Meet Simon Lyshon
Simon Lyshon, an actor and theatre maker, who trained on Central’s BA (Hons) Acting - Collaborative and Devised Theatre (CDT) course, talks to us about his role in Swamp Motel’s latest immersive production, Saint Jude.
He gives advice to actors interested in working on immersive or interactive theatre experiences, and talks about what he hopes audiences will take away from their experience with Saint Jude, and where they can go to find out more and book tickets.
What is Saint Jude about?
Saint Jude is an interactive audio experience by immersive entertainment company Swamp Motel. It’s an hour-long psychological thriller where each audience member is connected to, and converses with, a coma patient (called a Sleeper). Built with Swamp Motel’s award-winning script writers and in collaboration with AI tech company CharismaAI, your experience will be different depending on how you navigate the interaction with your Sleeper.
I play Stefan, a Supervising Clinician at Saint Jude. Stefan is your guide into the world of the show, but also acts as the authority figure. He has been working at the mysterious company for some time and is a passionate advocate for them and their unusual work. He’s highly driven and as the piece develops some lucky audience members see an unnerving side to him, depending on the choices they make.
How did you get involved with Swamp Motel and become part of the cast for Saint Jude?
I worked with Swamp Motel a year ago on The Drop, a thrilling escape-room style experience which spilled out across multiple locations. I first heard about this when Peter Hobday, (a fellow CDT graduate), got in touch. The team were looking for actors with strong skills in improvisation and a background in immersive work. When Saint Jude was originally casting I was unavailable but emailed Peter to say that I’d be back in town soon and was rehearsed in as an understudy. I got a lovely email a month or so later letting me know that the run was being extended and asking me to read for the role!
How did you prepare for the role, how does it being an immersive experience differ from your usual process?
I generally find I start by identifying, then learning the structure or bullet points of an interaction rather than a script. This is just because of the demands of the job: audience members can wildly differ in what they will ask, reply or throw at you, so having a firm grasp of where you’re guiding the scene as a performer is vital. I’ve found this kind of preparation means I’m never thrown off if I have to go way off script or problem solve in the heat of the moment. I brought this work to the director, Sadie Spencer, (to make sure I had identified the right things!) and then learnt the script. Lastly I laid the learnt words onto the skeleton of the scene’s structure. This way I know exactly what relates to what. I’m working all the time to free up the text so it can emerge spontaneously in response to whatever the audience brings.
How has your training at Central in devised theatre helped prepare you to work on immersive theatre projects?
The Acting CDT course prepared me well for this kind of work, in its insistence on developing strong improvisation skills and a grounding in physicality in students. The ethos of the course strongly prioritised being able to achieve a playful, live and responsive performance. Little of the work was ‘precious’ or had any patience for ‘mystifying the actor’s process’. Now I look back on the time at Central I realise just how many of the approaches favoured calibrating the actor’s viewpoint to look outwards. Having devising experience on the course allowed me to work as a theatre maker as well as performer alongside lighting, sound, stage and technical creatives so I graduated with a working language and understanding of how to play my part in a making process alongside them. It turns out the very talented Leo Woolcock, a graduate of Central’s BA (Hons) Theatre Practice course, was also working on the show, whose work on various productions I’ve enjoyed as an audience member before.
What advice would you give to actors who are interested in working on immersive or interactive theatre experiences?
To assure them that it’s a brilliant thing to be involved in: this category of work is exciting, unique every time and genuinely rewarding. I would say a good starting point is to go see as much as you can that falls under the banner of immersive (which is quite wide these days) to develop your preferences and reference points to draw from. Swamp Motel is a good place to start! Come along to Saint Jude. They also have an interactive short film The Alter available to watch on their website for free. Next, very genuinely and directly write to companies. A refreshing thing about immersive work is that people are much more open to finding new people with interesting skills. Traditional stage and screen tends to be more closed off.
What do you hope audiences will take away from their experience with Saint Jude?
They’ll get a unique experience - there are thousands of different pathways through it. Its tense, exciting and audiences members will perhaps get a sense of how AI might form part of the future of theatre.
Saint Jude runs Tuesday - Saturday until 22nd April at 100 Petty France, London, visit www.saintjude.ai to book your tickets now.
Visit Swamp Motel’s website and follow them on Instagram @swamp_motel to find out more about them and their work.
