Such Tweet Followers reach 5,000
By Thom Dibdin
Juliet Capulet, consistently Such Tweet Sorrow’s most popular character
Such Tweet Sorrow, the RSC’s social media drama based on Romeo and Juliet, achieved its 5,000th follower on Sunday morning.
The initial increase of followers to the meta-soap was meteoric, going from 60 on Monday morning, to achieve 3,500 tweeters following Juliet, the most popular of the six characters, on Tuesday evening. The rise levelled off over the week to about 500 a day. On Friday evening Juliet had 4800 followers.
“We are hoping, conservatively, to reach 10,000 people,” Such Tweet Sorrow director Roxana Silbert told the Annals in an extensive interview during the week. She pointing out the enormity of having such a number of audience members to any theatre company, let alone one based in a small town in the middle of England.
By comparison, the actress playing Juliet, Charlotte Wakefield, has 2,000 followers according to Silbert. The RSC itself has 7,250 followers.
Among the characters in Such Tweet Sorrow, Juliet has consistently been the most followed from the beginning. Her brother Tybalt has lagged about 35% behind, closely followed by their older sister, Jess. Romeo’s best pal Mercutio, and Laurence Friar who runs the local internet cafe, have been a few percentage points behind that.
Romeo, who didn’t start tweeting in the production until Thursday, quickly rose to 2,000 followers overnight, but his rise slowed dramatically over Friday and is currently stuck at less than 50% of Juliet’s. The production’s mysterious Greek chorus figure, Jago Mosca, has never had many followers, running along about about 10% of Juliet’s figures.
Such a disparity between the numbers of followers of different characters is intriguing. It is, in itself, a clear demonstration that this experiment in social media drama is being consumed in a different way to conventional dramas, on what ever media, where the audience has no option but to be open to all the different characters. In this case, audience members are able to witness the whole unfolding drama from a single character’s point of view.
Following figures as at 08.00, Sunday 18 April 2010:
Juliet Capulet 5008
Tybalt Capulet 3358
Jess Capulet 3306
Mercutio 3167
Friar Laurence 3151
Romeo Montague 2223
Jago Klepto 469
The interview with Roxana Silbert will be published in the annals shortly.
ENDS
