Leeds Playhouse Archives - Page 7 of 11

Furnace Festival celebrating new artists is back at Leeds Playhouse

27Oct

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Furnace Festival celebrating new artists is back at Leeds Playhouse

Leeds Playhouse’s trailblazing Furnace Festival is back after a two-year break celebrating new work in a kaleidoscopic mix of performances, workshops, conversations and social events. Furnace is the Playhouse's development engine that generates new performance work supporting the local creative community. The week- long showcase events that are free or pay-what-you-can shares new work and offers space for artists to explore their practice. Highlights of the Furnace Festival include: Let's Talk - Tuesday 9th November, 10.30am A panel discussion with Disability Arts Online and Leeds Playhouse's Associate Director Amy Leach discussing access and work by disabled artists within the theatre. This is a chance for people to ask questions and air their views in a safe and supportive at...

Red Ladder heads home to Leeds with timely new play

17Oct

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Red Ladder heads home to Leeds with timely new play

This November Red Ladder Theatre Company is heading home to Leeds with a very timely new play My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored exploring race and identity. It opens with 15-year-old Reece, played by Jelani D’Aguilar, being roughly accosted by police. Misha Duncan-Barry’s young, Black teacher Gillian Misha witnesses it all but doesn’t question or intervene as the disturbing scene plays out. The consequences of her lack of action erupt the following day when Gillian finds herself locked in a classroom with Reece. As a radical theatre company Red Ladder are always looking to challenge audiences, and this time take the audience to the centre of a discussion that asks ‘if you see something you do not agree with, do you intervene?’ This new work is the stage debut from writer Na...

Casualty legend Tony Marshall talks about a revival of Jitney at Leeds Playhouse

6Oct

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Casualty legend Tony Marshall talks about a revival of Jitney at Leeds Playhouse

August Wilson is now seen as one of the great voices of 20th century drama, but his poetic works reflecting on the experiences of black Americans aren’t performed that often in this country. Now Jitney about the trials and tribulations of eight drivers offering low-cost rides in their jitney cabs to a poor community in 1970s Pittsburgh gets a welcome revival as a part of Leeds Playhouse’s new season. Tinuke Craig directs a strong cast including Casualty legend Tony Marshall who spoke to our Yorkshire Editor Paul Clarke. So, what’s Jitney about? It’s based in Pittsburgh in 1977 and the word jitney derives from the cabs being five cents a ride. It’s for the local community instead of using the other cabs, so it’s people taking other local people shopping and so on. It’s just anot...

Big cast announced for Wendy & Peter Pan at Leeds Playhouse

6Oct

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Big cast announced for Wendy & Peter Pan at Leeds Playhouse

Leeds Playhouse have announced a big cast for their annual festive blockbuster which this year is Wendy & Peter Pan. Ella Hickson’s adaptation of the J M Barrie classic retells the story from the viewpoint of Wendy Darling and has been created in co-production with Japan’s Bunkamura Theatre. Amber James will play Wendy Darling and previously took the title role of Cressida in Greg Doran's Troilus & Cressida for the RSC. She’s been joined by Pierro Niel who plays the boy who refuses to grow up. This trip to Neverland is full of fun and flying set to an epic score by Japanese composer Shuhei Kamimura. Japanese video artistry will be cleverly combined with this classic British story to give the production a unique international shared vision. “This show comes hot...

Dracula: The Untold Story – Leeds Playhouse

4Oct

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Dracula: The Untold Story – Leeds Playhouse

For over a century Count Dracula has been part of our popular culture so it’s smart of imitating the dog to make him a peripheral figure in his own play. Instead, they cleverly switch the focus to Mina Harker who in Bram Stoker’s gothic classic not only had her neck bitten but pulled together all the threads to create the myth of the immortal Transylvanian bloodsucker. They’ve also updated the story to 1965 as Harker walks into a London police station confessing a murder to two police officers, and we learn that she has used her immortal superhuman power for what she thinks is the greater good as the Count lurks around the piece as the embodiment of eternal darkness. As usual the team deploys a wide range of high-tech digital tricks, including two video cameras and stage side gree...

Casualty star Tony Marshall joins Jitney cast at Leeds Playhouse

27Sep

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Casualty star Tony Marshall joins Jitney cast at Leeds Playhouse

Tony Marshall who played Noel in Casualty joins a strong cast in a new production of American classic Jitney at Leeds Playhouse. Written by August Wilson, this poetic work is now seen as one of the great American contemporary classics filled with conflict, love, jealousy and deceit. It is set in 1970s Pittsburgh exploring the volatile bond between eight unlicensed cab drivers as they live, love, fight and work in racially segregated, post-war America. The co-production with Headlong will be directed by Tinuke Craig who worked on The Color Purple, at Leicester Curve. Tony Marshall plays Fielding, and recently finished a 12-year run as Noel Garcia as his beloved character left the show in a BAFTA award-winning episode about the strains on the NHS during the pandemic. Play...

26Sep

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

imitating the dog take on the undead

Nobody ever accused imitating the dog of not being ambitious but in Dracula: The Untold Story they are taking on one of the world’s biggest cultural icons. Typically, they are twisting the timeless classic to look at the Transylvanian prince of the undead from a totally new perspective. As well as the usual innovative visuals they have become famous for over the last two decades this co-production with Leeds Playhouse will use the stage to create a live graphic novel. Our Yorkshire Editor Paul Clarke spoke to imitating the dog’s co-artistic director Andrew Quick to find how they are reimagining Bram Stoker’s classic tale of Count Dracula’s bloodlust. This might be your biggest challenge as Dracula is such an iconic figure to virtually everyone on the planet. You’re right,...

3Sep

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Dangerous Liaisons – Leeds Playhouse

Sexual power, cruelty and deceit. There surely can’t be a better mix for a ballet, and Northern Ballet’s artistic director David Nixon’s dynamic choreography makes the most of the antics of two French aristocratic sociopaths playing games with people’s minds and bodies because they can. This is Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ timeless tale of upper class amorality as the cunning Marquise de Mertueil sets her sparring partner Vicomte de Valmont the task to seduce the godly Madame de Tiourvel just for sport. But Valmont’s head is turned by de Tourvel with deadly results. Unlike some of their sumptuous productions Northern have gone for a stark stage with minimal period furniture that allows the eye to focus on Nixon’s sensitive and emotional choreography which manfully resists going ove...

Leeds Playhouse’s Alexander Ferris talks about telling refugee stories in Freedom Project

2Sep

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

Leeds Playhouse’s Alexander Ferris talks about telling refugee stories in Freedom Project

The desperate scenes at Kabul Airport, or people paddling in inflatables across the English Channel, act as a stark reminder we live in a very unstable world and Leeds Playhouse’s Freedom Project aims to highlight the experiences of unaccompanied minors coming to this country. Leeds has a proud history of welcoming people fleeing oppression, and the Playhouse was the UK’s first Theatre of Sanctuary. The programme offers a range of creative spaces for refugees and people seeking asylum to express themselves and create networks of support as they find their feet in a new country. There are now at least 20 similar projects across the country, and this challenging production is performed by Theatre of Sanctuary alumni Hossein Ahmadi and Mohammadreza Bazarbashi, who themselves came here a...

27Jul

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Piaf – Leeds Playhouse

Imagine if instead of Beyonce the world’s biggest female star was a foul-mouthed Parisian street urchin who was blessed with a golden voice that lifted her out of the slums to global fame. That’s the story of Edith Piaf – aka The Little Sparrow – and this raucous revival of Pam Gems’ musical biography pulls no punches telling the tale of a damaged woman who flew high before crashing back to earth as like Lady Day she was totally unequipped for the price of fame. If anything, Gems tries too hard to pack in too much of Piaf’s rich life, overegging her rough beginnings, and the second half feels a touch padded. This is not an evening for the faint hearted as the C bomb is dropped a couple of times, among an impressive array of expletives, drawing gasps from some of the more genteel a...