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Audiences
Decide In New Autumn Theatre Season At South Shield’s Customs House
A new season of plays is being launched to bring the best
contemporary drama to South Tyneside.
The Customs House in South
Shields is introducing a new season called CUSTOM MADE
consisting of seven very different shows by the most innovative companies
making theatre in the UK.
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Coronation Street’s Krissi Bohn
stars in The Bogus Woman
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The productions have been hand-picked by The Customs House
programming team to challenge perceptions of what theatre really is, and to
bring award winning drama to the Mill Dam theatre.
Launching the season next month will be The Disappearance of
Dorothy Lawrence, directed by Paulette Randall MBE - Associate Director for the
opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics.
Executive Director of The Customs House Ray Spencer MBE said
“We’re thrilled to be able to bring the very best drama from the very best
companies to The Customs House.”
The season will also see Friends of The Customs House benefiting
from a new Pay What You Decide scheme.
The Friends will be able to book their tickets for free and
then pay how much they think it was worth at the end of the performance. The
aim is for audiences to try out something new without worrying that they’ll be
out of pocket or it may not be ‘up their street’. This scheme has been informed
by the work of Arc Stockton who have had great success with their own Pay What
You Decide scheme.
Ray added: “The Customs House prides itself in having very loyal
supporters and we’re thrilled to be able to give back to our Friends of The
Customs House by offering them this opportunity to see shows without paying
anything upfront and to be able to feed back to us their thoughts on this new
and exciting initiative. I myself am
looking forward to seeing these renowned artists on The Customs House stage and
hearing just what our audiences think of our new-look drama season.”
Kicking of the season will be The Disappearance of Dorothy
Lawrence on September 26 followed by You, Me and Everything Else on September
30 & October 1; Beats North on October 4; One Last Waltz on October 14;
Confirmation on November 6; The Bogus Woman on November 9; and Be Brave and
Leave for the Unknown on November 20 & 21.
Details of the shows is given below and to buy tickets go to www.customshouse.co.uk , or call box
office on 0191 454 1234. To become a Friend of The Customs House contact Angela
Hannon on 0191 427 8183.
The shows:
Vital Xposure presents
The Disappearance of Dorothy Lawrence
Thursday 17th September
8.00pm
Its 1914, England is at war and the
Suffragette movement is gaining strength.
Dorothy Lawrence, a young
journalist with aspirations to become a war correspondent, takes to her bicycle
to join the frontline in France. What happens next rocks
the powers that be and shakes her life apart. She was never seen in public
again.
100 years on a young
woman screams out a Punk Prayer in an orthodox cathedral, and her censure
triggers a storm of protest that rocks the world.
This beautiful and
cleverly written piece by Julie McNamara investigates their remarkable stories,
and how history repeats itself; exposing the ways society deals with women who
step out of line.
Take a trip in time to
explore themes of inequality and power that still resonate today. With
integrated British sign language interpretation.
Camisado
Club presents
You, Me and
Everything Else
Wednesday
30th September – Thursday 1st October
8pm
If you could send a mixtape to outer space, on
behalf of planet Earth, what would be on it?
Right now, there’s a golden record hurtling
through space. It’s a mixtape of songs, sounds and pictures from Earth, a
valentine from the human race to whoever or whatever finds it.
This is a science-fact love story where two ordinary people look out into the universe and find the most human thing: love.
This is a science-fact love story where two ordinary people look out into the universe and find the most human thing: love.
Created through Bridging the Gap, an ARC
initiative with Northern Stage, The Customs House and The Maltings Theatre,
Berwick. Supported by Arts Council England, The Sunday for Sammy
Trust and Unity Theatre Trust
Company TSU presents
Beats North
Sunday 4th
October
6pm
Al’s family wants him to be a Bollywood convert,
but he craves Motown, the spotlight and his guitar. Jack gets lost in the power
of Bonnie Tyler and his own imagination, much to his dad’s frustration.
A double bill by Luke Barnes and Ishy Din, with a
live soundtrack by DJ Mariam Rezaei.
Beats North is an event that includes a double
bill of one-man plays by Luke Barnes and Ishy Din ending in a guilty pleasures
disco. Using a mixture of turntablism and live and recorded sampling and drum
machines, award winning DJ Mariam Rezaei creates the soundtrack to both pieces
live onstage.
The audience will have the opportunity to
interact with the set and the DJ, as they are invited into the space before the
show starts - to play a record, write on the lyric wall, record a story or song
or dance at the silent disco. Before the show the audience are asked to confess
their guilty pleasure song, which they post into the confessions box. The
guilty pleasure songs collected then form the playlist for the Beats North
disco at the end of the show when the audience is invited to join the cast
onstage for a boogie!
Originally developed with young men in Teesside
in 2013, Beats North is supported by Arts Council England, Northern Stage,
Middlesbrough Council, Musinc, Arc Stockton Arts Centre, Northumbria University, The Empty Space through
This Way Up, and has been developed through Northern Stage’s Title Pending
Award and Fuel’s Jerwood Residencies at Cove Park which are supported by
the Jerwood Charitable Foundation.
*Winner of the Northern
Stage Title Pending Award 2013
*Shortlisted for a Brighton Fringe Award at Edinburgh Fringe 2014
*Lyn Gardner’s Hot
Tickets for Edinburgh Fringe 2014 – The Guardian
Black
Coffee Theatre presents
One Last
Waltz
Wednesday
14th October
8pm
Alice is becoming more and
more forgetful. Her daughter Mandy is always on hand to help out but the strain
is becoming too much.
A long forgotten photograph stirs a memory and
lures Alice back to the Crown Hotel in Blackpool. The mother and daughter set out to dance in
the tower ballroom one last time... But Blackpool isn’t how Alice remembers and things
become too much for her as she finds herself getting lost in the past.
Based on real life events and experiences, this
funny and touching new play explores the difficulties in coming to terms with Alzheimer’s.
Black Coffee Theatre was created in 2010 by Luke
Adamson, Jonathan Holby and Maria Crocker.
Warwick Arts Centre & China Plate presents
Confirmation
Friday 6th
November
8pm
If you pinned me against a wall, I’d probably
admit to being a liberal. Of course, pinning me against a wall is exactly what
I’d expect from someone like you.
Confirmation is a show about the gulfs we can’t
talk across, and about the way we choose to see only the evidence that proves
we’re right.
Working with research into the phenomenon of
Confirmation Bias, Confirmation attempts to have an honourable dialogue, real
and imagined, with political extremism. From multi-award-winning Chris Thorpe
(Unlimited, Royal Exchange, Hannah Jane Walker) and Rachel
Chavkin (The TEAM).
FRINGE FIRST AWARD-WINNER, Edinburgh Festival Fringe – 2014
Theatre by
the Lake and Curtis Productions presents
The Bogus
Woman
Monday 9th
November
8pm
An African woman arrives in a strange country
fleeing for her life, seeking safety and asylum. Despite having committed no
crime she is indefinitely confined, interrogated, humiliated and abused. She witnesses the cruelty of the authorities
and their casual disregard for an individual’s human rights. This strange country is England.
Krissi Bohn (Coronation Street) performs this powerful,
poetic and heart-wrenching play – bringing to life the 51 sharply etched characters
who retell the experiences of this young woman.
Please note that this production contains strong
language and scenes that may be unsuitable for younger audiences. Age guidance: 16 years +.
‘Essential watching … Krissi Bohn acts to vividly
realised and blistering perfection’
★★★★ The Independent, Lynne Walker
