Leicester’s Curve will host seven world premières featuring more than 900 artists in Inside Out—a festival dedicated to celebrating the work of emerging East Midlands talent.
Inside Out features a diverse range of performances, workshops and events to showcase the region’s theatre makers, performers and writers.
Suba Das, Curve’s associate director and curator of the festival, commented, “it’s incredibly exciting to be building on the success of the last Inside Out festival with an even bigger programme of cutting-edge work made by artists from the East Midlands.
“Every show included in this year’s festival is part of a longer-term community partnership or artist development programme by Curve, making the festival a true celebration of the year-round work we do to nurture creativity in the region.”
The programme includes theatre, dance, live music, spoken word and performance art.
One of the highlights of this year’s festival is the European première of Shiv by American playwright Aditi Brennan Kapil and directed by Suba Das. Shiv follows a young woman’s search for the truth about her dead father. It runs from Wednesday 22 until Saturday 25 April.
Sheep Soup Productions will “bring laughter, tears and original songs with a Motown flavour” in Mrs Green: The Musical on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 April.
In Ventoux, 2Magpies Theatre will “create a unique and inspirational theatre experience about Mount Ventoux, the greatest ever stage of the Tour de France” on Wednesday 29 and Thursday 30 April.
Leicester writer Alison Dunne tackles football and feminism head-on with her new play Girls With Balls, produced by Off The Fence Theatre and inspired by true events behind the beautiful game. It will be performed on Friday 1 and Saturday 2 May.
Chicken Dust by Ben Weatherill, winner of Curve’s playwriting competition 2014, is a “hard-hitting exploration of the human cost of our enormous appetite for cheap meat”. It will be performed on Saturday 2 May.
There will also be a full programme of free entertainment in Curve’s foyer during Inside Out which runs from Wednesday 22 April until Wednesday 6 May.