First in 3 line-up: Thu 2 Oct

L.Golden, E.Johnson, A.Middleton, E.Venaki

An eerie atmospheric movement piece in the style of Artaud, where the theme (drug addiction) works only as a stimuli to reach the deep subconscious levels of existence. Reflecting the human insecurities and weaknesses it presents the vicious circle that is created when we try to overcome them through illusionary ways till we are eventually dragged to destruction.

Fury - Adapted by Elizabeth Duffy

Fury is a light, entertaining, one-man play about life and love in today’s world. It is his kaleidoscopic perspective of the world that he shares with us that constantly changes and can never be predicted. With the premise that his show has left him, as one lover might leave another, he draws parallels between various relationships to be found in life and explores the passive/active status of those involved, particularly the audience.

Performed by Mark Calvert and directed by Erica Whyman

Stephen Frizzle

A short preview of an upcoming play. The Devil and Daniel Foster is a dark comedy about a man ending up in Hell’s Waiting Room, and finding himself having to find out who killed him and what afterlife he deserves.

Matthew Dowden

International, award winning magician Matthew J Dowden blends comedy and amazing sleight of hand to provide an all round entertaining show. Matthew has performed close up magic all over the world including the world famous Magic Castle in Hollywood and in this show, he invites the audience to watch his hands and scrutinize every move through the use of a camera and big screen. Come along and find out if the hand is really quicker than the eye.

Tickets are £3.50 each, with doors opening at 7.30pm for an 8pm start. Book online or by calling our Box Office on 0191 230 5151.

Online booking problems

Due to the installation of some new hardware, we are currently unable to take bookings online. We hope this will be fixed on Monday, but in the meantime please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Whilst our Box Office is closed on Sunday, if you would like to reserve tickets please email us at info@northernstage.co.uk or call 0191 230 5151 and leave a message. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

UPDATE: Now fixed and working properly as of Wednesday morning at 9am.

The Art of Business Performance

Northern Stage presents a new series of workshops for individuals wishing to develop their communication and presentation skills. Our last event in July received significant praise and endorsement from delegates, including representatives from RBS, Northumbrian Water, Newcastle City Council and Newcastle Building Society.

Our next workshop is on Tuesday 14 October. Erica Whyman, Chief Executive of Northern Stage and Director of recent productions including Our Friends in the North and A Christmas Carol will lead a Communication Skills workshop with a professional actor. This workshop is aimed at individuals who wish to boost their performance in presenting to a range of audiences, including meetings with colleagues and clients, pitching for new business and after dinner speaking.

This full day course with lunch offers extremely good value for money, with an inclusive price of £195 + VAT per person.

If you would like further information and booking details for this workshop please email Jane Hall at jhall@northernstage.co.uk

The Peter Green Award / Great North run sponsorship

Northern Stage is setting up a new training scheme, the Peter Green Award, named after our Production Manager who very sadly died in October 2007. Each year one young person will receive an individually tailored placement with Northern Stage's workshop and technical teams, to help them take their first step towards launching a career in theatre production. You can find out more about the award here.

On the first anniversary of Peter’s death, Susan Mulholland, Northern Stage’s Participation & Learning Co-ordinator, will be running the Great North Run to fundraise for the Award.



Susan says:

"I am looking forward to what will be my fifth Great North Run and it feels very special to be doing this one to raise funds for the Peter Green Award. Everyone at Northern Stage, along with his family and friends, believe this training scheme is a very appropriate and long-lasting way to celebrate Peter’s memory and I hope you can help us realise his dream.”

PS “Please feel free to come and cheer me on, especially at the 10 mile mark when I won’t be feeling so great!”

Please sponsor Susan by donating on line. On our donations page, please choose the amount you would like to give to the award, and select add to basket. Your donation will be processed like a normal ticket transaction (and can be combined with a normal ticket purchase).

We will then contact you by email to ask your permission to claim Gift Aid on your donation. This will allow us to claim back your income tax in addition to your sponsorship. (Donors must pay enough UK income tax and/or capital gains tax themselves to cover the amount of tax the charity will reclaim.)

All funds received will support the Peter Green Award.

Hofesh: Vox Pops & Vids

On Friday and Saturday we play host to hotly-tipped choreographer Hofesh Shechter's In Your Rooms and Uprising - two stunning new dance pieces in one evening.

Dance Touring Partnership (who helped bring James son of James to Northern Stage) have done some Vox Pops early on the tour talking to audiences about the show. If you're still unsure, see what other members of the public had to say.

Whilst you're there, check out video from both shows, Hofesh's earlier work for E4's Skins and an interview with the director.

Tickets range from £5.50 to £18.50, with students and under-25s £8.50. You can book your tickets here.

Wang Qingsong - Sept 13 photo gallery

We've uploaded two galleries worth of photos taken in the make-up rooms and around the building last Saturday. Many more were taken in the auditorium, but you'll have to wait until the final artwork is unveiled at BALTIC on 21 October before we can show them.

Meanwhile, follow the links:

Front of House
Make-up

Wang Qingsong - a volunteer writes

Was it theatre?

We weren’t acting, at least I don’t think we were. I could feel though that many of us would have slipped easily into more developed roles. Take the people with serious injuries; I don’t know whether the make up artists suggested what the injuries might have been, but every single person had a story – machete wounds, a bullet’s exit and entry, boiling oil. Most had added narrative about how they came to have the injuries, and as the morning wore on these stories became more elaborate and more fixed.

As more and more people congregated with gowns and injuries I began to get a sense of the waiting so familiar to hospital experiences, but this was fleeting. What made it so was the mismatch between the expressions on people’s faces and their body language and their apparent physical condition. It was an atmosphere of muted excitement which was in no way like that of a hospital or casualty ward. This mismatch felt OK. It was comfortable, anticipatory and not boring or scary enough to be “real”.

Shortly before we were asked into the auditorium I wondered what this unfamiliar artist would ask us to do, and if anyone would refuse. How might our appearances and apparent roles influence our behaviour. I was reminded of the famous Milgram experiments (1963 onwards “The Perils of Obedience” 1974) which demonstrated the extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of authority. I noticed the people dressed as paramedics and volunteers wearing nursing gear and doctors’ coats with stethoscopes seemed to have slipped right into a recognisable stance and demeanour. Some of them had developed “important” walks. The Zimbardo prison experiment (1971) chillingly demonstrated that the mere wearing of uniforms dictated the ways in which groups of volunteers treated one another over a period of time. Awareness of this made me poised to resist – especially since I was dressed as a potential vulnerable “victim”.

In the event there was no opportunity for any of this. We simply had our photographs taken, and it was over in a very short time. I felt disappointment which was quickly replaced by curiosity at the suggestions people were making about what they would do next. Some were planning to go and impress their friends, scare people on the bus and fool their employers – I heard someone asking “their” make up artist how long they could make their injury last because they needed it for Monday. This was the day of the Newcastle United demonstration against Mike Ashley – people giggled about what an impact would we make if we all piled in wearing our gowns and injuries.

Was it theatre? Still not sure. It was good being in the theatre and taking part. It was fascinating being made up by a professional for the first time and seeing the process of Wang Quingsong’s work of art. I hope we all sat still enough for him to get four good shots!

Denise Johnson, volunteer participant
September 14th 2008

Wang Qingsong Liveblog

Today's the day and already over a hundred participants have entered the building, ready to be made up with a variety of interesting illnesses and horrific injuries prior to this afternoon's photo shoot.

Check back here regularly for comments from the participants as they tell us what's been going on so far, or drop into the Theatre where you can watch the days events unfold live on our foyer screens.

The Bloody Chamber playtext

To celebrate our production of The Bloody Chamber, Oberon Books are publishing a limited edition programme playtext of Bryony Lavery's new script. We've secured 300 copies to sell at the special price of just £3.50 each (£8.99 RRP).

Buy your copy now, and it will be held for collection with your tickets.

Lunchtime tai chi

On Friday 12 September we are holding lunchtime tai chi in Stage 2. Come along for a 12:30 start – you can take part in a 45 minute tai chi class suitable for beginners, followed by buffet lunch, tickets are only £4.

Places can be booked/reserved through our box office on 0191 230 5151.

How can the arts contribute to our emotional health?

As you may be aware, this week Northern Stage begins a residency with international artist Wang Qingsong. Qingsong is visiting us from China, to create a new photographic work exploring the notion of pain and healing, and theatre as a cathartic experience. The work involves 300 local participants being made up to look ill and bloodied, like a scene on a hospital ward, and will be exhibited at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art from 21st October to 24th November.

Qingsong arrives this evening, and as part of this residency and exciting new project, Northern Stage is holding an in-depth discussion tomorrow on Friday 12th September at 18:30, here in Stage 2, ‘How can the arts contribute to our emotional health?’ In the developed world where self-help is big business, mental illness affects someone in almost every family and happiness is hard to define, let alone sustain, what role do the Arts have in promoting and improving our emotional health? Wang Qingsong, during his residency at Northern Stage, has suggested that the theatre is or can be a place of emotional healing, with something important in common with a hospital. Our panel discussion will ask if this is a view of theatre we recognise, whether poetry, fine art, dance, film, music or architecture can make us "emotionally well". This is also an opportunity for you to share your views and gain an insight into this extraordinary residency.

Professor Paul Younger, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Engagement) at Newcastle University will be chairing the debate. The panel is made up of Erica Whyman, a theatre director and Chief Executive of Northern Stage, Dr Dominic Slowie GP and Artistic Director of Operating Theatre, a company which applies theatre practice to medical and public health learning, and Mike White, Director of Arts in Health at CAHHM, who has been awarded a fellowship of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts to research community-based arts in health and build national/international links in this field. We also hope to welcome Wang Qingsong to our discussion to give his views on why he chose this topic for his new photographic work, kindly translated by his wife and working partner Zhang Fang.

We very much hope that the discussion will be of interest to you, and that you can come along and join us for this free event.

Places can be booked/reserved through our box office on 0191 230 5151.

We hope to see you there.

Jeremy Hunt on creating Hospital Patients

Jeremy Hunt, effects artist. My thoughts so far…

So, getting involved in a project where a photographer wants to take 300 people and make them look like the inhabitants of a hospital/waiting room? Cool! The fact that the artist is someone I had become aware of a couple of months before (on the Culture Show) made it even more exciting and intriguing.

Normally on effects work you focus on one individual and so the make up/prosthetic is at a real high level of detail, taking quite a long time to achieve the illusion. This project can only be achieved in a different was. Trying to get through the sheer volume of people to a level that will be convincing on a large-scale photo is a cool challenge. The only time I’ve ever attempted something like this was doing the make up for the ‘zombie raves’ that have been put on for the past couple of years. If you can turn a drunken techno crowd into the living dead by the dozen, this is also possible!

After meeting up with Beckie, the practicalities of the logistics because clearer and less scary. Knowing that there were going to be 4 other special effects artist on the project, as well as assistants, made it less daunting. Also, knowing that some of the 300 were to be hospital staff and visitors cut down on the numbers requiring make up. Northern Stage getting hold of props (such as bandages and drips) along with all the costumes (hospital gowns etc) also brings the project further into the possible. Still, the sheer volume of people in a short space of time makes it a scary amount of make up!

The effects have to be striking from a distance, quick to apply, convincing and realistic. With only around 5 minutes per person, the ailments have to be thought out well before. This required the traditional brainstorming technique used by creative types for a long time; myself and Mark (the other effects artist I know on the project) went to the pub. Over a couple of pints, we discussed the various injuries and illnesses we thought possible, coming up with a list of quite terrible things that can befall an individual! This covered things from diseases to burns, from animal attacks to a child getting a pan stuck on their head! Deciding we need a run through on a couple of them with a willing ‘victim’ for our practice (Caroline!) and gave her a variety of make ups, which we also photographed. Other prep work so far has involved creating a ‘wound tray’ of sculpted, moulded and then cast in latex prosthetics, which can be quickly applied and blended with make up.

Meeting up with the others involved in the project is something to look forward to; the sharing of ideas and solving problems as a group is always dynamic and exciting on projects like this. The day itself looms nearer; a day of relentless hard work where a few people will turn hundreds into a living canvas to achieve one man’s vision!

There’s something surreal and horribly amusing to me, as to how it will look before the photos are taken; a veritable horde of people with horrendous make up chatting and drinking tea. Then the photograph images themselves; how are they going to look? What is Wang Qingsong’s vision? Can’t wait to see – let’s hope we can pull it off!

Wang Qingsong update

Wang Qingsong: Changing Cities

As the day of the big shoot draws nearer I thought I’d give you a behind the scenes peek at all the goings on at Northern Stage.

We started planning for Wang Qingsong’s residency way back in February when Qingsong and his wife popped over for a R&D visit. He spent time a lot of time visiting Newcastle’s cultural landmarks, meeting the local people and understanding what Northern Stage and Newcastle meant to him. Ultimately he came up with the idea of theatre as an emotionally healing experience.

Since then the idea has developed somewhat. It was decided that 300 participants would feature in the photograph and would be made to look ‘bloodied’ and ill and as if they were in a hospital, waiting to be healed, or perhaps in an auditorium waiting for a performance to begin.

So began a search for 300 sets of gowns, scrubs, tabards and doctors and nurses outfits (of the practical not sexy variety!), stethoscopes and IV drips. In flooded the responses from make up artists informing us they were excellent at creating ‘wormy infections using thongs and latex’, missing fingers and ‘booze related injuries’ and so, with everything in place, we began the search for 300 volunteers to flaunt these wonderful wounds.

People applied from far and wide (from Edinburgh to London), some as young as 3 months and some as young as 76, and before we knew it we had over 600 participants interested in the project. After whittling down the applicants we sent out a congratulations or commiserations email and began planning the day.

We plan to stream live from Stage 1 while Wang Qingsong works, so nobody misses out and we are working closely with Culture Lab, who are documenting the entire day, following the process and also the journey of our participants. National Journalists will be interviewing Qingsong and capturing the whole process on camera, and the final images will preview at Northern Stage before being displayed at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art from 21 October to 24 November.

Of course, there was plenty more to be arranged, visas, work permits, translators, schedules and itineraries, all the hospitality and logistics involved in such a big project, right down to all the tiny details of buying tons of make up remover and cotton wool, or enough pastries and sandwiches to feed 300 hungry patients! With Qingsong himself arriving next Thursday, everything is kicking into action, and things are getting really exciting… watch this space!


Sophie Temple

Summer School 2008: full show video online

Whether you took part, knew someone who did or are just interested to see some of the freshest new talent developing in the region, you can now watch the full video of 2008's Summer School performance.

The link takes you through to our Summer School page, but you can open the video to full screen if you like - it's almost 80 minutes long, so make sure you grab a cup of tea first. If you're interested in taking part in next year's performance, we hope to have details available soon.

Brochure corrections

No sooner has it made it out of the building, when we notice a couple of misprints in the brochure...

Hansel & Gretel (page 13) is sadly not playing for a full year - the correct dates are 28 Nov 2008 - 10 Jan 2009.

Look Back in Anger (page 17) should read Fri 6 - Sat 21 March 7.30pm.