The
Project
13 Hours.
No Intermission.
13 Directors.
13 Writers.
1 Day.
Ulysses
Over 100 years ago, amidst the First World War and the anxieties of drastic urban transformations, James Joyce undertook the audacious task of attempting to capture the totality of universal human experience in his masterpiece Ulysses.
He saw the modern Greek tragedy not in the lives of kings or warriors, but in the Odyssey of everyday thought, of ordinary people navigating a single day, filled with memory, desire, loss, language, routine, and transcendence.
The result was a monumental humanist manifesto, negotiating nihilism, existentialism, and positivism as it wrestled with the contradictions at the heart of what it means to be human, to think, to feel, to exist.
In today’s experiential Odyssey, we encounter a new era of existential anxiety, shaped by technology, omnipresent apocalyptic forebodings, and the rise of AI, forces that unsettle our understanding of thought, identity, and what it means to be human once again.
I am, a stride at a time. A very short space of time through very short time of space. - J.J.
London's biggest independent theatre production.
Ulysses 2025
Contexts have changed drastically in the decade since Joyce constructed Ulysses, yet the attempt to grasp the complexity and multiplicity of modern existence appears of unchanged relevance.
Ulysses (2025) will therefore set out not simply to adapt Ulysses. Instead, it will attempt to capture its essence: a textual and formal anthology of the modern human condition, exploring memory, identity, chaos, routine, beauty, and contradiction, brought on stage in one monumental performance.
Each part, each individual hour, stands alone in style, yet connects through recurring themes, characters, and questions, an utterly ambitious mosaic of what it means to be alive today, between the everyday mundane and the intellectually divine.
Just like the original, this production will follow the Odyssey of everyday experience, tracking a few characters over the course of a single day, put on stage in real time across 13 continuous hours. Each hour corresponding to one chapter or section of Ulysses.
James Joyce set out not only to capture the totality of human experience, but also the totality of form. With each chapter, he radically reinvented language, structure, and style, pushing expressive experimentation to its limits. We aim to bring this same essence to the stage:
Each hour will be created by a different writer, director, and cast. We will be forming a vast creative collective united by a shared mission and constant communication, but with the opportunity to express distinct voices and singular formal experimentation.
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Non-profit independent theatre production
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All revenue will be shared fairly and equally with all creatives (no up-front pay, but every pound made is handed over to everyone in the collective)
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A vast creative collective of 100 of London’s best emerging performing arts talent working together
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A monumental anthology of anxiety and transcendence in modern existence, in light of drastic transformations
I hold this to be the highest function of art: to bring together all that is separate. - J.J.
Join Us!
Applications for writing are now closed, but we will have many more exciting opportunities to participate coming up!
Please sign up below to be informed once the next stages of production will start.
Data protection and legal information
By submitting this form, you agree to share your contact information with the team behind The Ulysses Project. Your data will only be used to contact you about this project and will not be shared with third parties. You can request your data be deleted at any time by emailing us. Once the project is finished, all data will be deleted. Underground theatre is not yet a registered company or charity. We are committed creatives establishing a creative collective which will be governed by its members. No contracts will be given to any participants, no guarantees for payments will be made. This project is guided by principles of fairness, collective profit and does not intent to generate any profit for the people running it.
We are an emerging theatre production company called Underground Theatre. We are dedicated to delivering the boldest and most unconventional independent theatre in London, fair to every creative and purely devoted to the craft of performance.
We aim to push boundaries in form, location, practice, and narrative. Rather than traditional production hierarchies, we strive to establish creative collectives. Our development process is fast and agile.
We have just concluded our first successful production in Camden. Alongside Ulysses, we are working on multiple exciting projects set to be staged this year.