Newcastle's Live Theatre has announced its new season which runs from June to December.
The season's main production will be a collaboration with the National Theatre of Scotland on Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour (1 to 24 October), a new play by Lee Hall (The Pitmen Painters). Adapted from Alan Warner’s novel The Sopranos and directed by Vicky Featherstone, the play will receive its world première at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe before touring Scotland ahead of its English première at Live Theatre in October.
Max Roberts, Artistic Director, said, “Live Theatre has enjoyed a long and fruitful creative relationship with Lee Hall so we are delighted to collaborate with National Theatre of Scotland in this co-production of his adaptation of Alan Warner’s brilliant novel. I’m sure our audiences will be thrilled to see Lee’s latest work and will extend a warm Tyneside welcome to the company for the play’s English première.”
Paddy Campbell's Day of the Flymo is to return to the theatre from 12 to 21 November following a short sell-out run of only four performances in April. It features a cast of three members of the Live Youth Theatre and two professional actors.
“I'm thrilled that Day of the Flymo is being brought back for another run in November,” Campbell said. “The audience response was terrific in April and it’s great that more people are going to get the chance to see it. I feel incredibly lucky to have had such a great cast for this play and I know they are raring to get back in the theatre again. I can't wait.”
The Youth Theatre will be taking over the building for two weeks in August for the company’s sixteenth annual Youth Theatre Festival, Our World, where they will create four evenings of unique entertainment: Big Talk, Small Talk (6 August) is a selection of short pieces devised over ten days, 11 Plus (7 and 8 August) gives young people’s perspective on what it’s like to be 11 and 12 today, Your Aunt Fanny (also 7 and 8 August) will test out some new comedy sketches before they head up to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for the first time and Invisible Cinema (9 August) is a film made using improv acting by six young actors working with Magic If films.
Live Lab offers theatre-goers the opportunity to see exciting new work performed for the first time. This season Red is the New Blue (23 and 24 June) is a new collaborative project with three Live Lab Associate Artists, there are two Ten Minutes to… events (7 June and 1 November), a Scratch Night (19 November) as well as seasonal festivities in Live Lab Christmas Adventures (21 December).
Ahead of the launch of the new Children & Young People’s Writing Centre next year, the theatre is starting a new programme of theatre especially for schools. What the Thunder Said (17 to 19 June) will explore 9- to 11-year-olds’ responses to witnessing violence and bullying and The Forest (15 and 16 October) is a multi-sensory tale especially for teenagers and young adults with profound and multiple learning disabilities.
Finally Turning Pages (3 to 5 December), presented as part of Write Stuff, the playwriting initiative for secondary schools, will feature six plays written by 13- to 15-year-olds from Furrowfield School in Gateshead and Redhouse Academy in Sunderland.
Visiting theatre includes two Mixtape events (24 July and 30 October) and the return of Open Clasp's Key Change.