Normally, we spend many months working on new projects behind closed doors. We sit hunched over laptops, leafing through towers of research books and plastering our rehearsal room walls with ideas before we finally reveal a brand new production in its first finished form.
As much fun as we have working like this, cackling away like mad scientists in our secret laboratory, we’re becoming increasingly excited by the idea of carrying out our experiments and testing some ideas in public for everyone to see.
So, over the next two months, we’ll be presenting two new pieces in very early stages of development with the help of some exciting partners — and we’d love you to join us, with your support and your feedback playing a hugely important role in the course of our future activities…
The Year Is Twenty-One at PILOT
PILOT is a regular programme of scratch nights organised jointly by Sam Fox and Jess Mackinnon of Kindle Theatre, Paul Warwick of China Plate and guest curators — co-PILOTS who assist in the production of PILOT Nights. August’s co-PILOT is Stan’s Cafe, housed in the AE Harris space in the heart of Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter. PILOT is an opportunity for audiences to sample an array of work-in-progress theatre extracts during the course of one evening, and one of those will be the first outing of our production, The Year Is Twenty-One.
We would like to introduce you to Andy and invite you to join him as he celebrates his 21st birthday with a very special party. He’s not had the easiest childhood and wants to say thankyou to his mum, who’s always stood by him. And he has a thing or two to say about his dad, too, who’s never been there for him, but who has always been a looming presence in his life…
We’ll be working with performer Robert Durbin and cupcake artiste Rebecca Chitty on the beginnings of a brand new piece of event theatre with a sweet tooth and a sting in its tail.
For more information on The Year Is Twenty-One, click here, and for more information about PILOT’s forthcoming event on Thursday 11th August, click here.
It’s Only A Paper Moon at First Bite Festival 2011
First Bite is a daylong festival, partnered by China Plate, Warwick Arts Centre, mac, Bristol Ferment and Bristol Old Vic, which will give twelve West Midlands companies a chance to present extracts of new work — two of which will go forward to receive commissioning money and development time leading to further presentation as part of the Bite Size Festival in March 2012. This year’s First Bite festival will be taking place at the Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham, and we’ve been selected as one of the lucky twelve with It’s Only A Paper Moon!
Our long-time collaborator Natalie Wilson will join us as we wander backwards and forwards through history and into the future, investigating silent sci-fi cinema, lunar landing conspiracies, werewolf legends and a host of other curious stories orbiting around imaginary and artificial versions of the Moon. We’ll be carrying out workshops during late August and early September to process our notes and play with some ideas ready for the big day in less than seven weeks’ time!
For more information on It’s Only A Paper Moon, click here, and for more information about First Bite’s forthcoming event on Saturday 24th September, click here.
We’d love to see you all at PILOT and First Bite – which will not only give you a chance to see and support what we’re doing, but will also give you a chance to experience a huge range of work by emerging and established artists from right across the Midlands and beyond!