We sat down for a quick chat with Sally Horowitz and Benjamin Way ahead of their upcoming project The Endless Hotel, a bold and fun two-hander reimagined gig theatre for a new audience. The Endless Hotel is at the Omnibus Theatre on the 12th October at 7pm, tickets here.
Where did the idea for The Endless Hotel first come from – and when did it start to feel like more than just a gig or a song?
We were playing gigs as an indie acoustic duo but we both came from theatre backgrounds – Sally is a director and Ben was an actor for many years. We were confident in the songs, but felt something was missing from our performances – an atmosphere or ‘vibe’.
To counter this, we developed a band ‘uniform’ – cabaret/noir outfits in black, red and white. We looked like old-school lounge singers, and based off of that image we started to create a universe to place these alter-egos in. We both love the idea of hotels – the mystery and glamour of them, and the symbolism of a liminal space – so we toyed with the idea of a magical hotel that appeared wherever we played a show. This became the Endless Hotel. From there, we developed story ideas that we would put into our gigs between songs. As soon as we started to do that, people began coming up to us and engaging with our project in a different way. It was clear this was the right direction.
Your show mixes science fiction and disability representation in such a personal way. What was it like writing a story so close to your own experience?
Sally – For years I didn’t want to reveal my disability (I was born with microtia and atresia, which means I’m missing my right ear and am unilaterally deaf). Although I was aware of how this affected me in a practical way, I’d never previously explored how hiding it affected my emotions and personality. I grew up ashamed and struggled to find myself beautiful and whole. I hid it behind my hair.
I feel this hiding fed into a more general struggle to express emotions forthright, which is why I’m drawn to science fiction and fantasy – it allows a safe distance to explore difficult subjects through the prism of a fun, exciting adventure.
Writing this has been a life-changing experience because I’ve learned to accept myself and my ear much more.
Our goal is to expand The Endless Hotel into a longer, multi-cast piece and eventually step back from performing. When we developed the play, one reason I wanted to have a lead character with microtia/atresia was because I’ve never seen it represented before. We’d love to have other actors play this role and question their own relationship to sound and what they hide within themselves.
The show has evolved through your live gigs. How did performing these songs live shape the story and characters? Were there any turning points that surprised you?
It began with the stand alone songs – then we tried to create stories that would link everything together. Each gig became an R&D, to test out different storylines.
One interesting turning point was when Ben found his grandmother’s old cigarette box. We brought it to our shows and said it was a ‘magic box’ – if people signed our guest book (aka our mailing list) they can open the ‘magic box’ and find a scroll with their fortune written on it. Eventually we decided that the fortunes were written by a psychic in the hotel. In the play, this character has been developed into someone called ‘The Storyteller.’
Music is clearly at the heart of everything you do. How do you both write together – and how do you know when a song belongs to a story like this one?
We both love music, and began playing together just for fun. We wrote our first song as a joke, but realised afterwards that we both actually really liked it!
When we started writing more seriously, Ben took the lead on the lyrics and Sally with the melody. However, now there is a lot of back and forth in the development of a song. We don’t have a defined process as such – sometimes one of us will begin something and the other develops it further, sometimes we start with nothing and create the whole song together.
For the show, our focus is on storytelling that is clear and satisfying – and the songs have to serve this aim. We start out listing what we need a certain song to do or say to move the story forward. However, we also want the overall tone to reflect our own taste in music, which is more mellow and natural sounding than most musicals. The vibe is indie rock acoustic pop. Hopefully these are songs that people can listen to even without knowing the story.
What’s been the most meaningful reaction you’ve had so far while developing the show?
This project has given us great insight into how willing adults are to engage with play and imagination. We’ve been surprised by how people seem interested in what we’re doing. In turn, it’s been a great way for us to meet people. We’ve loved connecting with likeminded artists who have then become friends and potential collaborators. We even met someone at a recent show who made a t-shirt dramatizing how we met in real life (randomly at a bus stop in Dalston on summer solstice) – Thank you Malcolm! More then anything, we want our work to inspire others to live creatively and to search for the magic in their own lives.