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Dateline: 12th January, 2007
Bury's Theatre Royal to Reopen in September The UK's only fully operational surviving Regency theatre has for the last two years been closed for a massive restoration programme. The Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds will reopen on September 11th with a production of the classic Georgian nautical melodrama Black Ey'd Susan by Douglas Jerrold. Following an extensive research period, architects Levitt Bernstein, in collaboration with theatre staff and the National Trust, drew up plans to restore the historic building to as close to its original design as possible. In order to accommodate the needs of a modern audience, a separate new wing was also designed to house bars, toilets and other facilities. This left the main building free to serve its original purpose. Artistic Director Colin Blumenau, along with the Theatre's Board of Directors, has developed an artistic policy which will dedicate considerable resource and programming time to rediscovering the Georgian theatrical canon under the banner of Restoring the Repertoire, thus artistically unifying the building and the work that it produces. Alongside this work will run the widely varied programme which has made this theatre one of the most successful of its kind in the country. An international co-production with the Goethe Theater, Bad Lauchstädt, near Halle in Germany of Purcell's King Arthur will feature in the opening season alongside work from Hull Truck, Northern Broadsides, Ballet Ireland and others to be announced. Georgian repertoire and the theatres for which it was written have largely disappeared from the theatrical landscape. This makes the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds an unique resource. After its renovation, it will be an accurate physical example of the theatre buildings of the time - one of very few surviving examples - and as a working theatre it will be able to bring back a period of drama that has been largely forgotten. It is also a uniquely intimate playing space - with the decorative grandeur of the Royal Academy, combined with the delicacy of a Georgian drawing room. Ultimately the project will have delivered a building and an artistic and heritage programme to support the Theatre's ambition to do for Georgian Theatre what London's Globe Theatre has done for Elizabethan theatre. Black Ey'd Susan will run from 10th to 22nd September. Set at the end of the Napoleonic wars it tells the story of Susan whose husband is away at sea, and who falls on hard times. It depicts the increasingly fervent attempts of her crooked landlord to woo her, and her increasingly desperate attempts to keep him at arms' length. Consistent with Georgian theatre routine, some performances of Black Ey'd Susan will be accompanied by a partner piece called Box and Cox, the dramatic inspiration for Gilbert's later operetta Cox and Box. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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