They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

This production was a fantastic collaborative event between courses at the Arts University Bournemouth, where the talents of students from BA (Hons) Costume with Production Design came together to produce a stunning array of period authentic 1930’s costumes. BA (Hons) Film students provided some of the visual elements of this multi-media production, with the poster designed by a student from BA (Hons) Illustration. 

‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’ was written by the author Horace McCoy in 1935 and tells the story of Robert Syverton, a young drifter who unexpectedly finds himself part of a group of disparate characters, also mangled by the Depression and desperate to win a dance marathon. There he meets Gloria Beatty, a self-destructive character who has learned to use bitterness as the basis for her survival. Continuous motion dance marathons became very popular during the Depression era and came to symbolise a culture struggling to make sense of a world devastated by poverty and uncertainty.