Home

Pre-School school children help create theatre shows as the egg theatre and The Paragon School team up for year-long project

The egg theatre is delighted to announce a year-long partnership with The Paragon School, which will see the school’s staff and pupils involved in creating professional theatre pieces for the egg, as well as providing workshops and events for the school’s pupils.

The first project is SQUIRREL, the egg’s Christmas show for pre-school and Early Years audiences. Since July, Kate Cross MBE, Director of the egg, and Tim Bell, the egg’s Creative Producer, have been visiting the Paragon’s pre-school to work with children and staff, developing ideas for the production which is to be performed at the egg in December. As part of the project, the children have searched for squirrels in the woods and explored their habitation; created puppet squirrels and developed and performed stories about squirrels.

These activities will continue throughout the Autumn term, forming the basis of the professional production, which will also give the children the opportunity to work with professional actress Caroline Garland, a member of Bath’s Kilter Theatre, previously seen onstage at the egg in the acclaimed Little Mermaid.

Kate Cross says, “We cannot think of a better, nor more beautiful venue than the Paragon School at which to explore children’s responses to squirrels, nature and acorns. Being able to explore our theatrical ideas with the children from the pre-school means that in the final production, all the fascinations, impulses and brilliant ideas from such curious minds can be addressed. In Squirrel, we are attempting to make something both entertaining and beautiful in theatrical terms as well as allowing the young children to do whatever feels natural to them throughout the performance. A tall order but one which will be aided enormously by this partnership.”

Mrs Sarah James, Head of Pre-Prep at the school says “The Paragon is delighted to be working in collaboration with the egg to produce Squirrel this Christmas. It is a wonderful opportunity for our pupils to be involved in theatre from such a young age. As a creative school which embraces outdoor education, working with the egg on this project is a perfect fit”.

SQUIRREL is being performed at the egg theatre from Saturday 7 – Sunday 29 December. As part of the partnership with the egg, the parents and children of The Paragon School have been invited to two dedicated performances, enabling them to see the results of their work.

Throughout the remainder of the academic year, the egg’s partnership with The Paragon School will continue with activities planned around World Book Day in March, a Play-in-a-Week project for all the schools’ pupils in May and further events in the Summer Term.

Tickets for SQUIRREL are on sale from the egg reception on 01225 823409, the Theatre Royal Box Office on 01225 448844 and online at www.theatreroyal.org.uk

If you would like to find out more about opportunities for schools to work with the egg theatre, please contact James Moore, the egg’s Head of Creative Learning: [email protected]

To find out more about how schools may be able to sponsor a production at the egg, or could benefit from partnerships similar to The Paragon School’s, please contact Anji Henderson, Development Officer at [email protected]

FULL COMPANY ANNOUNCED FOR

THEATR CLWYD’S MOLD RIOTS

Theatr Clwyd present the world première of

MOLD RIOTS

By Bethan Marlow

21 – 26 October

Director Katie Posner;Associate Director Gethin Evans; Designer Sara Perks

Lighting Designer Aideen Malone; Associate Lighting Designer Ben Cowens

Sound Designer Chris Bogg; Composer Lucy Rivers; Community Musical Director Nia Wyn Jones Movement Director Natasha Harrison; Casting Director Jacob Sparrow; Fight Director Bethan Clark

Theatr Clwyd today announces further details for the world première of Bethan Marlow’s Mold Riots, which will see a community and professional cast bring one of Wales’ forgotten dark days to life on the streets of Mold in a large-scale promenade production with locations including Mold Town Council Chamber, Mold cattle market and St Mary’s Church. Katie Posner directs Gethin Alderman (Robat), Lauren Fitzpatrick (Margaret), Amy Forrest (Ailis), and Kai Owen (David), alongside a community cast of over 100  from ages 7 to 87, including 30 children.

Artistic Director of Theatr Clwyd, Tamara Harvey, said today, ““We’re phenomenally proud to be staging Mold Riots – an incredibly ambitious undertaking, taking place on the High Street and surrounding areas. It’s this community’s story, and this piece is very much born of them – with a local cast of over 100 people of all ages, and teams involved in writing, prop and costume making, photography and music, guided and supported by our team and led by the wonderful Katie Posner. This epic promenade production is a not simply a piece of history but a story for now.”

Summer, 1869. Miners stand trial in Mold for attacking their manager after their wages are lowered. A crowd has assembled to hear the verdict – will they get a fair hearing? Stones will be thrown and blood will be shed but will anyone find justice?

Marking 150 years since these events tore the town apart, Mold Riots tells this local story with the involvement of the local community at every stage, with a community photography and film group, costume group, writers’ group, and knitting group, as well as a community scenic art team making over 1000 pieces of coal. The professional and community cast will also be accompanied by local choirs, including Cor Y Pentan, Northop Voices, Maes Garmon, and Buckley Singers, performing an original score.

This production is Theatr Clwyd’s most ambitious to date, with the wardrobe team making over 800 items of costume including traditional Welsh clogs, and a specially formed Mold Riots knitting group making coal, shawls and hats for the 100-strong cast who come from all walks of life, from lawyers to electricians, from teachers to the Mayor of Mold.

Bethan Marlow’s site-specific interactive theatre productions include A Queer Christmas and Mess Up The Mess in collaboration with the LGBT community of Swansea, C’laen ta! (Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru) with the residents of a council estate in North Wales, and her first verbatim play Sgint (Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru). Her other work includes From Land to Mouth (Pentabus), Cysgu’n Brysur (Arad Goch, Aberystwyth Arts Centre and WMC), Ar Waith ar Daith (Walk the Plank), PyC (S4C/BBC Wales), A Place Called Home (Birmingham Rep), The Beach (National Theatre Wales) and Such Tweet Sorrow (Royal Shakespeare Company). Marlowe was selected as one of four Welsh writers on the talent scheme ‘Y Labordy’. She received a Creative Wales Award to explore the possibility of the “audience as co-creators of theatre” and won the first “Straeon Iris” competition (an Iris Prize/S4C/Ffilm Cymru and Bfi Net.wok initiative) which culminated in the short film Afiach (Sick) which premièred at the Iris Prize Film Festival this year.

Gethin Alderman plays Robat. His previous theatre credits include Blue, Blue & Shift Work (King’s Head Theatre), Seagulls (Volcano Theatre), Incident at Vichy (Finborough Theatre), You’re Invited (Southwark Playhouse), Tiddler and Other Terrific Tales (UK and international tour), The Princess and the Pea (Theatr Iolo), Hamlet (Secret Theatre London), and Quarter-Life Crisis (Theatre Royal Stratford East). For television, his credits include Observations on Relationships.

Lauren Fitzpatrick plays Margaret. Her previous theatre credits include The Scene: Fictional Female Anonymous (Tabard Theatre), Just to Get Married (Finborough Theatre), and The Play List, Presenting: I Don’t Know Where I Am, and Drinking Concrete: The Concept Album (Royal Court Theatre). For television, her credits include EastEnders as series regular Chloe.

Amy Forrest plays Ailis. Her previous theatre credits include Small Island (National Theatre), The Wide Night (Greater Manchester Fringe), Romy and Michele High School Reunion (The Lowry), Making Waves – JB Shorts, The Loves of Others (53two), Beautiful Monster (Gene Frankel Theatre, NY, Footlights Theatre), and Beauty and the Beast (UK tour). For television, her credits include Coronation Street as recurring character P.C. Hanley.

Kai Owen returns to Theatr Clwyd to play David – he previously appeared in Under Milk Wood, Aristocrats, The Winslow Boy, Rape of the Fair Country, Glengarry Glen Ross, As You Like It and A Chorus of Disapproval. His previous theatre credits include The Full Monty (UK tour), Ying Tong – A Walk With The Goons (New Ambassadors Theatre). For television, his credits include Hollyoaks as series regular Pete, Cariad Erin, The Syndicate, and Torchwood as series regular Rhys.

Katie Posner directs. She has recently been appointed as co-Artistic Director of Paines Plough, and was previously the Associate Director of Pilot Theatre, York, for eight years, where she directed multiple national and international touring productions. Her 2017 national tour of Made in India (Tamasha, Belgrade Theatre, Pilot Theatre) was nominated for an Off West End award, and won the Eastern Eye Theatre and Culture Award for Best Production. Recent productions include Swallows and Amazons (new adaptation by Bryony Lavery) for Storyhouse Chester, Babe for Mercury Colchester, Bridget Foreman’s Everything is Possible: The York Suffragettes at York Theatre Royal and Finding Nana by Jane Upton for New Perspectives. Posner has also directed productions for Northern Stage, Tron Theatre, Live Theatre and Out of Joint amongst many others.

Mold Riots                                                                                                                                 Theatr Clwyd

Raikes Lane, Mold CH7 1YA

21 – 26 October

Box Office: 01352 701521

www.theatrclwyd.com/en/

THE SMASH HIT, SELL OUT ALMEIDA THEATRE PRODUCTION

OF MULTI AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR

ROBERT ICKE’S

THE DOCTOR

STARRING THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED JULIET STEVENSON

TRANSFERS TO THE WEST END IN APRIL 2020

WRITTEN BY ROBERT ICKE

VERY FREELY ADAPTED FROM PROFESSOR BERNHARDI BY ARTHUR SCHNITZLER

★★★★★

The Guardian, The Telegraph, Financial Times, The Sunday Times, WhatsOnStage

★★★★

The Times, Evening Standard, The Observer, Independent, The Stage, Metro

PRESENTED BY THE ALMEIDA THEATRE & AMBASSADOR THEATRE GROUP

AND

BENJAMIN LOWY, FIERY ANGEL, GLASS HALF FULL PRODUCTIONS, SCOTT RUDIN AND SONIA FRIEDMAN PRODUCTIONS

Robert Icke’s (The Wild Duck, Hamlet, Mary Stuart, Oresteia, 1984) sold-out, five-star Almeida Theatre production, The Doctor, will transfer to the Duke of York’s Theatre from 20 April – 11 July 2020, with press night on Wednesday 29 April. Olivier Award winner, Juliet Stevenson, ‘delivering one of the peak performances of the theatrical year’ (The Guardian), will reprise her role as Professor Ruth Wolff.

Throughout the West End run of The Doctor there will be 150 seats per performance for under £30. These include over 4000 great seats in the stalls and dress circle across the run which are exclusively available to under 30s, key workers and those receiving JSA or other government benefits.

The Doctor, by Robert Icke, very freely adapted from Professor Bernhardi by Arthur Schnitzler, has been critically lauded since its opening at the Almeida in August 2019. The production has designs by Hildegard Bechtler, lighting by Natasha Chivers, sound and composition by Tom Gibbons and casting by Julia Horan. Further casting to be announced in due course.

This is the third West End transfer for Robert Icke and Juliet Stevenson in as many years, following the critical and commercial smash-hit productions of Mary Stuart and Hamlet.

***

First, do no harm.

On an ordinary day, at a private hospital, a young woman fights for her life. A priest arrives to save her soul. Her doctor refuses him entry. 

In a divisive time, in a divided nation, a society takes sides.

The latest smash-hit by “Britain’s best director” (Telegraph) is a “provocative, wonderfully upsetting” (Independent) whirlwind of gender, race and identity politics, and a “devastating play for today” (Financial Times). 

***

The productioncompletes its run at the Almeida Theatre on 28 September 2019.

Juliet Stevenson said “I am beyond thrilled that The Doctor is transferring to the West End. We have been blown away by the extraordinary response it has had at the Almeida. I think the play speaks to our current times with eloquence, complexity, humour and compassion – and I am so delighted it will have a future life and reach new audiences.  It is a joy to be part of, and I am so grateful to Robert Icke, the company, and to those who are making it possible for us to keep it alive and kicking into 2020.”

Juliet Stevenson’s previous work at the Almeida includes Mary Stuart, Hamlet and Duet for One (all also West End). She has worked extensively for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and the Royal Court, winning an Olivier award for her performance as Paulina in Death and The Maiden in 1991. Her other most recent theatre credits include Wings and Happy Days at the Young Vic. Her films include Let Me Go; Truly, Madly, Deeply; Bend it Like Beckham; When Did You Last See Your Father?; Being Julia; Pierrepoint; Mona Lisa Smile and Departure. Recent television work includes Riviera; One of Us; The Enfield Haunting; Atlantis and The Village. Other television work includes Place of Execution; The Accused; The Hour and White Heat. She was awarded the CBE in 1999. In addition to her Olivier award, she has been nominated a further four times and is five times BAFTA nominated for her film and television work.

The Doctor was Robert Icke’s final production as Associate Director at the Almeida Theatre. His work at the Almeida includes adapting and directing The Wild Duck, Mary Stuart (also West End), Uncle Vanya, Oresteia (also West End) and 1984 (co-created with Duncan Macmillan, also Broadway, West End, national and international tours). As director, his other Almeida productions include Hamlet (also West End and screened on BBC2), The Fever and Mr Burns. Elsewhere, his recent work includes The Crucible (Theater Basel), Oedipus (Toneelgroep Amsterdam and Edinburgh International Festival) and Orestie (Schauspiel Stuttgart, awarded the Kurt-Hübner-Regiepreis). His future work includes Ivanov (Schauspiel Stuttgart) and Children of Nora (Toneelgroep Amsterdam). He has won the UK Theatre Award, the Critics’ Circle Award and the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Director, and is the youngest ever winner of the Olivier Award for Best Director.

Arthur Schnitzler (1862 – 1931) was an Austrian playwright and novelist. His plays include La Ronde (reworked by David Hare as The Blue Room at the Donmar Warehouse in 1998); Anatol; Flirtation; Fair Game; Light-O-Love; Paracelsus; The Vast Domain and The Green Cockatoo.

LISTINGS

THE DOCTOR

20 APRIL – 11 JULY 2020

DUKE OF YORK’S

VERY FREELY ADAPTED BY ROBERT ICKE, FROM PROFESSOR BERNHARDI BY ARTHUR SCHNITZLER
DIRECTED BY ROBERT ICKE

PRODUCED BY THE ALMEIDA THEATRE & AMBASSADOR THEATRE GROUP

AND BENJAMIN LOWY, FIERY ANGEL, GLASS HALF FULL PRODUCTIONS, SCOTT RUDIN AND SONIA FRIEDMAN PRODUCTIONS

General On Sale:

Monday 23 Sept for ATG TheatreCard Members/Almeida Members from 12pm

Monday 23 Sept for ATG General/Almeida General from 4pm

Tuesday 24 Sept Full On Sale

Performances:

Monday – Saturday Evenings – 7.30pm

Thursday and Saturday Matinees – 2.30pm

Ticket Prices: From £15.00

Running Time: Approx. 2 hours 45 minutes including a 20-minute interval

Age Recommendation: The Doctor includes the discussion of suicide and the description of suicide methods. We recommend an age recommendation of 14+

Address: Duke Of York’s Theatre, St. Martin’s Lane, London, WC2N 4BG

Box Office: 08448717623*

Group Bookings: 02072061174*

Access Booking Line: 08009126971

*Calls are charged at 7p per minute, plus your phone company’s access charge

Website:

atgtickets.com

almeida.co.uk

Twitter/Facebook:

@doctorwestend

Instagram:

@doctorwestend

EXTENDS ITS HIT WEST END RUN FOR A FOURTH TIME

• Waitress is now booking until 28 March 2020 at the Adelphi Theatre
   
• Tickets for the new booking period are released today and available at www.waitressthemusical.co.uk and via ticketing outlets
   

The producers of Waitress are delighted to announce that the smash hit musical will be extending its run at the Adelphi Theatre for a fourth time. The critically and publicly acclaimed production is now booking until 28 March 2020 with tickets on sale today for the new booking period.

As previously announced, Waitress will be holding its next Cast Album Karaoke Night on 25 September co-hosted by Joe Sugg who plays Ogie, and Marisha Wallace who plays Becky. Audience members who want to take part just need to sign up before that evening’s show for the chance to sing one minute of any Waitress song, by 7-time Grammy® nominee Sara Bareilles, accompanied by the show’s musical director Katharine Woolley live on stage.

Waitress tells the story of Jenna, a waitress and expert pie-maker who dreams her way out of a loveless marriage. When a hot new doctor arrives in town, life gets complicated. With the support of her workmates Becky and Dawn, Jenna overcomes the challenges she faces and finds that laughter, love and friendship can provide the perfect recipe for happiness.  

Brought to life by a ground breaking, female-led creative team, Waitress features an original score by 7-time Grammy® nominee Sara Bareilles (Love Song, Brave), a book by acclaimed screenwriter Jessie Nelson (I Am Sam) and direction by Tony Award® winner Diane Paulus (Pippin, Finding Neverland) and choreography by Lorin Latarro. The production is currently touring the US and has also announced it will have its Australian premiere in 2020 at the Sydney Lyric Theatre.

Waitress currently stars Lucie Jones as Jenna, Joe Sugg as Ogie, Laura Baldwin as Dawn, Marisha Wallace as Becky, Tamlyn Henderson as Earl, David Hunter as Dr. Pomatter and Andrew Boyer as Old Joe.

The full company includes Kelly Agbowu, Laura Baldwin, Piers Bate, Cindy Belliot, Andrew Boyer, Michael Hamway, Tamlyn Henderson, David Hunter, Lucie Jones, Stephen Leask, Chris McGuigan, Olivia Moore, Nathaniel Morrison, Sarah O’Connor, Leanne Pinder, Charlotte Riby, Joe Sugg, Marisha Wallace and Mark Willshire.

Waitress premiered on Broadway in March 2016 and has since become the longest running show in the history of the Brooks Atkinson Theater. The production is also currently touring the US and Canada and has announced an Australian premiere in 2020 at the Sydney Lyric Theatre with further productions to open in Holland next year and Japan in 2021.

On its Broadway opening, Waitress was nominated for four Outer Critics’ Circle Awards, including Outstanding New Broadway Musical; two Drama League Award Nominations, including Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical; six Drama Desk Nominations, including Outstanding Musical; and four Tony Award Nominations, including Best Musical.

Waitress is also touring the US and Canada and has announced an Australian premiere in 2020 at the Sydney Lyric Theatre with further productions to open in Holland next year and Japan in 2021.

It’s often said that if we fail to learn from history, we’re likely to repeat it.

And Cabaret is not simply a memorable night out at the theatre, it’s also a history lesson which might just offer some pertinent parallels with the here and now.

Set in Berlin at the dawn of the 1930s, Kander and Ebb’s dark classic pits tolerance against intolerance, liberalism against a particular brand of conservatism, and offers a stark warning of the dangers of mass indifference and denial.

The 1966 musical was based on John Van Druten’s 1951 play I Am a Camera – which in turn was inspired by Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin, a cautionary contemporary memoir set against the rise of fascism in the twilight days of a decadent Weimer Republic.

At its heart is a love story, between carefree British cabaret artist Sally Bowles and penniless American writer Cliff Bradshaw, both caught up in a vibrant, hedonistic and culturally liberal – and liberated – night-time world. Meanwhile a second romance, less turbulent but ultimately as doomed, blossoms between boarding house landlady Fraulein Schneider and Jewish greengrocer Herr Schultz.

These personal stories unfold against the backdrop of the rise of Nazism, which over the course of 12 months’ plot goes from a distasteful fringe philosophy to be ignored or laughed at to an enveloping political populist force driven by propaganda promising a glorious future for the ‘volk’ (people) – exemplified by the ominous lyrics of Kander and Ebb’s Tomorrow Belongs to Me.

The national populism – the völkisch ideology – expounded by the Nazis (the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or National Socialist German Workers’ Party) gained traction by playing on the fears of ordinary people who felt they’d been abandoned in the disastrous economic aftermath of the First World War, and were looking for someone to blame.

In 1930s Germany’s case the NSDAP invoked the moral decay of the Weimar regime – and the existence of a perfidious Jewish population, which was incrementally dehumanised through the Nazi playbook’s ‘big lie’.

However, the economic and social circumstances of the 1930s are not historically unique.

And here in 2019, a decade on from the latest global financial crisis, significant portions of the world are in the grip of another mass flirtation with populism, whether that be in the United States or Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil, through the rise of populist political parties in central and eastern Europe or in the divisions wrought by the Brexit debate here at home.

Another theme explored in Cabaret is the idea of inclusiveness verses divisiveness.

In the Kit Kat Klub, anything and anybody goes, whatever their race, religion or sexuality. Outside the confines of the club however, the wider world has a more culturally

conservative view which helps provide a receptive audience for the Nazis’ chilling and pernicious propaganda which gains momentum as the musical progresses.

We watch this unfold both from our theatre seats and from the vantage point of history and hindsight. But 80 years on, racism, extremism, LGBT+ issues and political propaganda remain hot topics, which is why the themes that run through Cabaret continue to resonate.

So perhaps it’s also worth posing the question – how inclusive are we as a modern society? And how can we guard against sleepwalking into a similarly dangerous situation in this increasingly neo-nationalistic world?

The news can often make depressing reading, from Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric and discrediting attacks on the media (with its echoes of Hitler’s lugenpresse, literally ‘lying press’) to China’s ‘re-education’ camps for its Uighur Muslim minority, the treatment of LGBT communities in regions like the Middle East, Africa and Asia, to a general rise in reported anti-Semitic, Islamophobic or other hate crimes across the Western world.

At the same time, it’s worth noting the majority’s rejection of the kind of far-right views expounded by organisations like the English Defence League and BNP.

Ignorance, indifference and self-involvement helped allow the skewed ideology of the Nazi party to take hold in Cabaret’s 1930s Germany, where silence ultimately became complicity.

So along with the idea that ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’, it’s also worth remembering another popular (although often misquoted) sentiment – that all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing

Park Theatre – until 12 October 2019

Reviewed by Claire Roderick

4****

Black Chiffon, first performed in the West end in 1949, is very much of its time, but this classy production is intriguing and entertaining.

Days before her son’s wedding, well-to-do housewife Alicia Christie does something completely out of character and commits a crime. Her husband hires the best lawyer to build a medical defence, but Dr Hawkins’ explanation for Alicia’s behaviour horrifies Robert Christie as he feels it would bring more shame to the family than Alicia being found guilty.

Lesley Storm wrote a fascinating central character in Alicia – constantly acting as a buffer between her son and her husband, bitterly jealous of their close bond. Abigail Cruttenden is note perfect as this respectable woman struggling with her inner turmoil and possibly menopausal symptoms. The epitome of stiff upper lip, with a cut-glass accent and constant smile as she keeps up the façade of normality. Ian Kelly keeps husband Robert almost comically awkward and unapproachable, with his most sexist comments drawing audible gasps from the audience more used to a semblance of gender equality.

Alicia’s act of rebellion/cry for help mystifies her family, and the sympathetic diagnosis from Dr Hawkins is a mishmash of Freud and empty nest syndrome. As well as psychologically examining Alicia’s role as a mother, Storm’s looser portraits of the other members of the dysfunctional family are just as enjoyable. Most of the lighter moments involve pregnant daughter Thea (Eva Feiler) and her glib proto-feminist comments that rile her father.

Director Clive Brill keeps the pace languid, with slow scene changes accompanied by evocative cello music as the light changes outside the large windows of the Christie’s drawing room. Beth Colley’s set is imposing rather than homely – a nod to the fractured family – with a lovely touch having the audience enter through the family’s hallway, dressed with coat hooks, briefcase and pictures.

THE THEATRE ROYAL, EDINBURGH – UNTIL SATURDAY 28 SEPTEMBER 2019

REVIEWED BY SIOBHAN WILSON

5*****

Mamma Mia is story of a young girl who lives on a Greek island with her mum. She has never met her dad and is due to get married. Wanting to where she comes from and possibly have her dad walk her down the aisle, she finds her mums diary and discovers that her dad could be 1 of 3 men. So, she secretly invites them all to the wedding. This story will take you on a roller coaster of emotions all perfectly reflected through the musical workings of ABBA.

The opening night was completely immersive from the photo opportunity on the deck chairs with the beach balls before the show to the whole audience being on their feet singing and dancing along to the encore.

Sharon Sexton as Donna Sheridan was an inspired casting choice. Her ability to showcase every emotion meant that you were not just watching her but living through each moment with her. With special mention to her rendition of The Winner Takes it All – it was simple incredible. Donna’s 2 life long friends Tanya (Helen Anker) and Rosie (Nicky Swift) had a real comradely and great voices respectively.

Emma Mullen is fabulous as Sophie Sheridan. She manages to capture the innocence and excitability of the youthful character.

James Willoughby Moore as Pepper should have his character renamed as Chuckles as there us a laugh a minute when he is on the stage.

The amazing orchestra enhances every song and you get the essence of ABBA coming through.

The simple set means that nothing distracts from the cast skills and ability.

All in all, 20 years on this show has not faltered in the slightest. It still the same lighthearted, fun and flirty show. Going by the number of mothers and young daughters there, it is still bringing in new audiences with its timeless story line and iconic score.

www.ianonstage.co.uk

www.atgtickets.com

IAN MCKELLEN ON STAGE

WITH TOLKIEN, SHAKESPEARE, OTHERS… AND YOU!

PRESENTED BY AMBASSADOR THEATRE GROUP PRODUCTIONS

DIRECTED BY SEAN MATHIAS

“The theatre event of the year”
The Telegraph

• £3 MILLION RAISED FOR VENUES THROUGHOUT THE UK
   
• IAN MCKELLEN’S GROUND-BREAKING THEATRE JOURNEY RETURNS TO THE WEST END THIS WEEKEND
   
• 10 CHARITIES NAMED TO RECEIVE ALL PROFITS FOR THE WEST END RUN

Following an unprecedented, sold-out tour which raised £3 million for 80 theatres throughout the UK, Ian McKellen’s 80th birthday theatre journey continues with a return to London for 80 further performances at the Harold Pinter Theatre from tonight, Friday 20th September. 

All profits to the West End show will be donated to 10 charities which raise vital funds for a cross section of people involved with the arts; from young theatre makers just starting out to retired theatre professionals and people with disabilities working in the industry. They include Denville Hall, English Touring Theatre, Equal People, King’s Head Theatre, Mousetrap Theatre Projects, National Youth Theatre, Ramps on the Moon, Royal Welsh College, Streetwise Opera and U Can Productions.

A limited availability of tickets is still available via www.ianonstage.co.uk

Ian McKellen says:

“Having raised essential funds for regional theatres, I am delighted to bring this show to the West End where the beneficiaries will be British theatre charities selected by those involved with the daily running of the show.”

LISTINGS

IAN MCKELLEN ON STAGE
With Tolkien, Shakespeare, others… and you!
Presented by Ambassador Theatre Group Productions
Directed by Sean Mathias
www.ianonstage.co.uk
www.atgtickets.com

Harold Pinter Theatre, Panton Street, London SW1Y 4DN

Performance schedule*

First performance: 20th September 2019
Last performance: 5th January 2020
Tuesday to Saturday at 7:30pm
Sunday at 3:00pm

*Performance on 1st November at 2:00pm
*No performances from 2nd – 7th November

*Christmas schedule:

23rd December at 7:30pm
24th December at 3:00pm
25th December No performance
26th December No performance
27th December at 7:30pm
28th December at 7:30pm
29th December at 7:30pm

Tickets from £10 at www.ianonstage.co.uk or www.atgtickets.com

Four Artist Development opportunities from The Lowry to be available to diverse artists and artforms

The Lowry’s Artist Development Programme are offering four opportunities for diverse artists and art forms. In partnership with strategic artist development partners and Greater Manchester venues, a variety of development schemes will be provided to enable new performing arts work to emerge within the North of England. The Lowry aims to provide bespoke support for artists, creatives & companies that truly addresses their individual needs or ambitions, and benefit a diverse range of artists across ethnicity and abilities, and art forms including musical composition, performance and physical theatre, and dance.

These four opportunities include:

Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer at The Lowry & Hope Mill Theatre, and Musical Rewrites SHOOTS Scratch Night will benefit an emerging musical theatre composer and provide a platform for experimental or new ideas for new musical theatre respectively. The Sustained Theatre Up North X The Lowry Commission will benefit BAME artists or BAME-led companies who are currently based in the North of England who want to make performance work.  The Lowry are delighted to announce the launch of a brand new artist development programme called UNTITLED Residency that will widen its artist development offer to reach the broadest diversity of creatives, in particular artists and creatives of colour/BAME heritage, and artists and creatives living with a disability

Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer at The Lowry & Hope Mill Theatre

The Lowry will partner with Hope Mill Theatre to jointly host the Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer Scheme run by Mercury Musical Developments and Musical Theatre Network to begin in April 2020.
This joint placement will allow a musical theatre composers to benefit from a unique range of bespoke coaching and mentoring alongside more practical craft and career opportunities at both a large and smaller-scale venue. The successful recipient will receive an all-inclusive fee of £11,000, plus £500 towards travel expenses, thanks to the generous support of The Cameron Mackintosh Foundation

Claire Symonds and Matthew Eames, Senior Producers at The Lowry, said: “We are delighted to partner with Hope Mill Theatre to host a placement for the Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer Scheme. As the two premier venues for musical theatre in Greater Manchester and keen supporters of the development of new musicals we feel we can jointly offer a series of varied and diverse opportunities that span the subsidised and commercial sectors. Between us we host musicals of all shapes and sizes, we produce and commission new work and we mentor and develop artists – we feel the recipient will get a great understanding of where their work sits and how they can engage commissioners and audiences in the future.”

Musical Rewrites SHOOTS Scratch Night

The Lowry are looking for four artists/creatives to share short works or ideas for new musical theatre through its in-house artist development programme Musical Rewrites SHOOTS Scratch Night. This programme aims to support the development of ideas and for artists/creatives to present new ideas or short works with an audience, in a safe supportive way.

This instalment of SHOOTS will be part of The Lowry’s Musical Rewrites Festival – a programme of work celebrating new UK musicals in development at the moment, taking place at The Lowry from Wednesday 13 – Saturday 16 November 2019. Successful artists/companies will each receive £250 seed funding and to present their piece in the Aldridge Studio on Wednesday 13 November 2019.

Sustained Theatre Up North X The Lowry Commission

The Lowry will partner with Sustained Theatre Up North to offer a £4,000 ‘making’ commission for BAME artists or BAME-led companies who are currently based in the North of England who want to make performance work. This commission seeks to develop Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic artistic talent to enable voices to be heard which wouldn’t otherwise be heard and afford artists freedom and support them to create excellent, new, urban performance.
The Lowry and STUN are looking for BAME artists or BAME-led companies that use movement, physical theatre or dance to connect with audiences; working towards a studio-scale show to present in Autumn 2020

UNTITLED Residency

UNTITLED Residency will benefit artists who require the freedom to explore by focusing on the process and not on outcome. This new programme is all about creating an opportunity for artists and creatives to take risks, make leaps and play with ideas.

The Lowry are looking for expressions of interest from:

• Projects that are in the early stages of development and will benefit from experimentation rather than rehearsal
• Projects that are telling new stories in interesting ways
• Projects that are testing new collaborations across art forms or with a diverse range of artists
• Projects that involve those who are underrepresented in terms of ethnicity, disability, sexuality, socio-economic backgrounds and any others who might need a different kind of courage to overcome historical barriers or perspectives.
• Projects that involve dance, movement, or contemporary circus makers as we don’t tend to hear as often from people working in these fields

There are 7 residency weeks in each month starting January to July 2020 available to apply for. The successful artists/companies will receive: 

• 5 day residency / up to 40 hours of studio time (Aldridge Studio 3)
• A small pot of seed funding of £500
• Option to informally share and reflect on the process with a trusted invited group if needed
• Option of having a critical eye at points that suit

Listings

THE CAMERON MACKINTOSH RESIDENT COMPOSER SCHEME
Deadline for application: Monday 14 October 2019, midnight
Apply online: http://www.mercurymusicals.com/2019/09/the-lowry-and-hope-mill-theatre-to-host-next-cameron-mackintosh-resident-composer-placement/

STUN X THE LOWRY COMMISSION CALL OUT
Deadline for application: Friday 25 October 2019, 5pm
Apply: https://thelowry.com/about-us/artist-development/stun-x-the-lowry-commission/

MUSICAL REWRITES: SHOOTS SCRATCH NIGHT
Deadline for application: Friday 11 October 2019, 5pm
Apply: https://thelowry.com/about-us/artist-development/musical-rewrites-shoots-scratch-night-call-out/

UNTITLED RESIDENCY
Deadline for application: Friday 15 November 2019, 5pm
Apply: https://thelowry.com/about-us/artist-development/untitled-residency-2020-call-out/

YORKSHIRE POET’S FIRST PLAY SET TO TOUR

Award-winning Yorkshire poet Andrew McMillan has written his first stage play which is set to premiere at Square Chapel Arts Centre, Halifax on Tuesday October 15^th and will go to Huddersfield, Doncaster and Barnsley.

Dorian is a re-telling of Oscar Wilde’s classic The Picture of Dorian Gray and is presented by Huddersfield’s Proper Job Theatre Company; it is the third part of their Monster Trilogy which sees classic pieces of literature transformed for the stage by renowned poets.  The first, Nosferatu, was written by ‘the Bard of Barnsley’ Ian McMillan and was followed by Medusa re-imagined by award-winning Sheffield poet Helen Mort.

“I have long been fascinated by the world of theatre so it’s an honour to be approached by Proper Job for this project, to follow in the footsteps of two great poets and to debut here at the beautiful Square Chapel,” says Barnsley-born Andrew.

“Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece is the inspiration for Dorian, but my own personal experiences with eating disorders are reflected in the play.”

A tired, middle-aged man sets out to change his life and get the body of his dreams; he hires a personal trainer and signs up to a six-month transformational programme, but things start to unravel. Dorian’s body starts to change, but he can’t recognise it so becomes more addicted to the gym and less able to see the results of his work.

Exploring masculinity, body dysmorphia, class, and the gym culture the company use poetry, physical theatre, bold images and a stirring score to examine the subject.

“We are delighted to be working with the brilliant poet, Andrew McMillan on this production,” says producer Chloe Whitehead. “At Proper Job we strive to be bold and tell stories that are unusual; to comment on contemporary issues even if they have an ancient inspiration, and Andrew has created just that; we think Wilde would approve!”

Dorian, presented by Proper Job Theatre Company, is at:

Square Chapel Arts Centre, Halifax – Tuesday October 15^th www.squarechapel.co.uk

Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield – Thursday October 17^th

www.thelbt.org

CAST, Doncaster – Tuesday October 22^nd

www.castindoncaster.com

The Civic, Barnsley – Thursday October 24^th

www.barnsleycivic.co.uk