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Part of the Main Production Theatre Company Workshops

Part of the Main Productions is a theatre company that offers affordable & practical workshops designed to give students the chance to enhance their producing, tech, and design skills for theatre. These workshops will give students a crash-course in taking a show to the Fringe and how to effectively run a venue.

With over 4,000 shows over 3 weeks each August, taking a show to the Edinburgh Fringe can be a rewarding but overwhelming experience. If you’ve ever been curious about what it takes to produce a show at the Edinburgh Fringe, or are taking one there yourself this August, don’t miss this workshop led by seasoned Fringe producer Tanya Agarwal. In this 4-hour workshop, Tanya will cover: Securing a venue, funding your show, marketing your show, bringing in reviewers, taking care of yourself at the Fringe and more!

Ever wanted to run a theatre? Thought you might try your hand at managing a venue? Join Artistic Director of the Drayton Arms Theatre, Audrey Thayer, for a full day workshop covering the following and more : Types of venues, building a programme, marketing and PR, assembling a team, funding, budgeting, and hire structures, health and safety..

Great London Stand Up Comedy in March

Three piece comedy outfit Pappy’s bring another recording of their podcast Pappy’s Flatshare Slamdown to the Pleasance Theatre with special guests Iain Stirling and Amelia Dimoldenberg. In this flatsharing-themed show, they’ll solve any beef you might have with a housemate, and proudly play the longest 'quickfire round jingle' ever composed. If you don’t like puns, you’re in the wrong place.

Suzi Ruffell is at the Soho Theatre. Have you looked outside lately? There’s a lot to be worried about and Suzi Ruffell is losing sleep over it. From homophobic trolls to human rights around the world to her cat’s quality of life, she’s tackling them all with the same energy.  In her words: “If you don’t have anxiety, I don’t think you’re concentrating.”

Also at the Soho Theatre is Henry Paker. Mixing stand-up and illustration, computer animator-turned-comedian Henry Paker uses cartoons to tell a story about a lonely man who lives in a forest house full of clocks. Man Alive, a show about expectation meeting reality somewhere between a graphic novel and a stand-up show, was a hit at the last Edinburgh Fringe.

Old Vic Theatre for Young People in London

The Old Vic is a gateway to a world of creative, social and employment opportunities in the theatre. World renowned, The Old Vic today leads the way for the next generation of theatre-goers and theatre-makers as it has done for almost 200 years. Whether your interest is in theatre on or off stage, in broadening your creative imagination, or simply learning how to communicate better in an interview, this is where futures begin.

Whether it be a creative business, a side project or if you’re simply interested in working for yourself. We know you’ll be leaving more inspired, knowledgeable and that one step closer to reaching your entrepreneurial potential.

Our day-long Careers Festival in partnership with ERIC FEST is open to young people aged 16-25. This interactive and immersive festival will offer creative workshops, networking opportunities, panel discussions with industry professionals and a chance to find out more about jobs in the creative industries and beyond.

Our highly successful creative practitioner programme is for young people aged 18+, offering advanced hands-on experience in creative facilitation and the chance to develop key transferable skills.

Over 12 sessions, you will experience practical facilitation training from The Old Vic Education & Outreach team and guest creative practitioners as you learn about different workshop delivery practices.

Areas of training will include: communication and presentation, leadership, Practical facilitation skills, writing and creating workshop plans, behaviour management, CV and interview skills.

This free programme will help you hone your own delivery style and build your own toolkit of techniques and exercises. Your training will end with you experiencing life as a professional facilitator, as you devise and deliver your own workshop alongside your fellow Front Line Facilitators. All facilitators will be paid a fee for their final workshops.

Clapham Fringe Theatre 27th Sept - 14th Oct

The Clapham Fringe is being held at The Bread and Roses Theatre in Clapham from 27th Sept - 14th October 2018. 

Now in its fourth year, the Clapham Fringe is a Performing Arts Festival taking place at The Bread & Roses Theatre from 27th September to 14th October 2018. With 23 different productions and 48 performances altogether, over three weeks the Clapham Fringe will host a variety of performances including theatre, comedy, storytelling and cabaret.

This is a great opportunity to discover and experience an exciting lineup of performances in the vibrant South West London area, plus check us out to see if this is an event you might be interested in bringing your own show to!

A 40 to 60 seat fringe venue above The Bread & Roses Pub, the theatre programs a wide-spread variety of productions for local as well as far-reaching audiences. Artistic quality, equality and diversity are at the forefront of the theatre's programming, which features visiting companies as well as in-house productions, with a focus on new writing, underrepresented voices and distinctive work.

The theatre has worked with award-winning ensembles with decades of experience but also frequently welcomes emerging companies taking their first steps and supports theatre-makers by providing box office split deals with no hidden fees. The programme includes new writing, contemporary revivals, reinvented classics and occasionally also devised work, improvisational theatre, comedy events, family shows and physical theatre.

 

Angela Carter’s Wise Children adapted by Emma Rice at the Old Vic Theatre London

‘Let’s have all the skeletons out of the closet, today, of all days!’

It’s 23 April, Shakespeare’s birthday. In Brixton, Nora and Dora Chance – twin chorus girls born and bred south of the river – are celebrating their 70th birthday. Over the river in Chelsea, their father and greatest actor of his generation Melchior Hazard turns 100 on the same day. As does his twin brother Peregrine. If, in fact, he’s still alive. And if, in truth, Melchior is their real father after all…

A big, bawdy tangle of theatrical joy and heartbreak, Wise Children is a celebration of show business, family, forgiveness and hope. Expect show girls and Shakespeare, sex and scandal, music, mischief and mistaken identity – and butterflies by the thousand.

Emma Rice (Romantics AnonymousTristan & Yseult, The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk and Brief Encounter) brings her unique, exuberantly impish vision to Angela Carter’s great last novel, Wise Children, launching her new theatre company of the same name and its London residency at The Old Vic.

Get involved Theatre 503 is looking for volunteers!

Theatre 503 is the home of new writers and a launchpad for the artists who bring their words to life. They are pioneers in supporting new writers and a champion of their role in the theatre ecology. They find exceptional playwrights who will define the canon for the next generation. Learning and career development are at the core of what we do.

With a 63-seat theatre based in Battersea, London, Theatre 503 stages the work of more first-time writers than any other theatre in the country. They programme over 100 new pieces of writing every year ranging from short plays to full runs of superb drama. They passionately believe that the most important element in a writer’s development is to see their work developed through to a full production on stage, performed to the highest professional standard in front of an audience.

Engage with a local arts organisation. Gain experience and boost your CV. See a fantastic programme of plays for free (and for every four-week production run, get a free ticket for a friend too). There are many benefits to volunteering as part of our Front of House team.

Team members generally work a minimum of two shows per month over a four-month period, but it’s entirely up to you how often and for how long you volunteer. Shifts start at 2.30pm for matinees or 7pm for evening performances. Duties include: welcoming patrons to the theatre; opening up the house and managing the seating of audience; sitting in on the show in case of any disturbances; some light cleaning duties and glass collection after the performance. All volunteers need to be aged 18 years and over, and you’ll be asked to shadow one of their current team members on your first shift.

Further details, please see https://theatre503.com/opportunities/

 

Monkeying around at the Arcola Theatre London

Will Self's 1997 novel is a satire on contemporary machismo and also a challenge to familiar notions of what constitutes civilised behaviour. This skilful adaptation by Patrick Marmion captures its blend of shrewd observation, linguistic bravura and shameless puns.

Bryan Dick brings an angsty revulsion to artist Simon Dykes, who wakes up one morning to find he’s in a world run by chimps. At first he thinks he has simply guzzled too many drugs, but soon his longstanding obsession with perspective is being sorely tested. As Simon struggles to adjust to a society in which bum display and voracious public sex are the norm, psychiatrists try to rescue him from the delusion that he’s human.

Indebted to Franz Kafka and Jonathan Swift, the story takes an idea that might suit a five-minute TV sketch and extends it beyond absurdity into the realms of madness. Jokes about bottoms proliferate, as do densely scientific speeches, yet after a rather frantic opening first-time director Oscar Pearce maintains a firm grasp on the show’s tumbling craziness.

The cast includes Stephen Ventura as Simon’s critic-baiting gallerist and John Cummins as an Oxford academic fond of quaffing liquid excrement. All the actors are wholly committed to their apish physicality - squirming around on crutches and indulging in a feast of sniffing, whooping, grooming and rutting. The standout is Ruth Lass as Zack Busner, a maverick shrink who focuses the piece’s unsettling interest in modern neuroses and biological destiny.

Playwright Thomas Eccleshare’s Heather at the Bush Theatre London

The Bush Theatre is a world-famous home for new plays and an internationally renowned champion of playwrights. They discover, nurture and produce the best new playwrights from the widest range of backgrounds, and present their work to the highest possible standards. They look for exciting new dramatic voices that tell contemporary stories with wit, style and passion and they champion work that is both provocative and entertaining.

Brilliantly imaginative and theatrically original, Heather is a short, sharp play about language, prejudice and the power of stories. The cast includes actors Ashley Gerlach and Charlotte Melia. The production runs 6-18 November 2017.

A reclusive children’s writer becomes wildly successful. Her books are treasured across the country. But when a troubling narrative starts to unfold, we find ourselves asking: what matters more, the storyteller or the story?

Thomas Eccleshare is the Verity Bargate Award-winning writer of Pastoral and the co-artistic director of Arches Brick Award winning company Dancing Brick. Heather will be directed by Valentina Ceschi and designed by Lily Arnold.

Watch the trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwU9it9ZkbI
Book tickets https://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/event/heather/