What actually is it?

How to Build the City is a three-hour live experience about how cities are built, broken, inherited and remade.

Inspired by The Epic of Gilgamesh, the evening moves through a series of different scenes using theatre, dance, storytelling, sound, live tasks, games, technology and audience interaction.

You might watch performers push themselves to their physical limits in a Tekken-style battle royale. You might follow a story unfolding on a Tube journey through VR, then find yourself helping to direct a chase using GPS. You could work with strangers to complete a translation game, play volleyball with people you’ve never met, or end up in a restaurant sharing a meal with another stranger and hoping they give you the password you need.

You might join a live run club, collecting letters from around the city in time for the final scene. Or something else entirely might happen. It’s all up for grabs.

At different moments, you may be invited to move, make a choice, join a team, offer help, follow instructions, solve something or respond to what is happening around you. You do not have to perform, and you decide how actively you want to take part.

It is not a traditional seated play. In fact, it isn’t really a “play” at all. You can watch, participate, step out, come back in, sit down when you need to and experience the evening in your own way.