On the place“This piece is not like going to the theatre, it is more of a meditation on events and music. It is a private and intense experience for the audience. “For a start, there is only a couple of hundred people in the room and to hear Chopin played live on a grand piano when you are only a few feet away, much closer than you would be in a concert hall, is an extraordinary experience. “I felt that the intimate, nature of the piece, just one piano, just one actor talking to you - probably wasn’t best served by putting it in the theatre, so we started looking for a suitable space in Manchester. “Wladyslaw himself talks about his last months hiding in attics and so at first we looked at top floors of buildings. But then we found this warehouse, part of the Museum of Science and Industry. “The warehouse is one of the oldest in the country. We are going to take the audience across the cobbled yard, through the station, up through the warehouse, and then at the top you enter this beautiful old dusty windowless wooden floor and iron pillared space. All that is in the space is the grand piano and a circle of chairs. “I love the theatre, but sometimes it is good to take the audience somewhere they don’t know, somewhere unexpected to encounter something unexpected. It is a beautiful thing. “I want the audience to have encountered this in a truly powerful way. The way we live our lives now, it is quite difficult to say we really ever listen. There is always something else going on, whether it is the TV or the car. To actually experience this, alone in the dark, just with this music and these words is what I want to give people.” The Pianist runs as part of Manchester International Festival at the Warehouse at the Museum of Science and Industry from June 30 – July 15. | 
