Despite The New Theatre Royal undergoing it’s major redevelopment at the moment there is still much going on (as well as the cafe being open) including the upcoming Little Theatres art exhibition. The theatre wants to give the leaflet stands in the Dress Circle bar a makeover and would like people of all ages and artistic ability to get creative. The theatre would like you to create miniature scenes to fill one of the 44 leaflet stands, depicting the history of the theatre, or just what you love about the theatre. You can even get into the Dickens spirit and create your favourite scene of a Dickens classic. The only limitations are the space, so here are the dimensions to work within:
Height: 18.5 cm
Width: 16cm
Depth: 3.5cm
You can visit the Box office to pick up a leaflet stand to take home to work with (you will be required to leave contact details). You can also design stage curtains for your piece, or other backdrops of roughly A5 sizing if you wish. All miniature scenes must be set up on Monday 6th February by popping into the theatre on the day with your scenes ready to place or with the leaflet stand you collected.
This exhibition will take place on the 7th February and is just one of the many events happening on the day in celebration of Charles Dickens 200th birthday.
For more information and to register your interest, please email Cat as soon as possible at lm@newtheatreroyal.com. All entrants must register their interest by 10pm on Monday 30 January so get involved quick!
New Theatre Royal is opening its doors to the local amateur groups and local cultural venues to share ideas for the cultural future of the city. All interested parties are welcome to come along on Friday 8 April at 6pm to the New Theatre Royal, Guildhall Walk.
New Theatre Royal wants local groups to be engaged in its rebuild and see how its development welcomes local groups both now and in the future. New Theatre Royal sees itself not only as a receiving theatre but also as a hub where emerging companies can network and develop. Currently NTR houses two locally sourced associate artists – Jam Jar Dance Company (an emerging contemporary dance group who are developing work for a schools tour in the autumn) already half way through their residency and is creating an associate residency with University of Portsmouth students.
An in-house writing hub has recently been set up with New Writing South and Portsmouth City Council which earlier this week offered budding local writers the opportunity to listen to Simon Brett (writer of After Henry, The Charles Paris crime detective series) and share ideas. Next time the hub will invite an agent and author to explore how best to get published. The theatre has four thriving youth theatre groups and the latest Living Memories project with Portsmouth Football Club, written by local writers and performed by local actors, was a great success – audiences are now demanding its return.
In May NTR is inviting audiences to an open rehearsal by You Need Me, an exciting new international theatre company in development with the Corn Exchange Newbury, for the preview of their new work, Certain Dark Things, before it goes to Edinburgh Festival. The show returns for a full performance at the end of August. At the open rehearsal Portsmouth audiences will be helping shape the work. This is a key part of the process of developing new work and is a fabulous opportunity for our own emerging artists and local amateur groups to share in and experience. Through this opportunity Portsmouth learns as does the company.
Opportunities for trying out ideas and training for actors and directors is invaluable for their development. As Punchdrunk’s artistic director, Felix Barratt, said of the Battersea Arts Centre: “It is a place where you can really take risks… And making mistakes is the only way you move on as an artist. They (BAC) encourage you to go farther than you normally would. There’s a sense that you’re accepted, that nobody is going to judge you.”
New Theatre Royal’s rebuild will not only mean we can attract innovative companies such as Pilot Theatre, KneeHigh, Theatre de Complicite and Royal Shakespeare Company but also will be a centre where new work will be created and new skills learnt. The addition of a Creative Learning Space in the rebuild is essential to this ambition. Portsmouth people from all walks will be welcomed to use the space to learn new skills, develop their work, explore their heritage and try out ideas before they may be performed on the stage (which will also return – after 39 years).
The plans for the rebuild are near completion and it is anticipated that work will start in November this year. Whilst the project takes shape New Theatre Royal is not going dark but is creating an NTR@ brand and will be hosting shows and workshops in the theatre and around the city. New Theatre Royal sees it as a wonderful opportunity to get work out and about around the city. Our follow up Living Memories project is already in planning and looks at Journeys – why and how people take and took journeys to Portsmouth. A Young Writers Group (aged 13-16) with New Writing South is being formed in September and it is proposed that they will be part of the writing team on the project. PULSE, a fringe festival in June, is part of this initiative.
New Theatre Royal is a founder member of HOUSE, a collaborative group of regional theatres from Brighton to Oxford who have joined forces to support and share emerging artists across the region – it is crucial that Portsmouth is part of this as it will provide wonderful opportunities for our own performing artists to emerge.
Creating work in Portsmouth ensures NTR develops a Made in Portsmouth brand and will transform the profile of Guildhall Walk.
All community groups and local cultural venues are encouraged to come along to the New Theatre Royal on Friday 8 April at 6pm to share ideas for the future. For more information please contact Charlotte Mackie on 023 9277 8990 or email marketing@newtheatreroyal.com
The wonderful Courtney Pine will be performing his new work Europa at The New Theatre Royal on Wednesday 23rd March as part of his new UK tour. A true UK jazz legend and a bargain with tickets on £20, available both at the Box Office and online. Get in quick.
You can read a the Mojo 4 star review here and you can listen to Courtney Pine play on Front Row on Radio 4 here.
Burn My Heart, a poignant performance based on the novel by award winning author Beverley Naidoo, produced by Trestle in collaboration with the emerging company Blindeye, comes to the New Theatre Royal tonight at 7.30pm. The production tells the story of a fierce and dedicated nationalist group that has emerged in Kenya and Britain needs to act to quell the rising temper of the people and it does so with force, and with devastating effect.
Set during the Mau Mau uprising in 1950’s Kenya and the ensuing bloody State of Emergency, Burn My Heart contains a vast political landscape within the confines of a very believable, compelling and truthful story: two boys’ lives are changed forever as their friendship and loyalty are blown apart by fear and betrayal.
Featuring a multi-cultural cast of 5 performers, the show draws on African music and movement styles, combined with a powerful mix of text and physical story-telling theatre.
Tickets cost £9 – £13 (£6 – £11 concessions) from the box office on 023 9264 9000 or online at www.newtheatreroyal.com.
The New Theatre Royal has recently been filming many of it’s productions and has set up a new YouTube with many of the performance edits. You can watch the edits, comment and subscribe so you can keep an eye on when new edits are added.
The following edit shows the recent Kompany Malakhi performance in Guildhall Square, Portsmouth. Edited by Lucia and Joe from Admiral Lord Nelson School.
Candoco Dance Company return to the New Theatre Royal on Thursday 20 May at 7.30pm with three new works that show the richness, beauty and diversity of contemporary dance in one evening.
Renowned for exciting and inspiring their audiences, Candoco make us all rethink what dance is and who can dance. With their adventurous and personal performance style they connect with us and trigger different emotions that make us think about life with its twists and turns, ups and downs.
For this programme, entitled Renditions, Candoco has worked with three international choreographers. Acclaimed dance and theatre artist and founding DV8 member Wendy Houstoun combines movement with text and meaning with humour. Award winning choreographer Emanuel Gat delights with his attention to detail to create a beautiful, fluid sextet. Whilst Manchester born Sarah Michelson is known across the Atlantic for her quirky take on our time, resulting in an unprecedented three New York ‘Bessie’ Dance Awards. Her style draws on the traditions and conventions of dance making yet adding a fresh, often unpredictable take. Set against a cinematic original sound score this is Candoco as you’ve never seen before.
Candoco Dance Company is the contemporary dance company of disabled and non- disabled dancers. Over the last 16 years numerous awards include the Critics’ Circle De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance (2007) and in 2008 they performed at the Beijing 2008/London 2012 Handover Ceremonies in front of 90,000 in the Bird’s Nest stadium to 1.6 billion TV viewers.
Free Q & A with the company following the performance.
Tickets cost £9 – £13 (£6 – £11 concessions) from the box office on 023 9264 9000 or online at www.newtheatreroyal.com.
A quick reminder of undoubtedly one of the biggest film events in Portsmouth this year: on the 16th May a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet Ken Russell, Twiggy, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Brian Murphy and Murray Melvin at a special 35mm screening of The Boy Friend (courtesy of the BFI) at The New Theatre Royal, filmed there in 1971, before the fire.
There will be a unique matinee performance with live chat, tap dancing and a celebration of Ken Russell and his incredible career. The interview will be led by Sally Taylor from 2.15pm, film screening will be at 3pm.
Tickets are £35 (£25 for concessions) and available in the box office or online.
On Sunday 16th May the New Theatre Royal is host to join Ken Russell and friends at a special screening of his acclaimed production, The Boy Friend. Filmed at the New Theatre Royal back in 1971, Ken Russell’s musical stars Twiggy playing Polly Browne, an aspiring musical comedy star, working as stage manager of a production of The Boy Friend. She is transformed into a star when she replaces leading lady Rita Monroe (Glenda Jackson), who twists her ankle seconds before the curtain goes up. Before the evening is over, Polly is scampering over outsized sets, and ducking around seemingly thousands of chorus girls and boys. Christopher Gable, who plays Polly’s on-stage leading man, also choreographed the lavish musical numbers. Director Ken Russell (notorious for his onscreen excesses) fashioned a humongous parody of the Busby Berkeley film musicals of the 1930′s and staged on a scale that made Berkeley seem stylistically modest.
Interview with Ken Russell and friends – 2.15pm, film screening – 3pm.
Tickets are £35, £25 for concessions and available here.
A Night Less Ordinary, the Arts Council’s free ticket scheme, invites anyone under 26 to enjoy theatre in more than 200 venues across England, including The New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, up until March 2011. To find out more contact the Box Office at 02392 649000 or www.newtheatreroyal.com and www.anightlessordinary.org.uk.
We have some great news about our PRIMARY phonography exhibition (find out all the details here) that we can now announce:
- The deadline for submissions has now been extended to Sunday 4th March. We have had some incredible submissions but want to set aside more time to make the exhibition something really special.
- The competition is now open to up to 10 submissions from each individual. With the ability to capture many photos on your phone over the next two months we we want you to not feel restricted to just three. The same rules apply about the photos conforming to compositions using the primary colours though. If you have already submitted feel free to send more photos over as and when you please.
- The exhibition will be hosted by Albert Road’s own Bonzo Studio who are also partnering up with us in the creation of the exhibition space. More news on this soon!
- Finally, we will be running a competition as part of the exhibition where the best three photos submitted will win some incredible prizes. We will be announcing the prizes available very soon but got to say, these will be the best prize haul we have ever offered.
- We will be putting together a poster for the exhibition that will be on sale on the opening night. The poster will feature some of the best submissions and all profits from the sales will go to a local charity (details to follow soon). Due to this we need to say that any photos submitted to PRIMARY will involve you giving us permission to use them for commercial purposes, if you do not want your photo used in this way simply let us know via email.
Well, that is it for now! We really hope to drum up as much coverage locally for PRIMARY in the next couple of months so if you could Facebook/Tweet/+1 about the exhibition we would really appreciate it. We would love this exhibition to be a real reflection of the whole population of Portsmouth with everyone taking part and feeling involved.
Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.
You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.
Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.
The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.
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