The Gateshead International Festival of Theatre (GIFT) returns to the town for a fourth year from Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th May, 2014.
The North East’s only dedicated contemporary theatre festival showcases new work from nationally and internationally acclaimed artists, providing a platform for work not normally programmed in the region and for new theatre makers in the North East.
This year the Festival will move further into the heart of Gateshead than ever before, with activities spreading from the banks of the River Tyne through Gateshead town centre to the edges of Saltwell Park.
GIFT will include performances, workshops, social events and opportunities for discussion and debate, giving artists a chance to showcase their own work within an international theatre festival context offering professional development and networking opportunities.
Performance highlights include Spanish artists ATRESBANDES, who return to Gateshead with their new piece Locus Amoenus, having previously performed at BE @ GIFT back in November 2012, Peter McMaster with his award-winning all-male version of Wuthering Heights, Nic Green’s ‘harrowingly beautiful’ Fatherland, and Cape Wrath, an epic journey in a stationary minibus from Third Angel’s Alex Kelly, and many more.
It takes place in unexpected locations and venues in and around Gateshead town centre including Caedmon Hall at Gateshead Central Library, St Mary’s Heritage Centre, Shipley Art Gallery, and The Central.
GIFTed is the strand of GIFT that celebrates the work of students and recent graduates bringing together students and graduates from Performing Arts courses across the country and Europe. The GIFTed strand showcases performances created by current students or recent graduates within the main festival programme of work, and offers networking and professional development opportunities for its participants.
There will also be an opportunity for audiences to contribute to the making of a new theatre piece by The Letter Room, which began life last year as the first NORTH company at Northern Stage. "It's a show about escape," they, "and it's a show about partying to forget. Bonenkai Beats is the preamble on our way to discovering what this show might be. So we are asking you to come and party with us. You are invited to Club Bonenkai where you will meet the band of grotesques. They are the ones who arrived first, never left and have been."
Festival director Kate Craddock said, "GIFT really aims to develop both artists and audiences, through offering a programme of professional development workshop activities, alongside a programme of performance work that is unique in the region, as well as free events suitable for people of all ages. I really believe that GIFT 2014 has something to offer everyone in Gateshead."