National Theatre of Scotland’s Five Minute Theatre project, on which Envirodigital are technical consultants, will feature over 1000 performers in eleven countries. Of the 235 successful entries, 202 will be performed in Scotland, thirteen across the rest of the UK, four in Europe and sixteen across the rest of the world. Not only will those crowd-sourced performance groups take part in an extraordinary 24 hour online broadcast of live theatre, taking place on Tuesday 21st June 2011, from 5pm until 5pm the following day, they will also find themselves the stars of STV.tv!

Of the hundreds of writers who applied to the scheme, those selected include poets, primary school pupils, teenagers, film-makers, families, community groups, visual artists, carers, professional theatre-makers and expectant mothers. Writers for the plays are based in Paisley, Paraguay, Govan, Milan, Orkney and New York as well as Brighton, Brussels, Shanghai, Mumbai, Livingston and Beijing.

STV will make the 24-hour event available to its online audience by streaming it live on www.stv.tv. The broadcaster will provide technical and studio facilities, enabling eight of the projects to be performed and recorded at STV’s studio at Pacific Quay in Glasgow. Rob Woodward, chief executive of STV, told The Herald: “This innovative 24-hour online broadcast is set to be a fantastic showcase of Scottish talent and originality.”

Last week, Envirodigital was part one of the trickiest meetings NTS has had for #fiveminutetheatre yet – Scheduling Day! From Audience Development Manager Marianne’s blog:

“It was all Countdown-esque number crunching and scribbles on the whiteboard. It was really hard work and felt like a cross between a Rubik’s Cube and a Sudoku puzzle, but we’re pretty confident that the structure we have in place and the balance between live and pre-recorded shows will work.”

Thanks Seth for this evocative picture: