Although Live Theatre has not announced its full spring season yet, it has revealed what will be happening as part of Elevator, the third annual festival of new writing which runs this year from 10 to 17 March.
The festival opens with a three-hour director’s masterclass with Joe Douglas, incoming Artistic Director, who will discuss how he takes a play from script to the stage. Costing £10, it will be held in the theatre’s rehearsal room at 11:00 on Saturday 10 March.
From Tuesday 13 to Saturday 17, there will be a double bill of two new plays, Spoon Theory and Rat Boy.
Spoon Theory by writer and director Rebekah Bowsher (work with Alphabetti, Graeae, Live and RYTDS placement at Greyscale where she worked on Dr Frankenstein and Hedda Gabler – This is not a love story) tells us of newly married Belle who is planning her future until a tragic accident. Then the spoons start dictating her life. How can she put her life back together when her spoons keep disappearing?
Rat Boy is based on the true story of a 13-year-old boy living in the wild in the Byker Wall in 1995. With a '90s soundtrack, this new play, which explores and celebrates a North East community, is written by actor / producer Christina Dawson (Key Change, Rattle Snake) and writer Lee Mattinson (Chalet Lines, Donna Disco, The Season Ticket).
At 2:00 on Wednesday 14 in the rehearsal room, Katie Bonna leads a workshop on the creation of a new performance using a collaborative devising process. This is free but booking is essential.
That evening in the main theatre, Bonna presents a work-in-progress performance of Paper. Scissors. Stone. Inspired by the Greek chorus and the golden age of musical theatre, the play tells the interwoven stories of three generations of women living in Shrewsbury, all linked by a local school. Over the course of a weekend, each character is forced to confront how much they control their behaviour—or maybe how much they are controlled by it.
On Thursday is the Elevator Scratch Night, extracts from works-in-progress by leading theatre artists from across the region including Live Theatre Associate Artist Kema Sekazwe, Jonluke McKie and GIFT Festival Director Kate Craddock.
The final Elevator event is Nuclear Weapons, presented by Game Show, which runs in The Studio on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 at 6:30. Through video, sound and live performance, Game Show imagines how the world’s most dangerous weapons affect us all and our future. This is another work-in-progress.