The new season at Camden People’s Theatre got underway this month with the first of three festivals, Whose London Is It Anyway?
There's a week left of this programme that includes theatre, art, walks and talks looking at London's changing landscape, its impact on residents and the housing crisis.
Emerging artists festival, Sprint, is back in March bringing national and international artists together for a month long schedule of new shows.
Amongst those looking at current social issues are Libby Liburd's verbatim piece about single mothers, Muvvahood, and Conrad Murray's autobiographical DenMarked, a performance using storytelling, singing, rapping and a loop station to recount a life on a council estate.
Other autobiographical works include Thom Jordan’s Thorn about his devout Christian upbringing and Tina Nanakini’s 14 Scattered Islands about a 180-mile walk from her London flat to her childhood home near Skegness, by way of Toronto.
CPT is well known for its support of developing artists and it doesn't get any newer than Freshers, a showcase of work from those who have graduated in the last year.
Freshers also includes the first work-in-progress from newly formed Camden Youth Theatre.
CYT has been formed by Camden People’s Theatre, New Diorama Theatre and Fitzrovia Centre for 13- to 19-year-olds in response to demand from community organisations and schools whose drama provision has reduced due to financial cuts.
It is a free club where young people will have the opportunity to see performances at their local venues and work with professional theatre makers to create new shows which will be seen at both New Diorama Theatre and CPT in the Freshers series of events.
Other work-in-progress includes Grown Up from Gameshow and People’s Theatre Award recipient Emily Lim, which uses children’s words to talk about being a grown-up, and five new pieces from the Starting Blocks scheme, which provides resources and mentoring to early-career artists.
A Nation’s Theatre series runs across the first three weeks of May.
This is a London-wide event that hosts theatre work from across Great Britain and sees Arc Stockton, Derby Theatre and Buzzcut curate a programme which includes pieces from Daniel Bye, Luca Rutherford, Ivo and Jack Britton. All Tomorrow’s Theatre is a day–long event looking at support programmes for artists and featuring work emerging from them.
Amongst the highlights of the spring and summer theatre season are CPT and Undercurrent co-production Calculating Kindness.
This plays looks at the life of 20th century American scientist George Price who lived close to where the theatre stands. His beliefs were shaken by his work on a mathematical explanation for altruism and he died at his own hand in a squat.
By contrast, there is the new play from Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Will Adamsdale, The Joke, which explores jokes and why they are so important to us.
The full programme for the season and further details for the festivals are available online. For further information about Camden Youth Theatre e-mail [email protected].