The double award winning, hit show How to Write an Album in 12 Hours is back. Re-branded to One Night Band, Squash Co. Arts Collective are producing Liam Kelly’s innovative and unique original show. One Night Band will take place on the 15th of April 10am - 11pm at The Dome, BATS Theatre.
One Night Band is a show about music, art, and creating art in a community. The show takes place over twelve hours, with a live band writing and recording a new original song every hour. All this done with the suggestions and help of the audience. By the end of the twelve hours we will have a fully recorded and mixed original album made by (and probably featuring) audience members. In hour thirteen we can have a listening party to go back and listen to the songs we have written.
One Night Band (originally called How to Write an Album in 12 Hours) debuted as part of the 2018 ‘Summer of 77’ Masters of Fine Arts theatre festival. It had another season as part of that year's New Zealand Fringe festival, where it won the NZ Fringe PANNZ Tourmakers award, the NZ Fringe most innovative work award and was nominated for the Best Directed Chaos award. It then went on to be performed at the 2019 Auckland Fringe festival and the 2019 Hutt Winter festival.
“Ultimately, the show is not just a celebration of making music but a celebration of creative labour itself.”
Squash Co. Arts Collective strives to put on unique and interesting shows and experiences. They aim to create exciting work that isn’t typical of a regular theatre experience, and their collaboration on One Night Band is exceptionally unique. The audience gets to see their contributions and ideas come to life before them. With the band and the audience working together to create music throughout the course of the show, a unique relationship forms between band and audience. As an audience member you get to see that even if you don’t have musical experience, your ideas, thoughts and feelings are all excellent contributors and worthwhile to the creative process.
“One of my friends described the role of the audience as “actively relaxing” - I couldn’t agree more. It felt like we were in someone’s lounge jamming together (and I can’t really “jam”).”
One Night Band is about music, and the people we make music with. The creator of the show, Liam Kelly, says: “One Night Band is about how communities can be created through creativity. Anyone can not only create music but create in general. One Night Band is about showing how enriching this process can be. I hope we can encourage the audience to be a part of this creative endeavour with us and contribute ideas, sing, dance and have a ball doing it from hour 1 to hour 12.”
“We actually feel a sense of co-ownership because we were invited to help write and even perform the songs. I didn’t just share the experience with others in the audience, I was a part of the experience.”
One Night Band is an experience about creating music, forming connections and having a good time. With constant new ideas and music to explore, you won’t regret any time spent with One Night Band the morning after.
One Night Band is created by Liam Kelly and produced by Squash Co. Arts Collective. Production Managed by Anna Barker and Produced by Jack McGee. Head of Marketing, Merch, and Set by Sarah Burton. Marketing assistant, Ben Kelly. Featuring performances from band members Pippa Drakeford-Croad, Peter Hamilton, Tessa Dillon, Lennox Grootjans and Ben Kelly.
