Belfast-based Terra Nova Productions, Ireland’s only theatre company dedicated to making intercultural work, is to mark its 15th anniversary with a new play by Andrea Montgomery set in Tudor England.
The Trumpet and the King delves into the friendship between the young Prince Henry Tudor and John Blanke, a musician of African descent, that defied the norms of the day and extended into adulthood when the Prince became Henry VIII and Blanke his court trumpeter.
In an imagined Limbo, the two meet again after 500 years, this time as equals, and retrace and re-frame their relationship. Moving between the Christian and Islamic Europe, from the Alhambra in Muslim Granada to the Tudor Protestant Court, The Trumpet and the King is “a funny, sexy, painful coming-of-age story, written in bold, modern colloquial language”.
Montgomery directs her own script, with Sam Claridge as Henry and Fejiro Emasiobi as Blanke. Designed by Tracey Lindsay with lighting by James McFetridge, original music is provided by Nick Boyle.
The Trumpet and the King opens in the Grand Opera House Studio, Belfast on March 14 for two nights before an eight-date tour to venues in Bellaghy, Bangor, Armagh, Enniskillen, Lisburn, Ballymena and Antrim before closing at the Downpatrick Arts Centre on April 1.