We talk to Directors of Persephone's Wolf, Cait Harris & Zoe Norton Lodge about embarking on their creative process.

Zoe: Well we worked together in an actor/director relationship in Cait's original production Roll My Blues in 2006, but I think our first collaborative endeavour was later that year when we were sent to the pub for half and hour with the instruction to 'come up with an opening' for a play that came to be Oisien and Niamh. Several beers and impro at Manning Bar during a trivia night afforded us two crude Irish lady type characters and a longwinded self indulgent exposition of the Oisien and Niamh myth.

In 2007 we joined an ensemble to create an original play based on some ancient Innuit myths which some how morphed into Cait and I writing a completely unrelated play about constellations, apple picking, Houdini's peskly little brother Weeni-Deeni the wonderous optical illusionist and finding love on the good ship Tallolahoop. This became Ooh Cassiopeia which we wrote and directed in two weeks. In this play we experimented with soundscape, narration and improvisation. So Persephone's Wolf is sort of a natural progression on from that. We are using some ideas and tools we experimented with earlier in a (hopefully) more sophisticated and meaningful way to tell one big story.

Cait: I had had a great experience working with Zoe as an actor before, quite astounded by her improvisational ability, when I found myself a bit lost with a monologue I was to perform about a rotating potato and Chairman Mao. Her direction to just simply tell the truth of what I was saying about the potato worked a charm and I thought "I would like to co-direct with this person'. I think we generally have a very similar desire for what we want to experience from theatre, and the thought of coming up with so many characters together and their stories was a bit too exciting for me to say nae.

Well the play has about four hundred characters (which we are slowly euthenising one by precious one) so we really needed a versatile cast. We also wanted to strike a balance in terms of skills - so we were looking for people with movement and musical skills too. Given that we haven't finished the play, we were also looking for clever people. And great improvisors. We also importantly wanted people who can play nicely. We actually didn't go into the auditions with a fixed number of cast in mind.

Expect to see people sweating all over the stage to tell you the sometimes painful truth and make you wet yourself. Expect to see a lot of improvisation, live music, people raised by animals, film noir, line dancing, Victorian sanitation practices, mythology, medical anomalies and mermen. This production will be a feast for the eyes with a big fatty beating heart which is at times gentle and at other times passionately explosive.

Cait: I've always loved Hedwig and the Angry Inch, not only for it's artistic content but for the story of how it came about. So gradual at first, with John Cameron Mitchell writing a few monologues about a woman from his childhood, to meeting a cute guy on a plane who would write the music, performing a few of the songs at a drag bar, then working with the director to tie stories together. It made the whole process seem so possible and I find that so inspiring. Patrice Leconte films I find so amazing in their ability to be so rich without too much action. His use of sound and color I find amazing. And the latest iOTA performance blew me away. I was so moved by the end I couldn't speak. David Sedaris I love as well for, both for the way he expresses his experiences through words and the pitch of his voice.

Zoe: Authors I have drawn inspiration from include Dylan Thomas, Saki and A.S Byatt. I am fascinated by the way Byatt uses language to create palpable imagery, particularly her use of colour. I love the way Saki draws his outrageous and totally understandable characters, and makes them do silly things. Thomas' poetry is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. The way I think about stories is influenced by some wonderful tv I watched in childhood like Fat Tulip's Garden, The Amazing Adventures of T-Bag, Puddle Lane and Jim Henson's The Storyteller. I also love David Sedaris, he is also a truly amazing modern storyteller.