Created in Birmingham

There’s a PILOT night tomorrow – an evening of ‘new, untested shorts from some of the UK’s most exciting theatre companies’. AE Harris are housing and Kindle Theatre are hosting. It’s only a fiver so get down by 7.30pm for this little lot:

The line up will include performances from Needle & Thread Theatre’s continuing project The Story Exchange, a brick built Ziggurat from The Resurrectionists, a comic twist on a Greek myth from The Company Project, a public pillory from Mark Butcher, an operatic performance from Kirsty Lothian and the dulcet tones of Greg McLaren from Stoke Newington International Airport.

The evening will be fanfared by the City Sings Trumpeters and serenaded by The Mellow Peaches

The REP have a new section for families on their website. It’s got vids and such on it, like this one showing how to make a toy theatre:

The next PILOT Night, co-piloted by Kindle Theatre at AE Harris, Birmingham will be on Thursday 1 April 2010. Here’s some copy/pasted info. For more knowledge, and to apply, go to www.pilotnights.co.uk.

Pilot is a platform for testing new theatre work from the West Midlands and beyond. Deadline for submissions Monday 1st March, 12pm

RELEASE THE BEAST

Had an idea laying dormant for a while that you almost daren’t wake up? Not sure if it’s mad or genius?
Kindle invite performers/practitioners/fools to submit ideas for performance which frighten them. Whether in form, content or style it must push you beyond your comfort zone into unknown territory.

Challenge yourself in a lively, supportive atmosphere and get honest feedback from peers and audience. All fools will be applauded.

AE Harris is an industrial warehouse in Birmingham’s Jewelry Quarter. It’s big, blank and open to you, with four huge spaces and lots of corners, nooks and crannies to test your idea in. Site-specific ideas are most welcome.

We can offer you a small bursary, documentation of your performance, and rehearsal space in the venue from Monday 29th March.

Kindle will also be hosting an unusual meal for all the artists involved on the Wednesday night, in the venue.

In other news, on 6 March you should definitely go to Warwick Arts Centre for The Bite Size Festival 2010:

a whirlwind tour of the region’s theatre, offering you the one-off opportunity to sample a range of great work in one place on the same day.

This year’s lineup includes Stans Cafe, Pentabus, Foursight, Kindle, Jane Packman Productions, Spanner, New Macho, Needle and Thread and Vanessa Oakes. PLUS the first opportunity to see two shows we’ve commissioned especially with Warwick Arts Centre and mac following the First Bite Festival back in November: Caroline Horton’s You’re Not Like The Other Girls Chrissy and Untied Artists’ Al Bowlly’s Croon Manifesto.

Grab a day ticket and wallow in some entertainingness. Kindle Theatre will be doing 30 mins of Eat Your Heart Out, which I saw last year and thought was really very good indeed.

I was in Coventry at the Institute for Creative Enterprise (home to companies like Imagineer Productions, amongst others) when I spotted the Stan’s Cafe theatre pledge cards sitting in a tidy pile on the reception desk.

The process by which they came to be there is quite compelling and seems to have gone something like this:

1. Attend talky get-together
2. Have idea
3. Take action

Whether they achieve their stated aim or not doesn’t matter. If nothing else they stand as evidence that 2 (coming out of 1) can lead to 3.

Tangent – this reminds me of the bit in Scott McCloud’s utterly excellent Understanding Comics that talks about the action all happening between the panels.

Words, Signs & Vibes, who are

an integrated Youth Theatre for young deaf and hearing people aged 13-18yrs

are performing Robin Hood at The Public on Saturday 9 January at 2.30pm and 7.30pm, with entry a bargainous £6. You can get tickets from The Public box office on 0121 533 7161.

It says here that performances are in Sign Language and spoken word and are accessible to deaf and hearing audiences. DAD (Deaf Adult Drama) from Walsall will be playing background characters in the performance too.

An odd one this, but a goody. I daresay we’ll see more interesting fundraising efforts in this vein over the next little while. See also the CBSO’s recent Street Maestros thing.

More info than what I’ve pasted below on The Rep’s website.

There are some spooky goings on at The REP this festive season as A Christmas Carol brings its ghosts to our Main House.

We’re offering would be ghost hunters a chance to spend the night with us and find out more about the theatre ghosts and what happens when the auditorium empties.

A once in a lifetime experience for brave souls only!

Pledge to raise a minimum of £250 to support the work of The REP and get the chance to sleep over on the theatre’s Main Stage and await the things that go bump in the night…

For one night only on Friday 8th January 2010

New improvisation workshops at St Columba Church Hall in Moseley. Starting on 12 January, 7.30-9.30pm.

Info and a PDF with further details via Stan’s Cafe.

The Challenge of Change was an event about the future of West Mids theatre. All the notes have been written up and presented quite nicely on this website.

I’ve only had a glance through the discussions and the proposals put forward but the Birmingham European Theatre Festival sounds interesting. A lot of discussions seem to feature the question ‘Do we need an equivalent of Theatre Bristol?’ (which could be very nice) but, as I said before, I think the idea of everyone taking The Pledges is a good starter, mainly because it depends on no-one else.

Another milestone for youth theatre company Stage2 who celebrated their 20th anniversary last year – their forthcoming Twelfth Night will be their 100th major production.

As well as cast of 100 we will have carol singers to serenade the audience and street urchins giving out programmes, allowing our whole company to join in the fun. It will be fast paced, visually impressive and exceptionally clear (characters, words and plot) and so will be an ideal Christmas night out for the whole family. A perfect first visit to Shakespeare, though anyone familiar with the text will also find some twists to discuss and debate…

It’ll be performed at the Crescent Theatre from 16-19 December. Tickets are £8.50.

A couple of weeks back there was a meet-up of West Mids theatre folk – the event was called The Challenge of Change and (from what I understand) there were two days of workshops and discussions around the future of West Mids theatre.

Graeme Rose (Stan’s Cafe, The Modified Toy Orchestra, etc) has written up some notes about the first day.

There’s talk of Action Plans coming out of the event but I’m yet to find anything online anywhere just yet. Until they turn up, I rather like this list of pledges sketched out by James Yarker (also of Stan’s Cafe):

1. Attend 12 theatre shows in the next 12 months, 4 by West Midlands writers/artists/companies you haven’t seen before, 1 in a West Midlands Venue you’ve never been to before.
2. Take 12 people who have never been, rarely go, or don’t ‘do’ Independent Theatre to a show. Share transport.
3. Host a meal/party for 8 people 4 of which you barely know.
4. Write 12 comments/reviews/blog entries about theatre on other people’s sites.
5. Attend 1 mid*point or return to the next Open Space event.

They seem like common sense things that you’d hope people would be doing anyway but probably aren’t by everyone. I’m sure very similar things could be drawn up for many different artforms. James explains where the pledges came from. It’d be nice if they really were written up in some formal way. Michelle Knight has opted in. Is anyone else prepared to be held to these? If not, how come?

The Rep have just announced their spring/summer season. They single out the following highlights:

• David Edgar’s staging of Arthur & George
• Alan Bennett’s latest – The Habit of Art
• Brian Friel’s Olivier Award-winning play Dancing At Lughnasa; and
• A major new production of Michael Frayn’s comic romp Noises Off

There’s also “a series of plays inspired by the issues facing young people today” and quite a lot of dance, including some shows forming part of British Dance Edition 2010.

Next year will see the start of a period of upheaval for the Rep, what with the work on the new library that’ll be taking place. As a spokesperson said to the Birmingham Post:

The first work on The Rep building will start in early 2010 with the demolition of current workshops, rehearsal rooms and hospitality suites. These functions will move to another location.

We will continue to produce shows in the theatre during 2010 and we don’t imagine we will have to leave the building until 2011

Some news from Sutton Coldfield! It’s been a while but this is a good one. Phil Hurst emailed to say:

I am currently running an event at the Station Pub in Sutton Coldfield trying to promote and encourage new writing within Birmingham and the surrounding area.  The event stages its second night on the 24th November and I would appreciate it if you could promote it in some way on your blog.  We are especially looking for actors and actresses who would be prepared to donate their time to reading some of the scripts, although I we also need some more scripts for the upcoming event.

The night is called Semper Station and the next one is billed as celebrating the anticipation of Christmas (rather than the event itself).

If you want more info then hie thee hence to the Semper Writer’s Group website. Submissions are required by 15 November.

Untied Artists. They’ll be at the First Bite Festival on Thursday 12 November showing an extract of ‘Al Bowlly’s Croon Manifesto’.

(Hat tip Nick Booth)

This post will mostly be taken up by the flyer, so here’s the essentials:

• First Bite Festival. 12 November. AE Harris. Tickets on the door. £5 (£4 concessions).
• Taking part – The Other Way Works. Friction Theatre. Others (Update – see comment for full line-up. Thanks Katie!).
• Two of the pieces will be selected for commission by mac and Warwick Arts Centre.

A couple of things with a national scope, born out of Birmingham have been launched recently.

First up, Theatricalia is the work of the ever-impressive Matthew Somerville. It’s ‘a database of past and future theatre productions’ which makes it no less than IMDB for theatre.

Already it contains archives of plays and performers from the RSC, Bristol University Archive, the Royal National Theatre and Birmingham Rep (1913-1971). You can search by play, person or place and edit entries yourself to help the archive grow.

The potential for Theatricalia is a little mind-boggling.

Black Routes is a new UK wide touring network for African and Caribbean music, with Punch Records as one of the founding partners and chair.

Punch’s Ammo Talwar wrote an article in the Birmingham Post explaining the context for the project, particularly how it fits in with what’s happening in Birmingham at the moment.