NATIONAL THEATRE TO TOUR IBSEN’S MASTERPIECE HEDDA GABLER
Following a sold-out run at the National Theatre’s Lyttelton Theatre, the NT will begin a UK tour of its acclaimed production of Hedda Gabler on 2 October 2017. Beginning at Theatre Royal Plymouth, the tour will journey across the UK finishing on 3 March 2018. Just married. Bored already. Hedda longs to be free…
This new version of Ibsen’s masterpiece by Olivier and Tony Award®-winning playwright Patrick Marber is directed by Ivo van Hove, one of the world’s most exciting directors. It will feature a UK stage debut for Bryan Cranston.
nationaltheatre.org.uk
Dreams meet reality in a new play for children
Inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Toby Hulse’s new play To Dream Again is on Polka’s Main Stage from 10 March – 2 April. Created for ages 7 – 12, To Dream Again is a co-commission between Polka Theatre and Theatr Clwyd. Sophie’s world is changing, so she reaches out to her parents, Demetrius and Helena. Through her stories maybe she can help them recapture the moment when they were young and in love? Can they go back to the beginning and let the enchanted forest cast its spell again? To Dream Again tells the poignant but playful story of a young girl coming to terms with her parents’ separation. Rooted in the realities of the 21st century, Toby Hulse’s play mixes the everyday with the enchanting using a script that is bursting with humour, magic and a taste of Shakespearean language.
Picking up where Shakespeare left off, To Dream Again is a response to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, asking what happens following ‘happy ever after.’ At the end of Shakespeare’s work, Demetrius and Helena are head-over-heels in love – but can their love last?
Children from 16 schools in the London Borough of Merton are participating in a project running alongside To Dream Again. Facilitated by Merton Music Foundation and Polka’s Creative Learning programme, over a thousand local children will attend a performance for free, and explore the themes raised in the production through a series of workshops. www.polkatheatre.com
JANE EYRE – UK Tour from April – September 2017
Casting for Sally Cookson’s energetic and imaginative new adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece, Jane Eyre has been announced, with Nadia Clifford taking the central role of Jane Eyre and Tim Delap as Rochester. 2017 marks the 170th anniversary of the first publication of Jane Eyre – a significant time to be touring Charlotte Brontë’s classic and much loved story. The highly acclaimed co-production between the National Theatre and Bristol Old Vic opens at The Lowry in Salford on 8 April and will continue its journey around the UK.
This exciting new stage version of Jane Eyre was originally presented in two parts at Bristol Old Vic, and then transferred to the National Theatre, re-imagined as a single performance, playing to sold out houses at the NT’s Lyttelton Theatre.
BSA merges with Birmingham Conservatoire
The drama and music arms of Birmingham City University are to come together in a merger that will see them become Birmingham Conservatoire. Currently known as Birmingham School of Acting, the university’s drama courses will be brought together with its music course offering, which already takes the name Birmingham Conservatoire. It is hoped that bringing them together will create a single world-class home for developing the next generation of talented, versatile performers. The merger coincides with the opening of a new £57 million home for the current Birmingham Conservatoire, at the university’s city centre campus, which will open later this year. The building will feature five public performance spaces, including a new concert hall. David Roberts, pro vice chancellor and executive dean of the arts, design and media faculty, said: “We will continue to produce brilliant specialists in both acting and music, but this merger emphasises the growing need for fluidity between disciplines – musicians able to draw on performance skills or promote their work across digital channels, or actors and set designers delivering performances where music and musicality are essential to the artistic results.” The two institutions will formally merge in September, when the new conservatoire building also opens.
‘Promontory’ – an exhibition of neon lights, bold-coloured signage and sculptural installations
‘Promontory’, a new exhibition of sculptural installations in The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art, will run until Wednesday 5 April 2017, with an associate programme of events taking place at the college during this period. Created by Stuart Robinson as part of South West Showcase, a biennial exhibition platform, offering two contemporary visual artists based within the South West an opportunity to have a solo exhibition and develop new work.
‘Promontory’ features frameworks, structures and illuminated elements intended to explore our shared experience of the everyday and reflect on how the world is presented to us. An exhibition of sculptural installations utilising ideas and themes including signage, props, scale and model-making, the work explores the shapes, colour and materials familiar from our daily encounters of media, signs and surroundings as well as specific inspirations from Plymouth itself.
See our feature on p22 for a review of other sculpture installations available around the UK. www.plymouthart.ac.uk