Theatre by The Lake—Cumbria’s only year-round producing theatre—has come up with a programme of online events: new ideas, new partnerships and investment in new work.
It had planned to launch live events from February half term, but the third lockdown resulted in adapting to a digital-only programme between March and May.
Spark, online, opens on March 5, with a series of rehearsed readings. Each month, the creative team works with a different company of writers, directors and actors on a new play never performed before, culminating each week with a ‘script-in-hand’ performance, followed by a Q&A with cast and crew.
On March 12, the theatre will host Open Space. First tested live at the theatre in 2019, TBTL’s second scratch night goes online. The event will showcase all kinds of untried and untested work, including spoken word, music and theatre.
Over the last few weeks, The Young Company, aged 14–18, has been attending weekly online workshops. The outcome, Found Fettle, is an audio journey across the Cumbrian spaces that have motivated and inspired them throughout the last year, and will ‘go live’ online in April.
And more family work is in the pipeline to be released in coming weeks.
Artistic Director Liz Stevenson said, "it’s been so refreshing to collaborate with a wide range of local and national artists, actors, writers and directors to create this season.”