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Dateline: 31st October, 2010 News from the North West Costume sale at DukesThe wardrobe department of The Dukes in Lancaster is selling off some of its costumes for the first time in years as it is running out of space to store them. The department makes hundreds of costumes every year, and the sale will include costumes from Christmas productions and from the summer promenade productions in Williamson Park including this year's Peter Pan. The sale will take place in The Dukes gallery from 2 to 5pm on 6 November.
24:7 details and dates announcedAt a meeting on Tuesday night, the organisers announced the details of next year's 24:7 Theatre Festival, which will once again change its format and add more events into the festival period. The longer 2011 festival will run for nine days from Thursday 21 to Friday 29 July 2011. Its ten chosen plays will be given as many as seven performances each during this period, and there will also be five plays chosen for rehearsed readings in collaboration with North West Playwrights, the same as last year. There will be an extra production this year of a 'family friendly' show suitable for families with young children; scripts for this can be submitted in the same way as for other productions and will be adjudicated by specialists in children's theatre. Due to the new structure, there will be a 'Big Weekend' in the middle of the festival which will contain some special extra events yet to be decided upon, but current ideas include theatre on the hour every hour for twenty-four hours, an extended comedy sketch show and work by artists from other creative disciplines. The organisers are open to suggestions for other events. There are plans to use multiple venues again—last year the performances were all at New Century House, head office of current lead sponsor Co-Operative—and offers from city centre businesses of spaces to use for performances will be welcomed. Anyone who wishes to submit a script for possible inclusion in the festival must do so between between 6 December 2010 and 10 January 2011. As always, plays must run for no longer than sixty minutes, have never been performed and be suitable for performance in non-theatre venues. More details will soon appear on the festival's web site at www.247theatrefestival.co.uk.
Art installation at UnityLiverpool's Unity Theatre is hosting an art installation until January by Alexandra Wolkowicz and Jon Barraclough called Tabula Rasa to mark the venue's thirtieth anniversary. The installation aims to reflect the experience of theatre and its relevance in the 'digital age'. The artists said, "During this thirtieth year anniversary, the history of the building, including its former uses and ghosts, can be recollected and represented. We are not so sure about the ability of virtual or digital experiences to generate histories or ghosts in this way."
Dukes searching for Little VoiceThe Dukes in Lancaster will be producing Jim Cartwright's hit play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice early next year, and they are currently searching for an actress to take the part written for Jane Horrocks of a shy, introverted young woman with an incredible ability, in private, to mimic the voices of the great popular divas from Judy Garland to Billie Holliday. The production will be directed by Amy Leach and will run at The Dukes from 24 March to 16 April 2011. Dirty Dancing first ever UK tour visits Manchester PalaceHit West End musical Dirty Dancing, based on the 1987 Hollywood film and featuring the hit songs from the film soundtrack, will spend Christmas 2011 in Manchester. The show, currently in its fifth year at the Aldwych Theatre in London where it will continue to run during the tour, will begin a UK tour in October 2011 including a spell at the Palace Theatre in Manchester from 22 November 2011 to 7 January 2012. Tickets went on sale on Friday 29 October.
NW productionsNew musical Judy and Liza about mother and daughter Judy Garland and Liza Minelli starring Emma Dears and Lucy Williamson in the title roles will première at Hope Theatre in Liverpool on 4 November before moving to St Helens Theatre Royal on 6 November. Community Arts North West with Kurdistan Art and Culture and North West Playwrights will present One Night There, a new play devised by Kurdish artists living in exile in Greater Manchester, at Waterside Arts Centre in Sale on 5 and 7 November. Also at Waterside, Blunderbus will perform its stage version of David McKee's popular picture book character Elmer the Elephant on 6 November. Opera North will visit The Lowry in Salford this week with Franz Léhar's The Merry Widow on 2 and 4 November, Benjamin Britten's opera adaptation of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw on 3 November and a revival of Jonathan Dove and Alasdair Middleton's The Adventures of Pinocchio on 5 and 6 November. Filter and Royal Shakespeare Company bring their acclaimed co-production of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night to The Lowry in Salford from 1to 6 November. Mediamedea will perform Eighteen by Mike Heath at Studio Salford from 3 to 6 November. Al grew up down south and moved away when he was 18. He's now lived in Manchester for 18 years. A visit from an old flame from back home, Caroline, brings old skeletons out of the closet. Hypothermia at The Dukes in Lancaster on 5 and 6 November is set during a period when ‘mercy killing’ served as a cloak for the mass murder of people with disabilities and will be performed by Full Body and The Voice, a company of professional actors with learning disabilities. Sankalpam explores the boundary between tradition and change in Corpo-Realities, a triple bill choreographed by Luca Silvestrini, Stephanie Schober and Stella Uppal-Subbiah with Philip Zarrilli at Greenroom in Manchester on 3 November. London Classic Theatre will perform Harold Pinter's The Caretaker at Oldham Coliseum from 2 to 6 November. At Rose Theatre in Ormskirk, Urashima Taro fuses visuals with human-sized Bunraku-style puppets and Kamishibai, a traditional Japanese form of paper theatre, on 2 November. Also at the Rose, Rohan McCullough performs My Darling Clemmie, a one-woman show about the wife of Winston Churchill, on 4 November. Agatha Christie's courtroom drama Witness for the Prosecution starring Dennis Lill of TV's The Royal, Ben Nealon of Soldier, Soldier and Robert Duncan of Drop the Dead Donkey with Peter Byrne and 60s teen idol Mark Wynter will be at Manchester's Opera House from 1 to 6 November. Willy Russell's musical Blood Brothers starring Niki Evans will be at Blackpool's Grand Theatre from 1 to 6 November. JB Shorts 4, the fourth incarnation of the showcase of new writing by writers experienced in writing for the small screen but new to the stage, will feature works from Lindzi Williams, James Quinn, Dave Simpson, Christopher Reason, Bill Taylor and Lisa Holdsworth and run at Joshua Brooks in Manchester from 2 to 13 November. A Night on the Tiles at Contact Theatre in Manchester from 2 to 13 November welcomes audiences to a seedy spoken-word underworld where gangsters, high rollers and con men compete in a high stakes Scrabble game to end them all. Birmingham Stage Company takes its Horrible Science educational show to New Brighton's Floral Pavilion from 2 to 6 November. Based on the true story of the Rector of Stiffkey, The Missionary's Position is a comedy that follows the 'Prostitutes' Padre' through a world of music hall at Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal on 4 November from Penny Dreadful. 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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