Jake Mace
We last caught up with Hoo Hah House Productions’ Everleigh Brenner (writer-actor) and Maria Cristina Petitti (director) at the debut of their piece J (a working title) in London in January. The duo, aiming to centre woman-led and gender non-conforming narratives, are returning to Voila! Theatre Festival next month with a unique genre-defying rave piece.
CODACHROME A live DJ set about the time I fell in love with a [trigger warning]. about a complicated relationship that aims to lay bare that there’s nowhere more romantic to meet yourself than on the dance floor.
You can catch CODACHROME: A live DJ set about the time I fell in love with a [trigger warning] as part of Voila! Theatre Festival at The Cockpit on 8th November at 9pm (60mins). Tickets (£16.45) are available through the Voila! Theatre Festival Online Box Office.
Jake: Hi Everleigh, we last caught up with you ahead of the performance of j (a working title) in January. How did everything go and what has the rest of the year held for you?
Everleigh: Good! J was fun, learned a lot from that one, hopefully it will make a comeback once I learn even more. But the year has been quite solid. I broke my wrist – it healed. I’ve been a part of a lot of dope projects, made a lot of friends. I could have cuddled a couple more dogs than I had the chance to, but I hate to complain.
Jake: Your upcoming show has quite the striking title – tell us about what inspired it and how the process has been of developing it.
Everleigh: Yeah, “CODACHROME: a live DJ set about the time I fell in love with a [trigger warning]” is a title that spells it out for you really. It’s, oddly enough, a true story, that I decided was most disgustingly fun and digestible as a DJ set.
Outside of this random theatre thing I’ve conceived my parents is a “career”, I have a social life that involves some lively club nights and disco days. I’ve met friends at those events who do anything from insurance to astronomy to monkey farming. However the only people I tend to meet at theatre shows are theatre people. I put two and two together and it doesn’t equal four, it equals a live DJ set that is also a play where the audience dances while witnessing a relationship shared by actors and good music and we all sweat and learn and be human, right?
Jake: What will be the first thing the audience sees, feels, and hears as they enter the space?
Maria Cristina: MUSIC!
Everleigh: The audience comes into a club. A quality deep house mix, some light techno that gets harder, and they are invited, nay encouraged, to dance. There are seats but if the vibe is right we should all be dancing our butts off to start. Then we get a bit of Rocky Horror weird visuals before taking off all together into a 60 minute raid of a relationship that ascends into chaos.
Jake: What are you hoping the audience might take away from the experience, if anything?
Maria Cristina: GOOD MUSIC!
Everleigh: Hopefully we’re all super connected by the end of the show. That we all know more about ourselves and each other, that we broke a sweat, had a laugh, a lil creepy crawly scream-cry and are buzzing to keep the party going to wherever we move next. It would be sick if the audience can’t help but celebrate freedom with us.
Jake: With Voila Festival 2025 just around the corner, what are you most excited for?
Maria Cristina: To become a music lizard?
Everleigh: It’s such a blessing to get to bring this show to The Cockpit and to be bringing a more streamlined version of it as well. It’s really exciting to get to experience our art developing from space to space, and to be building a community that enjoys celebrating genre defying work.
Jake: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind (alcoholic, non-alcoholic – be as creative as you like!), what would it be and why?
Everleigh: A rack of shots. By the fourth you wanna stop but there are two left with your name on them and you’ve never been one to back down from a challenge.
A reminder, you can catch CODACHROME: A live DJ set about the time I fell in love with a [trigger warning] as part of Voila! Theatre Festival at The Cockpit on 8th November at 9pm (60mins). Tickets (£16.45) are available through the Voila! Theatre Festival Online Box Office.
