Saturday, April 20

NEWS

Soho Theatre reopens with award winning play in June
NEWS

Soho Theatre reopens with award winning play in June

Soho Theatre celebrates the relaunch of its theatre programme this summer with an exhilarating new play. Shedding A Skin, written by Amanda Wilkin, the 2020 winner of the acclaimed Verity Bargate Award, sponsored by Character 7, introduces audiences to a fresh and fierce new voice. Shedding A Skin is a Soho Theatre production sponsored by NJA. A story for our times, Shedding A Skin is a play about finding kindness in unexpected places, moments of connection, intergenerational friendship and joy. It will be the first new play staged in front of live audiences at Soho Theatre since the pandemic and brings together the creative talents of Amanda Wilkin and Elayce Ismail, who also directed the sell-out hit GIRLS (Soho Theatre 2016). Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge described this award-wi...
Manchester theatre company wins prestigious Olwen Wymark Award after taking work online in Covid-19 pandemic
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Manchester theatre company wins prestigious Olwen Wymark Award after taking work online in Covid-19 pandemic

A Manchester theatre company which swapped the stage for a screen due to the Covid-19 pandemic has had its work recognised with a prestigious award. Elysium Theatre Company has just released five new online plays, days after being announced as Olwen Wymark Award-winners by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, for its work in supporting new writing. The company, which also has a base in Durham, began producing The Covid-19 Monologues last year on its new YouTube channel after the pandemic closed all theatres, as a way to bring the Arts to audiences on-screen. Elysium co-founder and Director, Jake Murray, can’t wait for the world to see the next five Covid-19 Monologues, which are online now. The pioneering approach involved commissioning writers to pen monologues on any subject...
Leicester’s Curve theatre is gearing up to reopen with a special socially distanced season from the 20th May
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Leicester’s Curve theatre is gearing up to reopen with a special socially distanced season from the 20th May

After over a year without audiences in its building, Leicester’s Curve theatre is gearing up to reopen with a special socially distanced season from the 20th May. Including two nights of work curated by Curve Resident Creatives and local artists, a new comedy musical, acclaimed dance and a Made at Curve concert inspired by the life and career of Andrew Lloyd Webber, these reopening plans have been made possible by a second grant from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s Culture Recovery Fund. As recently seen in streamed productions of Sunset Boulevard and The Color Purple, by raising the walls between its theatre spaces, Curve will reopen as a 533-seat socially distanced auditorium, with audiences enjoying live performances from all four sides of the stage. To ...
Poet Laureate Simon Armitage and Maxine Peake pen monologues for new season at Leeds Playhouse
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Poet Laureate Simon Armitage and Maxine Peake pen monologues for new season at Leeds Playhouse

Yorkshire’s Poet Laureate Simon Armitage and Maxine Peake have written brand new monologues as part of Leeds Playhouse’s 50th anniversary celebrations. The Playhouse will be welcoming audiences back next month for the first time since November with monologues written by six writers offering their own perspectives on Leeds and the north playing in the Courtyard Theatre as Decades: Stories from the city. Leanna Benjamin, Kamal Kaan, Alice Nutter, Stan Owens, Peake and Armitage have each taken a particular decade from across the Playhouse’s lifespan covering the 1970s to today offering a diverse collection of stories firmly rooted in the North. Leeds Playhouse’s Artistic Director James Brining, Associate Director Amy Leach and RTYDS Resident Assistant Director Sameena Hussain will b...
Royal Opera House announces FREE stream
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Royal Opera House announces FREE stream

The Royal Opera House is delighted to continue its #OurHouseToYourHouse programme, featuring online broadcasts that can be accessed by audiences around the world. Join us them Friday 16th April at 7pm GMT for a FREE stream of a very special Insight from 2016 celebrating The Sleeping Beauty.  Former Director of The Royal Ballet Monica Mason and Christopher Newton join Director Kevin O’Hare in discussion about their restaging of the production that reopened the Royal Opera house in 1946 after World War II and this year celebrates its 75th anniversary. The Insight also offers a glimpse into rehearsals taken by Monica Mason and Samantha Raine with Olivia Cowley, Kristen McNally, Tierney Heap and Anna Rose O’Sullivan. The stream culminates in an additional treat with an excerpt from th...
Multi Award-winning ‘Best Musical’ Come From Away returns to London’s West End from 22nd July
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Multi Award-winning ‘Best Musical’ Come From Away returns to London’s West End from 22nd July

The shutters of the Phoenix Theatre in London will lift on 22nd July and welcome in audiences to the highly anticipated re-opening of international hit musical Come From Away. Winner of every major Best Musical award when it opened in the West End in March 2019, Come From Away tells the remarkable and inspiring true story of 7,000 stranded air passengers during the wake of 9/11, and the small town in Newfoundland that welcomed them. Cultures clashed and nerves ran high, but as uneasiness turned into trust, music soared into the night and gratitude grew into enduring friendships. Twenty years ago on 11th September 2001, the world stopped. On 12th September and in the years following, their stories of kindness, generosity and love have moved us all. The international hit musical ha...
Paperwork Theatre are back with Deep Blue
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Paperwork Theatre are back with Deep Blue

She is caught between two worlds, Above and Below the water. Riley's at that in-between age where you can still carry off a crop top yet a whole bottle of wine has serious consequences the next morning. The parks are full of families, the pubs are full of mates but it’s only in Tesco that Riley can be whoever she wants to be. Back home, David Attenborough floods her flat with the story of the world’s loneliness whale. She understands its low, mournful sound - it too is lost at sea. Deep Blue is a heartfelt, sometimes humorous and raw exploration of what it means to belong, punctuated by an original indie-rock soundtrack. There are over 7.7million people living alone in the UK, Deep Blue shines a light on the importance of human connection. “Lights flicker and glow, it might be...
The Last Five Years to Transfer to the West End
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The Last Five Years to Transfer to the West End

After a critically acclaimed run at Southwark Playhouse last year and a highly successful worldwide stream with stream.theatre, Jason Robert Brown’s Drama Desk Award-winning musical, The Last Five Years, will play a limited season at the Vaudeville Theatre, previewing from 17th September, with an opening night on 23rd September and running until 13th October 2021.  Directed by Jonathan O’Boyle, Molly Lynch and Oli Higginson will reprise their roles as Cathy and Jamie.  This will be the first time the musical will have had a significant run of length in the West End. The production at Southwark Playhouse was nominated for eight Offie Awards and won two for Best Director and Best Musical Production.  Oli Higginson was nominated for a Stage Debut Award for his performance a...
Birmingham Hippodrome have announced two new productions for autumn 2021
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Birmingham Hippodrome have announced two new productions for autumn 2021

Pack up your wigs, heels and all the glitter you can find, because Priscilla is back, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert drives into Birmingham from Monday 30th August – Saturday 4th September. Based on the Oscar-winning movie, Priscilla is the hilarious and heart-warming adventure of three friends who hop aboard a battered old bus bound for the Outback to put on the show of a lifetime. Two worlds collide on this fabulous journey of self-discovery and friendship, and along the way our trio discover the true power of love, acceptance, and sass! With more glitz and glamour than ever before, this show-stopping musical features spectacular dance routines, a dazzling array of eye-popping costumes, and a scintillating, sing-a-long soundtrack full of your favourite dance-floor classics. Including...
HOME launch purpose-built Manchester outdoor theatre for the Summer
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HOME launch purpose-built Manchester outdoor theatre for the Summer

• HOME announces Homeground – a brand-new temporary outdoor venue on First Street offering the best in live entertainment across two stages. • Featuring a 400-seat socially distanced outdoor theatre, and second stage with free live performance. • Productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Alice in Wonderland with tickets just £10 for adults and £5 for children. HOME, Manchester’s largest multi-arts venue, are launching a massive temporary outdoor arts space this Summer. The new space, named Homeground will be located on an 80,000ft2 future development site on First Street, just next to HOME. It will feature a 400-seat socially distanced theatre space: the specially designed and purpose built, Covid-safe outdoor theatre. At the heart will be two magical, musical productions of c...