Sunderland Stages, which brings performances to a range of well-known and unknown venues in the City, returns for another season this autumn with productions in venues including The Royalty Theatre, Arts Centre Washington, Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens and Sunderland City Library—and there will also be a special performance in a Secret Location.
The season begins at Arts Centre Washington on 22 September with Unfolding Theatre’s Putting the Band Back Together. In what is both a gig and a play, Ross Millard (The Futureheads), Maria Crocker (The Letter Room) and Alex Elliott (Northern Stage) reveal the epic emotions within people’s relationships with music.
On 1 October at Pop Recs in Stockton Road, The Six Twenty presents another music-related show, Fans, an eclectic mix of stories told through 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.
The next venue is the Cityspace Studio in Sunderland University’s Chester Road campus where, on 5 October, Zest Theatre presents Thrive, a show created especially for young people which delves into the lives and minds of three young people as their world gets turned upside down.
On 11 October at Independent in Holmeside, Tom Adams & Laura Mugridge present Bookish in which audiences are invited to take their pick of five mini shows in a comedic and musical portrayal of these books: The Dairy Book of Family Cookery, Ginger: My Story—The Autobiography of Ginger Rogers, Tales of The Unexpected by Roald Dahl, Remains Of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and How to Analyse People by Brian Masters.
On 19 October, at a top secret location (audience members will be told where to meet before being escorted to the hidden outdoor performance area), Southpaw Dance Company presents Faust, a fusion of world-class breaking combined with Lindy Hop, Charleston and swinging big band that taps into the spirit of gangsters, bootleggers, gamblers, flappers and hep cats. n this roaring 1920s-inspired show, Faust battles with the Devil for his soul.
The meeting room in Sunderland City Library in Fawcett Street is the venue for a special show for babies of six months up to children of 4 on 25 October at 11AM and 2PM. Sponge, presented by Turned on Its Head, is a new kind of family dance show, set to a 1970s influenced music. Interactive theatre for babies, young children and families, Sponge is about all things spongy, a child’s ability to soak information up and the “amazing squishy, squashy textures”.
On 4 November, the Royalty Theatre is the venue for Arletty Theatre’s Swan Canaries. In June 1918, Polly Barton is starting work at a national shell-filling factory with the heroic "Canary Girls", so called for the TNT that turns their skin yellow. This physical theatre piece is based on real life events and the biggest explosion this country has ever known.
What I Learned from Johnny Bevan by Luke Wright, a “funny and poignant poetic monologue about the British relationship between class and politics, told through one extraordinary friendship”, comes to the theatre on Sunderland College’s Bede Campus (Durham Road) on 18 November.
Finally, on 4 December at 1 and 3PM at Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens Theatre, Animotion presents a Christmas story for children and families, Silver Moon. This masked performance presents the relationship grandparents have with their grandchildren and how imagination, not toys, can forge a friendship.