World Factory: The Game

Made in China. Sold in Britain. Worn by you. From the factory floor to the catwalk, from Shanghai to London, World Factory weaves together the untold stories of people connected by the global textile industry. This published edition of World Factory: The Game adapts the highly successful, provocative and participative theatre production for the page, offering readers the opportunity to play - as individuals or in teams - the managers of a clothing factory in China and recreate the experience of the game. Like a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' novel, the game has multiple routes and outcomes, interlinking questions of ethics, fashion, consumer capitalism, environmental impact, working conditions, migration and globalisation. In a cross between Monopoly and poker, players trade in workers and money, but it is a game about values - will you be an ethical factory owner or will profits always come first? In the rag trade, can anyone ever really win? World Factory was created and produced in 2015 by the performing arts company METIS, in co-production with the New Wolsey Theatre, Young Vic, and Company of Angels. It was performed at the Young Vic, London, and on tour of the UK. 'Lively, ambitious and highly entertaining' - The Times 'Smart, mischievous and genuinely thought-provoking' - Financial Times

Zoë Svendsen is a theatre director, dramaturg and researcher. Artistic director of performing arts company, METIS, Zoë creates research-driven interdisciplinary performance projects exploring contemporary political subjects, including: World Factory (New Wolsey Theatre/Young Vic, shortlisted for the Berlin Theatertreffen Stückemarkt 2016), which explored contemporary consumer capitalism through an interactive game-performance reflecting capitalist supply chains in the clothing industry; 3rd Ring Out (TippingPoint Commission Award; UK tour), which was an emergency-planning-style 'rehearsal' for a climate crisis set in 2033; an adaptation of Brecht's parable on the moralities of capitalism, Four Men and a Poker Game (Northern Stage; The Tron), and the interdisciplinary dance-performances Difference Engine and Discombobulator (Dance Umbrella; The Gate, London; Venice Biennale). As dramaturg Zoë collaborates creatively on contemporary productions of classic texts. Recent productions include Miss Julie (Aarhus Theatre, Denmark) and Arden of Faversham (Royal Shakespeare Company) both with director Polly Findlay, and Edward II (National Theatre), Measure for Measure and The Changeling (both Young Vic), all with director Joe Hill-Gibbins. Zoë lectures on dramaturgy at the University of Cambridge; is artistic associate at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich; an honorary (artistic) research fellow at Birkbeck's Centre for Contemporary Theatre; and in 2014-15 was artist-in-residence at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.