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Dateline: 25th September, 2011 News from the North West
24:7 dates and ACE funding announcedManchester's 24:7 Theatre Festival for new writing has confirmed that its next festival will run from 21 to 28 July 2012 and that it will be accepting scripts for consideration from 1 December 2011 to 9 January 2012. Full details will be announced at a special launch event on 17 November. It has also announced that it has been awarded three years' worth of funding from Arts Council England beginning next April. ACE's response to the award was, "our investment consolidates the North West's growing reputation as a cultural tourism destination with a thriving festivals offer".
Royal Exchange Sunday openingManchester's Royal Exchange Theatre has announced that it will now open on Sundays from 11am to 5pm, taking part in the growing seven-days-a-week shopping culture growing in Manchester and other major cities. There is no indication at the moment that main house productions will add Sunday performances, but Sunday visitors will be able to buy tickets and visit the Great Hall café, Round Restaurant and Craft Shop. There will be a programme of free events starting on 9 October with "Hard Hat Sunday" looking behind the scenes of the current and next productions and continuing with other music and discussion events.
Greenroom Emergency is rebornAfter the closure of Manchester's Greenroom performance venue in June, it's annual micro-festival Emergency that was packed with short, experimental works is to be revived by co-producer hÅb as Emergency Accommodation in association with Blank Media Collective and supported by the Anthony Burgess Foundation. According to hÅb director Tamsin Drury, "We wanted to keep the legacy of Greenroom alive and, more vitally, to continue to offer opportunities to artists and audiences to experiment with exciting new ways of making and seeing work. "It will be an Emergency like never before: thirty new pieces of work crammed into one hectic day, ranging from an exhibition of installation and interactive live works to a series of exciting new shows in a packed, nine-hour, free, artistic marathon." The event will take place on 1 October at two venues on Hulme Street in Manchester, Blankspace and IABF, where "we are using every possible space, street, stairwell and cupboard to show striking installations, intense one-to-one encounters, playful strolls and raucous performances. You can even have your own private shower experience." For more information, see http://emergencymcr.org/.
Coliseum 125th anniversary eventOldham's Coliseum Theatre is to mark its 125th anniversary with a special event on 12 October to celebrate the theatre's history as part of its "Young Roots" archive project for young people supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Hosted by former artistic director Kenneth Alan Taylor, there will be a chance to see photographs from the theatre's archive, a film of the theatre's history and stories from past performers. Popular local musician Bernard Wrigley will take part plus other special guests yet to be announced.
Two actors on pub work experienceActors Keiran Buckeridge and Ella Vale, who are about play the pub landlord and landlady in Jim Cartwright's Two at The Dukes in Lancaster, received lessons in working behind a bar at one of Lancaster's oldest pubs, The Golden Lion. Buckeridge said, "We found out that we were the only two in the company who had never worked a bar before which is quite unusual for actors." Vale, his co-star and real-life wife, added, "I had a waitressing job once but was terrible at it. I kept dropping things and got muddled using the till." The set for Two at The Dukes will be a fully-operational pub bar where pre-show and interval drinks will be served to the audience. The production will run from 6 to 29 October.
NW productionsBilled as "the original high school musical", Grease comes to the Palace Theatre in Manchester from 26 September to 8 October starring Danny Bayne as Danny, Carina Gillespie as Sandy and former Olympic Gold Medal-winning ice skater Robin Cousins as Teen Angel. Former Octagon artistic director Mark Babych returns to one of the region's leading companies as director of All the Way Home, a brand new play by East Is East writer Ayub Khan-Din about a disparate group of warring siblings in modern-day Salford who gather at their former family home under the shadow of impending loss, for Library Theatre Company, running at The Lowry in Salford from 29 September to 15 October. Two Brothers and One World Cup from Stripes Theatre Company goes to The Met in Bury on 27 September and The Lowry in Salford on 2 October with Zach Lee's story about the number one England football song tribute act. Catherine Kay's Just One Day about sexual violence and the "f" word will be at The Lowry in Salford from 29 September to 1 October. Conor McKee's latest play Thrasher directed by Wyllie Longmore has sold out its run from 28 September to 1 October and has therefore added a matinée on 1 October at 4PM. We Are Three Sisters, Blake Morrison's play about the home life of the Brontë sisters with a nod to Chekhov, will be performed at The Dukes in Lancaster from 27 September to 1 October. Hit film-based musical Sister Act will be at Manchester's Opera House from 29 September to 15 October. Simon Carter's Phys Ed about a rugby-obsessed PE teacher whose identical twin is the greatest player on the planet, first seen at the 2009 24:7 Theatre Festival, will be at Studio Salford from 28 September to 1 October. Guy Masterson will bring his one-man Shylock to Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal on 29 September. Based on the hit compilation album of sixties pop classics of the same name, jukebox musical Dreamboats and Petticoats will be at Liverpool Empire from 26 September to 1 October. The Nuffield Theatre and Yellowtale Theatre Company will bring a version of Shakespeare's Othello to the Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama in Manchester with a Caribbean setting reverse-race casting on 26 September. Tom Chambers and Summer Strallen sing and dance to the music of Irving Berlin in Top Hat at The Lowry in Salford from 27 September to 8 October. Translunar Paradise from Theatre Ad Infinitum will be at Unity Theatre in Liverpool on 27 September. Also at the Unity, John Godber's popular comedy Bouncers will be performed by MIG on 28 September and Guilty Dog will once again perform Sir Henry at Rawlinson End from 29 September to 1 October. Joe O'Byrne's highly-acclaimed The Bench is being revived for a short run at Bolton's Octagon Theatre on 29 and 30 September. Liverpool Playhouse will perform a new translation by Stephen Sharkey of Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui from 30 September to 22 October. Showstoppers: the Improvised Musical will be at The Brindley in Runcorn on 30 September. Nicky Allt tells the story of Liverpool Football Club in You'll Never Walk Alone at Liverpool's Royal Court Theatre from 30 September to 29 October. Big Wooden Horse translates popular children's author Oliver Jeffers to the stage in The Way Back Home at Ormskirk's Rose Theatre on 1 October. Reporter: David Chadderton Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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