We know someone who works at the State court of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who - before you could fly directly from London to Sarajevo - used to meet her husband regularly in cities a flight from each. It sounded romantic, until you consider that they were always in transit, saying hello and goodbye, spending time in ubiquitous cafes, hotel rooms and so on, and unburdening about work. There seemed something peculiarly modern about this string of meetings and their daily skype conversations - preserving intimacy across distance.

We also felt that the work of the court in relation to war crimes - the slow process of ascertaining truth and delivering justice - was worth consideration, as the Bosnian conflict was so shocking and vicious, but has faded from public view. The war crimes trials put us in touch with a legacy of sorts, both of international responsibility (however that is defined here) and personal stories of endurance, suffering and loss.

We decided that we could use the actual circumstances of our acquaintances (with their knowledge and blessing) as the basis for a narrative in which our central couple would fall apart. (So there's an echo here, in relation to the Balkans setting, of people who are closely connected and yet divided. We wanted those questions - what connects us/what separates us? - to resonate here.)

And Lightwork usually makes theatre that features mediation of some kind, and there seemed rich opportunities for that here, in terms of the plethora of phone calls, ansaphone messages, skype conversations and internet communications that we imagined running through our characters' lives. We were interested in how this expresses the need for contact and closeness and at the same time the disconnects in our characters' lives. We also thought that it made for some theatrical fun.

We developed the piece over three main phases. Firstly in March 2007 we undertook two weeks' research and development funded by the Arts Council. We bashed out the narratives of the central characters and their daughter, developed design ideas, and strung everything together in a 50-minute showcase that we presented at the Lyric Studio at the end of the fortnight. We did three days' work on design and story just before Christmas 2007, then had a three-week rehearsal period in February 2008, during which we continued to devise the piece, before opening. All very tight - we had funding from the Arts Council, but there are quite a lot of people involved and we couldn't afford to spend more time than that.

Our process involved the actors improvising pretty much everything (other than the court scenes, where we used edited verbatim transcripts) - developing story material and characterisation as we went. Alex Mermikides, our dramaturg, transcribed improvisations so that we always had a record of the work and the basis of text. Not that we based the performances on the text - rather, the text is a record of the performance. I was keen that the actors had ownership of their material, and that we attempted speech patterns and conversations that were as 'authentic' as possible. But we honed the material with reference to the text, and worked to a scene breakdown (which was continually finessed) that gave us the spine of the piece.

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Yes, we made two visits. Firstly some of the design and production team visited in Feb 2007. We were hosted well, had a full itinerary that included a visit to the court, a tour of Sarajevo and meetings with various people - and sampled some splendid cafes and restaurants. Gregg Fisher, the sound designer, Douglas O'Connell, the video designer, and Jo Parker, the set designer, developed ideas and gathered material.

Just before we started rehearsals in Feb 08 some of the actors went along with Bridget Thornborrow, our producer. Again they had a full schedule, visited the court, had the tour and met a number of people relevant to the piece. These visits proved really useful in giving us a grounding in the feel and the fabric of the city.

That said, I wouldn't want to suggest that this is simply a piece about Sarajevo. It's also set in London, Dublin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Berlin... and really its focus is at least as much on the work, relationships and preoccupations of people who find themselves in some way living across borders.

I wanted to get as close as possible to the actual words spoken in testimony, so I was keen to use verbatim material. And we were granted access to some of this material (in many instances the testimony is protected and cannot be shared). It seemed much more authentic to turn to actual witness testimony rather than making it up.

And then we chose to dramatise the problem of using - appropriating - this sort of testimony. That came about as we were exploring possible conflicts or cracks between our central characters. But it seemed relevant here, and we felt that it gave us a slightly different purchase on the material - we would use it, but we would be mindful of the cost or loss involved when anyone bears witness in this way. We were careful that we had permission to use this. But we also felt that we had a right to address something that seemed difficult to fathom.

We take a starting point - usually a scenario, or a set-up - and explore it. Firstly more openly - we improvise little exchanges and scenarios, from which characters and storylines grow, we explore design thoughts and elements, movement motifs, and we deliberately develop thematic layers and interconnections. We usually try to stand this up in some sort of showing, where other people see what's emerging and provide feedback. This gives us a deadline to work to - usually pretty tight - and means that we have to make concrete decisions about what to show and how to stitch things together, however roughly. This means that some things fall off the table, others stick.

Once the dust has settled a little, we can see more clearly what we have. Then we move to a more structured phase that involves more developed design principles, thematic motifs and storylines (as we usually work with narrative). We might at this point work with a text, or - as with Sarajevo Story - we continue to develop the piece through improvisation (which gradually becomes more or less fixed) to an ever-tighter score/structure.

And then ideally we'd do it again, developing what we already have...

We're about to embark on a short project with Lewisham Youth Theatre, where a group of young people aged 16-21 will film aspects of their lives in a YouTube video diary way. We'll bring this material into the theatre and find a way to work with it and stage it along with the live performance/interaction of the young people. And we'll run a dance through the piece.

In the longer term we want to develop a piece whose central character is an actor who is playing Henry Irving (the actor-manager celebrated for his late-melodrama work) in a BBC4 biopic. He also voices a computer game, and is negotiating whether to be on a celebrity reality TV show. As with one of Irving's most famous characters, he has a guilty secret that he can't repress...

And we want to develop a telematic production of Euripides's Hecabe, a fantastic play that we propose to stage with three actors in different spaces, each in dialogue with her/his colleagues by way of video links between the different spaces, with the audience able to move between them. I think the play can take this kind of treatment and that its themes of separation, loss and personal utterance (which are also modern themes) will come out all the more interestingly. We'll see!

Sarajevo Story is at the Lyric Studio, London, until 15 March 2008

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