Newcastle’s Live Theatre has announced its programme of co-productions and other productions through to December.
The first co-production is with GemArts. No Dogs, No Indians is a new play by poet and playwright Siddhartha Bose in which intertwining stories explore the effects and legacy of the British in India. Marking the 70th anniversary of Indian Independence, it runs on 19 and 20 July.
No Dogs, No Indians is part of the GemArts Masala Festival, including the Mini Mela which returns to Live Garden after its success last year. A free event for all ages, the Mini Mela, on Sunday 23 July, features arts, crafts, food and storytelling and performances all with a South Asian flavour.
The second co-production is with Open Clasp. Rattle Snake, is based on the real-life stories of women who have faced and survived coercive control in domestic abuse.
"Rattle Snake was originally commissioned to train police officers about coercive control in domestic abuse back in 2015,” said writer and Open Clasp Artistic Director Catrina McHugh, who has just been awarded the MBE in the Birthday Honours List. “Officers sat in bullet-proof vests daring us to make an impact and we did. It was a total honour to collaborate with the women who inspired the story.”
The production runs at Live from 21 to 30 September before transferring to York Theatre Royal and Soho Theatre, London.
Goth Weekend, in which Ella has to decide whether to sabotage the blossoming romance between her recently bereaved dad, Ken, and Geordie Goth singer Belinda who has just moved into their family home with her disgruntled teenage son, is a co-production with the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough and runs at Live from 11 to 28 October.
“It's a warm-hearted comedy about a family of Goths from Gateshead playing a gig at Whitby Goth Weekend,” said writer Ali Taylor. “We've got songs, laughs and brilliant costumes, and I can't wait to put the show in front of a Live Theatre audience.”
In 2003, Joana Geronimo arrived in Newcastle as a refugee from Angola with her baby son, Osvaldo. Performed by Geronimo herself, with a chorus of Live's Youth Theatre, her new play, From the Sky to Your Hands, tells her story in her own words, with music and humour, a story of parenthood, longing and belonging.
It runs from 8 to 11 November and is Live Theatre's contribution to the city-wide Freedom City Festival celebrating the 50th anniversary of the award of an honorary doctorate by Newcastle University to Martin Luther King.
Joana Geronimo said, “I just want to use the voice I have to show the audience that not everything the press says about refugees is true. There is a story behind every refugee. I'm just telling you mine.”
The final Live production is a revival of Nina Berry’s 2016 debut play, The Terminal Velocity of Snowflakes, which was chosen by the BTG as the North East’s Best New Play of 2016. It will run in The Studio from 22 November to 16 December.
Heroes, Villains and Mortals is the theme for Live's Youth Theatre as they take over the whole building and garden for the Youth Theatre Festival from 11 to 13 August. Outdoor Performances are short pieces created in just ten days by members of Live's Youth Theatre and performed in Live Garden. Plays and Sketches is an evening of short plays performed by Youth Theatre Members and written by professional writers. Young playwrights from Live Theatre's Young Writers' Group show their emerging talent in Plays by Young Writers, an afternoon of short ten-minute plays, whilst young comedians take to the stage in Stand-Up Comedy, performing their own stand-up comedy routines.
Live Lab’s 10 Minutes to… returns in September with the theme Shine Bright.
Finally, Lists for the End of the World by fanSHEN, winner of the Live Lab Bursary, and originally presented as part of Elevator Festival, returns to Live on 28 July for a Edinburgh Festival Fringe preview. Northumbria University Theatre and Performance MA students present a Scratch Night of their work in development on 13 July and a Final Showcase of their final pieces on 15 and 16 September, as part of the creative partnership between Live Theatre and Northumbria University. Music Quiz/Sketch Show Mixtape returns with a Christmas special from 14 to 16 December.