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Dateline:
2nd January, 2006
UpStix - The Pride of Place Theatre Festival
Pride of Place is a consortium of regional touring theatre companies
that is taking a lead in the debate about the relationship between place
and art and the ways in which rural communities contribute to contemporary
Britain. Its members are
- Chalkfoot Theatre Arts (South East England)
- Eastern Angles Theatre Company (East Anglia)
- Forest Forge Theatre Company (New Forest)
- New Perspectives Theatre Company (East Midlands)
- NTC Touring Theatre (Northumberland)
- Oxfordshire Touring Theatre Company
- Pentabus Theatre Company (Shropshire)
- Proteus Theatre Company (Basingstoke)
- Third Space (South East England)
The festival runs from 30th March to 2nd April, 2006, in Ipswich and
Woodbridge, Suffolk, and is hosted by Eastern Angles Theatre Company.
Delegates get entrance to all events and performances for just £75
if booked before 14 January, £100 thereafter.
The themes of the Festival, which will be discussed on the Thursday
in the "Cobbett Sessions", named after William Cobbett the
splenetic polemicist whose Rural Rides set the tone for much
town/country debate, are:
- There is "what amounts to a passive apartheid" in the
rural areas.
Where does curiosity end and racism start? And how does culturally
diverse work break through the "politically correct" reaction?
Featured production: White Open Spaces (Pentabus' work in progress)
- Rural is a state of mind not a postcode.
Most town and country debate centres on large cities and small villages,
but what about what comes in between? And how much of what we feel
is conditioned by our background? What about the city-dwelling fell
walker or the isolationist Fenman with a Barbican season ticket? And
how do we take art from rural areas into the metropolis without reference
to The Archers or Cold Comfort Farm?
Speaker: Doug Curtis, Ghost River Theatre
Featured productions: Saturday Night & Sunday Morning (New
Perspectives) & The Country Wife (Forest Forge)
-
Theatre buildings are just so yesterday
Site-specific and site-generic work is increasingly used by companies
in both town and country to provide that extra dimension, find that
new audience, and reveal a fresh context. Or is it just event theatre
with more spin than spell?
Speakers: Mondo Bizarro Theatre from Atlanta
Featured productions: East Anglian Psychos (nightclubs),
The Sutton Hoo Mob (Sutton Hoo) & Idun's Apples (Endeavour
House & street) - all Eastern Angles
-
The poppadom paradox
"The problem was that the waiter who delivered the poppadoms
was not of Indian descent, but a white Anglo Saxon…for one
of the pleasures of going out for a curry was the feeling that you
were tasting a foreign culture" (Julian Baggini, Guardian)
Does multiculturalism depend on others being monoculturalists?
Speaker: Femi Elufowoju, director of Tiata Fahodzi
Featured production: Under Milk Wood (OTTC)
-
The countryside is too important to be left to
the farmers
How will the changes in farming procedures impact on the rest of
the countryside? Which comes first the chicken or the egg production?
Speaker: Graham Harvey, writer and agricultural story editor of
The Archers
Featured production: Farmed Out (1157 Group/Third Space)
-
Don't scare the horses
Balancing the populist against the serious often leads us into stage
adaptations of literary classics. Is this dilution or opening up
forgotten stories and working-class experience to new audiences?
Featured productions: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
(Chalkfoot) & Great Expectations (NTC)
-
Plenary - Will cultural leadership always be
metropolitan?
Everyone joins with our principal speakers to explore the means
by which we produce our new leaders of cultural organisations.
Speaker: Nicola Thorold, Drama Director ACE
Programme
Thursday 30th March, Ipswich
2.15pm Registration, Endeavour House, Suffolk County Council
2.45pm Cobbett Sessions I & II.
5.30pm Welcome from the region, buffet supper & short performance
of Idun's Apples from post-youth theatre company New Angles
in and on the walkways of Endeavour House.
Evening performances in Ipswich:
Mesa - Ghost River Theatre, Alberta
White Open Spaces - Pentabus
Late-night theatre at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel:
East Anglian Psychos - Eastern Angles
Friday 31st March, Woodbridge
Performances throughout the day:
The Country Wife - Forest Forge
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Chalkfoot Theatre Arts
Great Expectations - Northumberland Theatre Company
Whatever Happened to Bette and Joan? - Proteus
Also lunchtime events, street theatre and exhibitions.
Late-night theatre at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel:
White Open Spaces - Pentabus
Saturday 1st April, Woodbridge
Performances begin early and continue through the day:
The Sutton Hoo Mob - Eastern Angles
Farmed Out - 1157 Performance Group/Third Space
Clare's Walk - Menagerie
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - New Perspectives
Under Milk Wood - Oxfordshire Touring Theatre Company
Mesa - Ghost River Theatre, Alberta
Also lunchtime events, street theatre and exhibitions.
Sunday 2nd April, Courtyard Marriott Hotel, Ipswich
10.30am Pride of Place Conference - the Debate Continues
12.30pm Lunch & end of festival.
For further details:
Tel: 01473 218202
Email: prideofplace@easternangles.co.uk
Website: www.prideofplace.org.uk
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