched a brand new section to the National Theatre Wales website. It is part of the bonus 13th show Passion which will involve Michael Sheen. The show is centred around location and place so there is a new facility for people to upload images in the Port Talbot area. You can find the page here and get involved.

The second performance from National Theatre Wales took place last night - A Good Night Out in the Valleys, at Blackwood Miners Institute.

I was lucky and attended the show with my wife Rebekka. We're both from the Cynon Valley, which made the play really hit home; our personal experience of individuals within Valleys was evident within the play. Alan Harris' words, John's direction and the cast did a brilliant job and something I welcome others to see.

Take a look at the line up of great shows that National Theatre Wales has for the coming year on their website www.nationaltheatrewales.org

Over the last few hours we've been putting the final touches together on an e-mail campaign for National Theatre Wales' first performace: A Good Night Out in the Valleys.

The send button has been pressed and the e-mail sent to their e-mail marketing list, with one date already sold out I'm sure it will not be long before the others follow. A Good Night Out in the Valleys will be performed at venues throught the South Wales Valleys.

You can view the e-flyer on their website:
http://nationaltheatrewales.org/eflyers/01032010/index.htm

We were delighted to be told that we are on Creative Review's blog with a great article about the design of National Theatre Wales website this week. We also got a write up on creative match and we have just published a case study on drupal to get feedback on the technical aspects of the project.

Well it's been one of the busiest weeks in the studio ever. We have been racing to get the National Theatre Wales destination website launched in conjunction with linking it to the live streaming of the event programme to the world. There were moments of doubt but it all seems to be running smoothly now and the launch of the programme seems to have been well received by the press. The online social community that has been nurtured by National Theatre Wales and Native, has also been responding to the launch and the destination website, which has been great. With one commenting:

"Well done John, Lucy, Lesa and all the NTW team. An amazing programme, a beautiful looking website, and all the technology worked!"

It has been a great project to work on. The team assembled by National Theatre Wales have all managed to collaborate together in a very proactive fun way.



Thanks to NTW, Lesa from stop the pigeon, Elfen for working on the brand, Native for developing the online community. We hope that this can be used as a great case study to show how creative teams can work together in a collaborative way. I also got a great coffee which helped the tired eyes.

Last week we found out that Hoffi’s proposal to design and develop a destination website for the National Theatre Wales had been accepted. Now that we’ve had time to return to earth following the great news, we wanted to come back to this community to begin to realise the connection between it’s members and the new destination website for the theatre.

The website will ultimately form a home; a place where events, productions and the theatre can be promoted.

Having said that, it’s not a closed concept. Instead we thought it would be useful to learn how members of the National Theatre Wales' already thriving social network would use the website. We’ve already had some positive feedback from a previous forum post, but now is our chance to delve further.

So making use of their social network, we've posed the small task for members to write a short synopsis of what they as individuals would like the National Theatre Wales website to be.

We're hoping the member of the community, as creative people, will push the boundaries of whats expected from a website. Helping to develop a concept for something that will truly be presented as a metaphor of theatre.