Arts Centre Washington has announced its theatre programme from September to November 2016:
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8 September
Letters to Myself
Created from letters written by real people, Letters to Myself is a humorous look at the best advice we never had. Taking a trip down memory lane it is a recognition of our shared regret and a celebration of our daily triumphs.
“Dear Me, I’ve been given the opportunity to write to you and realised there are a few things I’d like to say. You are bright, unique and capable of anything. You are really more precious than you can imagine. You don’t marry Keanu Reeves. I’m really sorry to break it to you.”
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15 – 16 September
Fans
The Six Twenty
Written by Nina Berry with additional material by Melanie Rashbrooke
Theatre meets gig. Fans is an eclectic mix of stories told through raucous live music, stand-up comedy and verbatim theatre. Based on people’s love affair with music, Fans fuses together fan confessions (and some not so true stories) with scripted drama.
Commissioned as part of this year’s Bridging the Gap scheme; an initiative designed to aid the creation of new theatre work within the North East region.
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22 September
Putting the Band Back Together
Unfolding Theatre
Across the UK there are thousands of guitars propped up in bedrooms that haven’t been strummed in years. Voices only heard in the shower. Drum kits taking up too much space in garages.
Now it’s time to blow off the dust. We’re putting the band back together!
Part riotous gig, part tender storytelling, Ross Millard (The Futureheads), Maria Crocker (The Letter Room) and Alex Elliott (Northern Stage) reveal the epic emotions within people’s relationships with music.
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29 September
Chernobyl @ 30
Théâtre Sans Frontières
30 years on from the world’s worst nuclear accident…
Through documentary film and eyewitness testimony, combined with music and movement, Chernobyl@30 travels between Ukraine and the UK as the consequences of the accident unfold. An invisible cloud of radiation spreads across Europe, falling on people, animals and land.
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6 October
Under the Bed - a grown up fairytale
154 Collective
When Alice is stolen away in the middle of the night by her mum she has no idea what is happening. Scared, confused and angry, she finds herself in a strange house, forbidden to leave, arguing with her mum during the day and hiding under her covers from the strange noises at night.
Told using performance, music, live animation and film, Under the Bed is a new play about childhood trauma and what happens when nightmares are indistinguishable from reality.
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16 October
Morgan & West – Parlour Tricks
Time travelling magic duo Morgan and West present an incredible show chock full of jaw-dropping, brain-bursting, gasp-eliciting feats of magic. The dashing chaps offer up a plateful of illusion and impossibility, all served with wit, charm and no small amount of panache.
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10 November
Am I Dead Yet?
Unlimited Theatre
A musical comedy cabaret… about death!
Two friends, talking (and singing) about what happens when we die, how we think about dying, and most importantly, how some of us might be brought back.
Performed by Unlimited founding members Jon Spooner and Chris Thorpe, Am I Dead Yet? is filled with stories and songs about death and dying and about how we don’t talk about it enough.
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17 November
Fish Eye
Theatre Alibi
Pam’s already got a low opinion of her neighbours. So when someone pinches her Elizabethan sideboard, it’s all-out war: she becomes a one-woman MI6, ramping up her operation from curtain twitching to spy cameras hidden in hand-knitted novelties. But what Pam unearths is what she already suspects – that everyone around her is a thief, a pervert or a terrorist...
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26 November
Key Change
Devised by the women of HMP YOI Low Newton and written by Catrina McHugh
Open Clasp
Another revival of the award winning play about the real life stories of life inside a women’s prison.
Key Change won the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award in 2015 and then premiered in New York in 2016 where it was awarded the prestigious New York Times Critics Pick.