Before the Tempest - a prequel to Shakespeare’s Tempest - was devised as a part of the brilliant and ambitious Hidden Spire project, a unique collaboration between homeless charity Crisis and Arts at the OFS, who happen to share the same building. Professional artists and Crisis members (users of the charity) worked together on pretty much every element of the piece.

The musical score set to music a poem written by a Crisis member as well as some of the songs from The Tempest. The songs needed to be simple enough for non-professional actors to learn in a limited rehearsal period, while still serving the narrative. A variety of incidental music, created in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Bird Radio, was also developed to support particularly the more fantasy story-telling sequences.