FACILITY 111

A Government Experiment

Performances coming up:
Omnibus Theatre / Edinburgh Fringe 2025 (Assembly) / Bloomsbury Festival

Coming up:
Sun 20 & Wed 23 July, 19:30 at Omnibus Theatre, London (Ed Fringe Previews)
Fri 31 July – Sun 17 Aug (not 12 Aug), 11:25 at Assembly Front Room (Edinburgh Fringe)
Sun 19 Oct, 17:00 at John Lyons Theatre at City Lit, London (Bloomsbury Festival)
Mon 11 Nov & Tue 12 Nov, Time TBC at Barons Court Theatre (Voila! Theatre Festival)

Past:
25-26 Feb, 20:30 – Old Red Lion (FreshFest 2025)
28 June, 19:00 ACT Studio, Kingston (FUSE International Festival)

A surreal new piece of experimental theatre told entirely in darkness

Facility 111 is a surreal new audio experience, written and performed live by Inge-Vera Lipsius. It takes place in complete darkness and asks audiences to visualise a series of poetic images in two different, but interconnected cities—one made of glass, another of sand. The piece takes the form of a sci-fi government experiment and asks: Are we, ultimately, less different from one another than we might think?

Inge-Vera Lipsius is an American-Dutch director, theatre-maker, writer, and performer. Most recently, her play Quad Loop—the first play on the doping scandal surrounding Kamila Valieva at the 2022 Winter Olympics—was one of six pieces selected, from over 300 submissions, for the Bomb Factory Theatre New Writing Showcase at the Bush Theatre (April 2025). Last year, Quad Loop had its UK premiere at the Pushkin House in Bloomsbury, London, ahead of the 2024 Summer Games. Lipsius made her directorial debut at The Merchant House, Amsterdam, with Paranoia (2022/23), her adaptation (the first stage adaptation) of the post-war novella by the classic Dutch author Willem Frederik Hermans. She is a graduate of the University of Cambridge and Ecole Philippe Gaulier in France. 

Staging, text, performance: Inge-Vera Lipsius
Sound and video design: Sonny Lawson
With special thanks to: Mina Zahine, Cullen McFater, James Linville, and those who helped but preferred to remain anonymous
Pictures: René Lazový

Please note: The text contains descriptions of crisis situations.

Running time: 45 mins.

Press: Interview with Inge-Vera Lipsius in Het Parool, 4/10/23 (EN).

This project is developed as part of the Edinburgh Lab at Soho Theatre.

It is made possible by the ICAR Foundation and crowdfunding platform voordekunst



GALLERY

Photography: René Lazový.