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- On Your Feet!
Book by Alexander Dinelaris, music produced and recorded by Emilio and Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine Palace Theatre, Manchester 28 October 2019 - 2 November 2019; 2hr 30min Also at Liverpool Empire (17-22 February 2020), Leeds Grand (23-28 March), Newcastle Theatre Royal (14-18 April), Hull New Theatre (27 April-2 May) Hands up if you’ve never danced to Gloria Estefan's Conga at a wedding (or possibly silver wedding party: the fan base is getting on a bit). No? Shame on you, you need new friends and better parties. This is the thing about jukebox musicals – it’s all about your own personal reminiscences. You don’t even have to be a fan as such; you just need to have been at the party. Paradoxically, this creates a problem for On Your Feet!, the musical that tracks the life of Gloria Estefan from her teenage singing and song writing to a courageous comeback after a road accident and life-threatening back surgery. The gusto of the show, directed by Jerry Mitchell with choreography by Sergio Trujillo, cannot be faulted. A driving latin beat propels everything forward and the whole cast has huge talent and a raw energy that ought to be completely infectious. But the musical structure of the show doesn’t really reflect the British experience of Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine, so sometimes that connection breaks down. A handful of tours have included the UK, but she has not been a regular here on stage or TV, so the reconstructions of concerts in On Your Feet! don’t strike that many chords with the audience. The atmosphere felt more authentic when Philippa Stefani was belting out numbers at a bar mitzvah, a wedding and a convention of Shriners (a US variation on masons). Nevertheless, the rhythm was always going to get us. It carried us past the occasional slump in script quality, allowed us to ignore the somewhat flat characterisation of Emilio Estefan (George Ioannides), and distracted from dull and ponderous scene sets. The music also offered some (but not complete) compensation for the decidedly light touch with which the very real issues that moulded the Estefans were handled. These were two families exiled from Cuba, young people who struggled to find a place between old and new cultures and musicians who were casually compartmentalised and sidelined by the mainstream music industry. The high point, though, was the strength of the women. And what women! Madalena Alberto as Gloria’s mother was passionate, conflicted, implacable – and, it was finally revealed to Gloria, a potential star in her own right who was thwarted by a domineering father and the Cuban revolution. She came close to stealing the show. Grandmother Consuelo (Karen Mann) was also a delight, pulling everyone’s strings and urging Gloria on. But it all comes back to the music. The key question is whether you enjoy the songs you don’t know – the rarely heard ones used to move the story forward? The answer for me is yes – and that, after all, is what it’s all about. @OnYourFeetUK @PalaceAndOpera #Rhythmisgonnagetyou #conga #GloriaEstefan
- Seagulls
Book, music and lyrics by Beth Hyland Octagon Theatre Bolton & University of Bolton in association with Middle Child Library Theatre, Bolton Museum 30 October 2019 - 16 November 2019; 2hr 5min Bolton Octagon’s new artistic director, Lotte Wakeham, knew she was letting herself in for some theatrical sofa-surfing when she arrived, her theatre covered in scaffolding and not due to reopen until next spring after a major refurbishment. So staging a world premiere musical in a lecture theatre in Bolton Museum as her first production was quite a task. Seagulls, by Chicago-based playwright Beth Hyland, is variously described as gig theatre, an indie-rock musical and, of course, as inspired by Chekhov. It succeeds on all counts. You can tick off the Chekhov markers as you go along – and except for (spoiler alert) the missing gun, they are there to be found. But the shift to a university (here Bolton, but transferable to pretty much any campus you care to name) gives the story a bitter-sweet naivety and much more humour than Chekhov (who called his play a comedy) usually evokes. There is a fine line between intimacy and too close for comfort in a small theatre space, and lighting is the key. Here the audience is almost as well lit as the stage, which makes it feel a little too much like a student production. With a cast of four and a tiny space, it is just as well that all the action, as in the original, takes place off stage. One early scene has all four ambitious musicians on the phone to their parents with news of their success in a local Battle of the Bands. The one-sided conversations tell us all we need to know about their home backgrounds and family relationships. Con, the songwriter who knows he will never be able to live up to his pop-diva mother and her feted song-writing boyfriend, is the needy centre of the love quadrangle. In love with Nina but ignoring her own aspirations as a writer, he is indifferent to Masha’s love for him and carelessly soaks up Simon’s loyalty. Matthew Heywood plays the self-obsessed man-child well, but the balance of comedy, songwriter angst and very real depression is tricky to achieve and occasionally misses. Violin-playing Nina (Flora Spencer-Longhurst) has more than a touch of Jane Horrocks about her performance. A characteristic broad accent combined with exquisite diction makes her song Muse one of the highlights of the show. And there is a sizeable nod to Ariana Grande when she returns as the disillusioned superstar, all knee-high boots and flying ponytail: “Ed Sheerin smells like a Brillo pad,” she tells Masha. But the anguish of her bruising brush with pop celebrity is there for all to see (at close range) and brings tears to our eyes. Lauryn Redding (keyboard and guitar) brings an endearing, earthy heft to Masha, and her song Not Fair screams out the heartache of every wronged 18 year old. I kept imagining her as Adele, though someone else can write a thesis on Tears and laughter: Adele as a Masha for the 21st century... The audience’s favourite moment is a lovely song called Anyway, sung with tenderness cut through with melancholy by Simon (Tomi Ogbaro). Any love song that starts “Mate…”, has got to be a winner. #seagulls #musical #TRNreviews @octagontheatre
- Rambert Triple Bill
Wayne McGregor, Marion Motin, Hofesh Shechter Rambert Lowry Lyric 30 October - 1 November 2019; 2hr Rambert has recovered its traditional slot in The Lowry’s programme as a high point of the autumn dance offering, opening its 2019-20 tour here – which is good to see. But last night the company didn’t seem to have recovered all its traditional audience – which used to include crowds of squawking teenagers filling the theatre. In the old days those kids used to be shushed by their teachers, intent on them encountering high culture rather than behaving as if they were at a rock concert. Now the performance on stage is (at least in part) more like a concert, it’s a pity the hollering hordes aren’t there in quite such numbers. Those that were did their best though, and Rouge, the newest piece on offer created by Marion Motin (who has worked for Madonna in the past) went down extremely well. With music by Micka Luna, it has a solo guitarist on stage as well as a string quartet and percussionist in the pit, and the dancers interact with the guitar man as well as doing their own thing. What that thing is, you might puzzle over, were it not for the programme note which tells us it’s "about finding our real selves: our instinct and nature, rather than our culture". So no problem there, then. The lighting by Judith Leray plays a big part in the whole effect – some of it a sea of red, of course, with red strips and white strobes also contributing – with the loudness of the music adding up to a complete assault on the senses. Costumes (Yann Seabra) also make an impact: the dancers appear in the opening guitar solo as if in cold-weather wear: when that stops they throw off scarves and woollies and prepare for heat. At times they seem like lost souls in hell, writhing in that red light: at one point, after talking to the musician, they cavort like the tamed animals of The Magic Flute. It all finishes in wild abandon. Make of that what you will, but I couldn’t help wondering what would be left if the loudness and the lights were taken away. Rambert’s opening work in this triple bill was PreSentient, which Wayne McGregor created for the company in 2002 using Steve Reich’s Triple Quartet. It’s very much the kind of contemporary classic Rambert is known for, and showed the dancers at their extraordinary and virtuosic best (it’s restaged by Catarina Carvalho). The movement is angular, flamboyant and disciplined and arises directly from the music in the way that Christopher Bruce, its dedicatee, used to practise so brilliantly. Last was In Your Rooms, a Hofesh Shechter creation from 2007 presented in association with Hofesh’s own company. It has the Shechter signature characteristic of appearing to be about very precise concepts (there’s a recording of a disembodied voice talking philosophically about order and chaos – our "rooms" are a sort of order we try to introduce to universal randomness; there’s also a placard bearer proclaiming "Don’t follow leaders – follow me", and some more talk on survival and communication), but leaving you to interpret the movement yourself, because its meaning is anything but precise. Live music (Shechter makes his own) is again visible, as string players and percussionists appear on a high platform, and the dance can often seem more like collective – and highly detailed – mime than anything else. But is it – and if it is, what are they miming? Shechter leaves us to guess, and the piece, like Rouge, is reminiscent of a concert atmosphere in some ways, though again brilliantly and amazingly danced. #Rambert #HofeshShechter #MarionMotin #WayneMcGregor
- Giulio Cesare
Haym and Handel Opera North The Lowry, Salford 13 November, 2019: 3hr 15min Back after seven years, one of Opera North’s best productions of baroque opera returns, and with a cast that’s almost as universally strong as it was in 2012. One of them – counter-tenor James Laing as Tolomeo, the narcissistic, psychopathic, moody and lecherous baddie of the story (aka Ptolemy, to ancient historians) – indeed returns to his role, just as horrifyingly antipathetic as before. The story is of Julius Caesar in Egypt. It opens when his erstwhile Roman rival, Pompey, has already been murdered by Ptolemy – the overture is accompanied by a helpful dumb-show in which we see him knifed by Tolomeo and his general, Achilla. Ptolemy’s sister and incestuous queen Cleopatra, however, is not only competing with her brother/ husband for supreme rule in Egypt, but also sets out to seduce Caesar. Pompey’s widow, Cornelia, and son, Sesto, are out for revenge, though Cornelia is desperately vulnerable to advances from both Achilla and Ptolemy. It’s a long piece: Handel’s operas usually are. Most of the scenes are confrontations, and the emotions are strong but unvaried and strictly sequenced (that’s the concept of Affekt). Given those constraints, any director has to use resources skilfully, and the production by Tim Albery does that. The set is a movable one in two pieces, but they come together and apart and work from different angles, so it can evoke inside and outside, battles and bedrooms (including Cleopatra’s famous bath, in an interior that, if not a burnished throne, looks like a highly burnished boudoir). The design concept gives the warring nations (Romans and Egyptians) colour-coding and vivid symbolic accessories, such as the Scissorhands-style nail extensions worn by Tolomeo. Credit Leslie Travers for those effects. The singing, which is for virtuosic performers on all sides, is what counts. Maria Sanner as Cesare (one of two trouser roles for female singers here) is at her best in the more mellow numbers, and though she can hold her own for power when placed front-of-stage, isn’t always given that advantage. James Laing is icily nasty and sustains his energy even when his voice occasionally tires. But the star of the show in many ways is Lucie Chartin, as Cleopatra. She turns on the sex appeal so much in the first part of the story that she’s in danger of making the character a saucy little tart, but she finds real dignity and pathos later on, turning Piangeró la sorte mia, sung from floor level, into a baroque equivalent of Tosca’s Vissi d’arte, and displaying technical brilliance in her trills and leaps in Da tempeste il legno infranto, as well as a warm mezza voce elsewhere. Matching her for subtlety is Heather Lowe, one of the Royal Northern College of Music’s best products of recent years, as Sesto. She makes as remarkable a success of it as did Kathryn Rudge, another lovely RNCM high mezzo, in the original production. Amy J Payne, who took the role of Cornelia on Wednesday, gave a superb performance as Cornelia, full of emotion and vivid acting, and with sustained quality from beginning to end. Handel’s slow, lamenting arias, with the guiding hand of conductor Christian Curnyn, have never sounded better than this. #OperaNorth #GiulioCesare
- La Bohème
Illica, Giacosa & Puccini Opera North The Lowry, Salford 12-15 November, 2019: 2hr 15min Phyllida Lloyd’s production of La Bohème for Opera North is over 26 years old but still feels young. And for audiences it still has the ability to capture – as the opera is designed to – the experience of youthful love and separation, its ecstasy and its heartbreak. It's set in the 1950s or early 1960s, rather than the 19th century. But in some respects it takes its cue from the set of stories Puccini and his collaborators used as their source material, Henry Murger’s Scènes de la Vie de Bohème. What we see are literally scenes – tableaux – with intervening narrative left to our imagination. Boy meets girl… there’s some backstory involving his friends and the love life of one in particular, it all goes sour, and there’s a tragic death. As part of their updating, Phyllida Lloyd and designer Anthony Ward took inspiration from the real romantic fiction of their new time-setting: film. It fits both concepts that everything’s framed by a kind of cinema screen-edge, and as the first act merges to the second there’s the equivalent of a cinematic cut to close-up, created through lighting and a gauze on which we see a projected still of a kiss. This happens to cover a scene-change behind, but the visual theme continues with another ‘cut’ to a projected backdrop, for the story to continue in the street and the café. Then as the brassy Musetta takes over with her motto song, Quando m’en vo, everything changes again and we’re in comedyland. At least that was how it came over this time – I think on previous outings there’s been more ambiguity, just as there has sometimes been more intrigue in the quality of the relationship between Marcello and Musetta, as it comes out in act three. But ultimately La Bohème is always about the two main characters, Rodolfo and Mimì, the poet and the consumptive paper flower-seller. This revival is double-cast for them anyway, so I saw only one performer in each role (and one Musetta). But Lauren Fagan’s Mimì made the show: she has a glorious, young voice and sang angelically throughout. Maybe she seemed a bit more fit and well at the outset for someone who’s already supposed to faint from her sickness, but by the end she was wonderful. Eleazar Rodriguez, a young tenor with the top C he displayed for us at the end of O soave fanciulla, is not the most incisive singer in the world but entered into his part skilfully. Between them, and with powerful guidance from conductor Renato Balsadonna, whose direction was never less than idiomatic and drew beautiful playing from the orchestra, they managed to persuade me this time that the breaking-up-is-hard-to-do emotions of act three are really the most glorious part of the entire opera. The other main performers – all young singers for the youthful characters – were never less than good, while in some ways the acting achievement of the night was that of Jeremy Peaker in the twin roles (as usual in this piece) of the lecherous landlord Benoît and the witless sugar-daddy Alcindoro. #OperaNorth #LaBoheme
- The Greek Passion
Bohuslav Martinu, after Nikos Kazantzakis Opera North The Lowry, Salford 16 November, 2019: 2hr 45min Opera North has put huge resources into this new production of Martinu’s last opera, seen here in the original, 1957-written version. It needs a long cast list – there are 19 named roles in the programme, and none is overwhelmingly more important than the others – and the chorus members have a vital role to play, because it’s essentially about two communities and they represent both. The villagers of Lycovrissi are to present a Passion play (the imagery of the opening tableau, in Christopher Alden’s production here, is reminiscent of the Oberammergau play, now only a few months away from its next round of performances). Roles are allocated, almost too precisely true to life: Yannakos the postman will be Peter; young Michelis will be John; Katerina, a widow, and Panait, her drunken lover, will be the Magdalen and Judas respectively, and the shepherd Manolios will be Christ. Manolios takes his role seriously – he studies the Bible with the other "apostles", and prepares to turn his back, at least for the time being, on marriage to his fiancee, Lenio. Then village life is disrupted by the arrival of a crowd of refugees – not foreigners, but an entire uprooted community of fellow Greeks, with their own village priest, who have been forced from their homes by the Turks. They need food and a place to live. But the priest of Lycovrissi, Grigoris, rejects them and persuades his flock to do the same. Only Manolios and his fellow disciples view them with compassion. The rest of the story works itself out as a real-life parallel to the rejection and killing of Jesus in the Passion story: in the end Manolios, having begun to persuade the villagers of the need to help those in need, is excommunicated and finally murdered. It's a good tale – based on a novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, who also wrote Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ. If you look for them, there are echoes of the Gospel all the way through: Ladas, the miser, tries to lead Yannakos astray like Satan tempting Christ; the schoolmaster Ivan Sharpe becomes a Caiaphas, pronouncing of Manolios: "He’s dangerous, because no fault can be found in him"; before the final denouement, Manolios shares a parable with his "flock" like Jesus' Last Supper, and we hear that he is "…there, and in their midst". The chorus even quotes from the Song of Songs in the introduction to the wedding scene (Lenio now having rejected Manolios and hitched herself with someone else), including the ominous line that "…summer is ended, and we are not saved." Martinu, who wrote the libretto himself, saw opera more as a theatre of ideas than an unveiling of psychological truth. He didn’t write long arias to reveal his characters’ innermost selves. What he wanted was drama, and story-telling. He uses a narrator to introduce each act except the last (but twice within that one), and a kaleidoscopic variety of styles of music to accompany each scene, many of which melt into one another. So this piece demands a lot from a director, and Alden, with designer Charles Edwards, has given Opera North a vivid, in-yer-face production with a message. Perhaps almost too much of a message. Displaying "Give us what you have too much of" in huge letters over the heads of the chorus as they represent the refugees certainly applies the moral of the story, but it should have sunk in, for anyone with ears to hear, anyway. The company’s Manchester Evening News Theatre Award-winning production of Martinu’s Julietta, staged over 20 years ago with Paul Nilon in the leading role, made us think, rather than battering us with its lessons. It remains to say that the cast members of The Greek Passion are all excellent, and not surprisingly, as they include many of the most experienced male singers Opera North works with – Stephen Gadd, Jonathan Best, Steven Page (as the Captain, a character who is the narrator but also morphs into such forms as the Easter Bunny and Father Christmas, the better to relate to us today), Paul Nilon, Jeffery Lloyd-Roberts, John Savournin. Young tenor Nicky Spence is also outstanding as Manolios, as is Magdalena Molendowska as the Magdalen character, Katerina: two magnificent voices used with great artistry. Garry Walker, now music-director-designate of the company, conducts with a sure hand and there are some ravishingly beautiful sounds from the orchestra along the way. #OperaNorth #TheGreekPassion
- Cinderella A Fairytale
Sally Cookson, Adam Peck & original Tobacco Factory cast The Dukes, Lancaster November 22-January 11, 2020; 2hr You can mess around with the Ugly Sisters’ gender; drop all that Dandini or Fairy Godmother nonsense; put Cinders in a pair of Doc Martens AND still have a Ball in this clever, compact and thoroughly-comic version of the traditional tale. It may borrow aspects of pantomime, but it’s more rooted in the fairytale telling of the Brothers Grimm, while its key characters could have stepped off the pages of Roald Dahl. Once youngsters have understood that, they are in for a treat. Writers Sally Cookson and Adam Peck have skilfully blended the ancient and modern in a version that has already attracted awards elsewhere (even an Olivier nomination) and has been given further enhancement here. It’s all performed by a whirlwind cast of five, and woe betide anyone who gets in their way down this venue’s corridors as they change costume, character and stage entrances at breakneck speed. Helen Longworth and Craig Anderson transition into Ugly Siblings, rather than sisters – and why not nowadays? Her gurning and his physical comedy are sheer joy. Michael Hugo returns here, and has already proved, at the Dukes and elsewhere, to have impeccable credentials as an actor who can switch between dark and light in a heartbeat. Just watch his on-stage transformation from Cinders’ father to her Wicked Stepmother... Rianna Duce’s Cinderella is a feisty free spirit who can easily woo her Prince – never mind everyone else in the house – while Waleed Hammad is a royal mummy’s boy more interested in bird watching. And it’s a flock of those that takes the place of Fairy Godmother to effect the show’s transformation scenes. Just part of the effective puppetry also used to convey Cinderella’s care-free early years. Revealing how several sound effects are created is another of the theatrical details with which this show abounds. Hammad’s working of the audience in the second act, especially when he appears to try Cinders’ missing footwear around everyone in the region, adds even more fun to a production that never lets up yet still manages to deliver in under two hours. Every credit to director Sarah Punshon, designer Katie Scott and anyone else involved with the costumes, and choreographer Zak Phillips-Yates, who manages the equivalent of close-up magic with the show’s movement. #DukesLancaster #Cinderella
- A Christmas Carol
Alan Harris Theatr Clwyd December 13, 2019 - January 5, 2020; 90 min Alan Harris's adaptation of Dickens’ classic Christmas story retains the basic story of the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge (Steven Elliott) from "Bah! Humbug!" Christmas hater to the embodiment of the Christmas spirit, handing out sacks of money to the poor. One difference is that Bob Cratchit is promoted to partner in the renamed Scrooge and Cratchit, now changed from money lender to charitable enterprise. But it’s the unusual and imaginative staging that makes this production so memorable and joyous. The action takes place in two settings; the first a recreation of a Victorian street peopled by local residents and vendors selling their wares (and members of the audience are given tokens which can be exchanged for, among other things, gingerbread men). This creates an immediacy with the action of the play and with Scrooge, looking fearsome in black morning coat and top hat, wandering through the throng of audience and actors. Scrooge establishes his miserly credentials by denying an extension on a loan to Mrs Roberts (Kerry Peers) before retiring to his office and the downtrodden Bob (Matthew Bulgo). The second staging takes place in the Emlyn Williams theatre and in Scrooge’s bedroom, where the hauntings take place before the action finally returns to the street scene for the finale. The portrayal of Tiny Tim (Lewis Lowry) as a typically mischievous young boy is a refreshing interpretation of this character, as is Bob Cratchitt as a single parent. The success of this production is the result of all the elements of stage craft coming together: set design, music, lighting and so on, and actors working to create a story in which the whole audience, both young children to adults, can participate and enjoy. The logistics of staging a promenade production - at which the audience moves from venue to venue – is not easy but director Liz Stevenson manages to achieve it seamlessly. A highly recommended family show. #ChristmasCarol #TheatrClwyd #CharlesDickens
- Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde
Glyn Maxwell Storyhouse, Chester 5-19 October 2019; 1hr 20min, no interval Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the inaugural production in Storyhouse’s eleventh season of original productions. Adapted for the stage by Glyn Maxwell and directed by Psyche Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella is a dramatic study of split personality – or what today we would term schizophrenia. In Victorian parlance, it is not the mind but the soul that is divided into good and evil, the light and the dark, and this production retains that Victorian setting and language while implicitly acknowledging the story’s relevance to contemporary themes of addiction. Its four key characters include two women – a change to Stevenson’s original plot. Lady Gabriel (Natasha Bain) takes on the role of the original narrator, Utterson, while Rose (Rosa Hesmondhalgh), a new addition to the original story, is her young niece, a self -declared woman of science and "wildly curious" about Jekyll’s work. The conflicted Jekyll (Edward Harrison) is torn between a commitment to scientific discovery and increasing personal danger, while his alter ego, Hyde (Matthew Flynn), is equally conflicted in his desire to come out of the dark and into the light, echoing more Frankenstein’s monster than Jekyll’s Hyde. Cast members put in strong performances and deliver Maxwell’s sometimes intricate dialogue with dramatic effect. The confrontation between Jekyll and Hyde is particularly powerful, and the relationship between Jekyll and Rose has potential for further dramatic development. Psyche Stott, working closely with choreographer Paul Bayes Kitcher (Fallen Angels Dance Theatre), keeps the plot moving at a strong pace. The choreographed interaction between Jekyll and Hyde is particularly effective in establishing the conflicted nature of this split character. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a fast paced, strong dramatic retelling of Stevenson’s original story. #Storyhouse #JekyllAndHyde
- Liverpool Everyman returns to live shows
Six aspiring young directors will reopen Liverpool’s Everyman theatre to live theatre as part of the Young Everyman Playhouse Directors’ Festival 2021. Lorna McCoid, Mary Savage, Olive Pascha, Melissa Ratcliffe, Laurie Fahy and Jess Meade will direct six separate performances from May 31-June 12 in front of live audiences. Opening the festival (May 31-June 1), Lorna McCoid will direct two of her own short plays: Icing Sugar, a dark comedy about a repressed 1950s housewife, her husband and a special cake. Her second piece, White Lilies, features a monologue from a prima ballerina with a promising future. On June 2 and 3 audiences can watch Eggs, directed by Mary Savage, a story about “friendship, fertility and freaking out”. The production explores the ups and downs of relationships among modern women. Bull, directed by Olive Pascha (June 4-5), is about the fine line between office politics and playground bullying as it follows three salespeople waiting to find out which has lost their job. On June 7 and 8 Box Clever is directed by Melissa Ratcliffe. The show follows the life of a young, single Liverpool mum and her struggles in a women’s refuge. All Over Lovely, directed by Laurie Fahy (June 9 and 10) is a deep examination of two estranged lovers who meet again at a funeral. Closing the festival will be Build a Rocket (June 11-12), directed by Jess Meade, about Yasmin, a young woman who realises her potential and begins to use it... YEP director Matt Rutter said: “This is a huge moment for Young Everyman Playhouse and our theatres. We can’t wait to get back in to the theatre to showcase the talent of Liverpool’s young theatre makers.” Free tickets for the festival are available here
- Royal Exchange to reopen after more than a year
Manchester's Royal Exchange theatre will reopen on June 23 after more than a year of relative silence. The season will also be the first from new artistic directors Roy Alexander Weise and Bryony Shanahan. The first show (June 23-July 17) will be new musical love story, Bloody Elle, written and performed by Lauryn Redding and available online as well as live. This will be followed by a pair of shows running in repertory from September 11-October 30 – Stuart Slade's Bruntwood prize-winner Glee and Me, about a teenager diagnosed with a brain tumour, and a revival of Olivier award-winner The Mountaintop, set on the eve of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. For Christmas the Exchange will run David Greig's musical play The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart (December 4-January 15), which blends Scottish folk songs and karaoke. Shows from the Exchange's community companies and a collaboration with the Liverpool Everyman complete the season in the famous auditorium. The Exchange's pop-up space The Den will open at Spinners Mill in Leigh for two weeks (August 4-14) of performances from local artists and touring companies. The main theatre will also display a community-developed installation, Flight, curated by husband and wife team playwright Ian Kershaw and much-loved actress Julie Hesmondhalgh. The piece will be on display in the Exchange's great hall into next year. Shanahan and Weise said in a statement: "We're so proud to finally announce our first programme as artistic directors. "These epic stories - even in their intimacy - ask some huge questions, and like any good story can give us the tools again to engage with our real world." Full season details here
- Campaign to highlight experiences of theatre across UK
Playwright and theatre publicist Laura Horton took action when she learned Plymouth’s famous Theatre Royal could be hit by pandemic-forced redundancies. She started collecting and sharing stories about the ways people had fallen in love with the theatre, and what it means to them, as a way of campaigning for support. Now she has launched Theatre Stories, a digital campaign to collect the stories of people across the UK who love their local theatres but rarely get the chance to say so, and why. Workshops and appeals will help the group to share stories through social media and the press, in the hope of changing public perceptions about who theatre is for. The power of the stories led Horton to contact producer Lizzie Vogler and several theatres to help extend the campaign’s reach. Laura has now started working with theatres including Plymouth, Derby, Northern Stage and Theatr Clwyd, using their substantial community programmes to share more stories, and is looking for others to join them. The project has already attracted a £15,000 grant from the Arts Council, which has helped to create a campaign website and a presence on social media. “Media stories about the importance of theatre are often led by celebrities, and while I understand the importance of this, I also think we need to hear from other people engaged in theatre,” she said. “Many theatre companies and buildings run incredible community outreach programmes. I want to shine a light on community voices through Theatre Stories, in the hope we can expand current narratives about the arts industry and who it exists for.” As well as an online presence, the campaign will run community workshops at each theatre – initially through Zoom, but soon in person. Horton’s activism was recognised by her inclusion in the 2020 Stage 100 – the annual list compiled by The Stage newspaper of the people working hardest to support the future of theatre. See the Theatre Stories website here, and follow the campaign’s social media feeds, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
- New Shakespeare North Playhouse chief named
Director of National Museums Liverpool, Melanie Lewis, is to move across the city to become chief executive of the Shakespeare North Playhouse, currently under construction in Knowsley. The Playhouse, in Prospero Place, Prescot, will complete the UK’s Shakespearean triangle, London and Stratford being the other two points. The £20m theatre is due to open next year – Covid delays notwithstanding – but Lewis will take up her new role in August. “I feel privileged to have the opportunity to lead the region’s newest and most exciting cultural attraction,” she said. “My passion lies with shaping and enriching the whole visitor experience, be that in our local community, our city, from across the UK and around the world.” Lewis has been with National Museums Liverpool for nine years, seven of them as an executive director. She has been responsible for all commercial business, the visitor experience, strategy and planning. Before joining the museums she had senior positions at Everton and Blackburn Rovers football clubs. The theatre is being funded by Knowsley Council, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and HM Treasury, plus a £3m Culture Recovery Fund grant and more than £1m from private donors – notably including one from the Sir Ken Dodd Charitable Foundation Trust. More about the appointment and the new theatre here
- Storyhouse artistic director Alex Clifton to move on
Storyhouse Chester has announced the departure of artistic director Alex Clifton, who will step down in August to join the “House of Mouse” in a senior position at Disneyland Hong Kong. Alex is Storyhouse’s founding artistic director, and the driving force at the former cinema complex since 2010. After first founding the Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre – which despite the pandemic entertained audiences in the summer of 2020 and is one of Chester’s favourite summer events – he became full-time artistic director of Storyhouse’s new £37m home in 2015, and opened it to universal local acclaim in 2017. “I’ve had the most glorious 11 years, working with the team at Storyhouse; we’ve built something together that I’ll forever be proud of, in a community I love. It has forged lifelong friendships, and like all good departures, it opens more doors than it closes, with an ever-more inclusive, creative Storyhouse for Chester.” CEO Andrew Bentley added: “Alex and I have been together since we opened our first show in Grosvenor Park. Alex has shown our industry how creative ambition can be elevated by placing communities first. “Alex is leaving us in great shape, even in these tough times. We’ll be protecting that legacy by elevating creative communities and further diversifying the voices that make our work.” Storyhouse has now begun the search for both a creative director and a programming director: “Alex has been huge. No one human could do his job,” said Andrew Bentley. Recruitment for both roles will begin in the next few weeks.