Velocity Lab, a new programme that links artists in multiple cities via digital technology to develop material for stage, film and TV, launched in London on Sunday, September 30th with a reading/broadcast of American playwright Ken Urban’s “Sense of an Ending.”

Helmed by Yale School of Drama director Anna G. Jones, the broadcast featured Jamel Rodriguez (“Charles”), Fraser James (“Dusabi”), Babou Ceesay (“Paul”), Aicha Kossokos (“Sister Justina”) and Kiza Deen (“Sister Alice”).

The reading was simultaneously presented to a local London audience and broadcast over the Internet from Google Campus in the heart of Tech City.

Thanks to Joe Vittoria, President of Yale Club London, quite a few expat Elis were rallied and showed up in Shoreditch on a Sunday afternoon! LoNyLa London members Maya Seidler, Kristian Hart, Daniel Gentely, Katherine Templar and Shane Dempsey were in attendance.

“Sense of an Ending” was partly inspired by the trial of two Benedictine nuns, Sister Gertrude Mukangango and Sister Maria Kisito, in Belgium for war crimes committed during the Rwandan Genocide.

Both nuns were found guilty of homicide stemming from a massacre at their convent. Seven thousand people had been mutilated and burned.

Although Urban researched the case to write the play, he sought to explore a more ambivalent territory in which the crime of collaboration is anything but black and white. An African-American journalist ventures to Rwanda to interview the two nuns for a story only to discover a more truthful story from a survivor.

"Sense of an Ending" revolves around the universal question: how does one respond to evil?

After the broadcast, the playwright was streamed in live from New York City to Campus London. The London cast and audience members had the chance to meet Ken Urban and share their responses to “Sense of an Ending.”

Given Vidyo's robust videoconferencing technology with minimal latency, the American playwright and the British audience were able to leap easily over the divides of space and time.

LoNyLa London passes the baton to LoNyLa NY with a reading/broadcast of Irish playwright Gary Duggan’s “Run/Don’t Run” at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts on Sunday, October 7th.

For more information, please visit our Broadcast Schedule.

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