Baa Moo Yellow Dog photos

Half Moon Young People's Theatre have sent us a few photos of their under-sixes show, Baa Moo Yellow Dog, which is in Stage 2 next week (3-5 March). Tuesday and Thursday are sold out, but there's still a few tickets left for both Wednesday performances.

Look Back in Anger: Rehearsal Diary pt 1

Oliver Baird, the assistant director on Look Back in Anger has been keeping a diary during rehearsals for the show. Here he shares the first part of his thoughts on the process - parts two & three will follow over the next week. Look Back in Anger opens on Fri 6 March.

---

From LBIA Rehearsals

Look Back in Anger is a play of contradictions. It is the play that turned British theatre on its head, yet is faithful to the old three-act structure. It is a play of huge ideas, themes, and rhetoric, squashed into a cramped bedsit. It is comic, heartbreaking, vicious, but these characteristics are not discrete: there is great humour in the pain, and great pain in the humour. In short, it is a challenge to put on, and rehearsals have confirmed our initial view that this is not some dusty old museum piece, and that the shock it caused in 1956 does not now seem quaint: it retains its power, and is as vital and energetic and raging as it ever was.

The early rehearsals are about getting to know each other, and getting to know the play. On the first day everyone is in the rehearsal room - cast, crew, and a large number of the staff from Northern Stage. It is important that everyone meets, for while the core of day-to-day rehearsing involves five actors and some of the production team, there is a larger team outside the room who support and help the production, from the costume, sound, lighting, and construction departments to marketing, accounts, and front of house - all of them will contribute hugely to putting the show on. Since they will not all regularly be in rehearsal, the meeting gives everyone a sense of team spirit. There is coffee, and cake, and introductions, and all the effusive but faintly nervous chatter that makes it feel a bit like the first day back at school. Or, for many, the first day at a new school entirely.

Erica (Whyman, the director) introduces the play, and talks about the design concept. Soutra Gilmour, the designer, can’t be with us as she is rather glamorously opening a show in the West End, so Erica takes us all through the model box, a three-dimensional scale model of the design. It is not realist - that is, it is not a faithful reproduction of a 1950s bedsit, where it is set - which is hugely exciting, as it will help the audience understand from the moment they walk in the theatre that this play is both historical in setting and urgently contemporary. The furniture and costumes are all 1950s - every iron, newspaper, chair, radio - but set on an open stage, a central square of which is bounded in a thin, faded line. A background flat is propped against the back wall, a relic, perhaps, from a previous production, and we understand that we are in a theatre - that back wall contains a meticulous reconstruction of a period theatre wall.

After the design discussions, it’s more coffee and the actors have their measurements taken for the costume designs, and those not directly involved in the rehearsal process leave. And then it’s down to discussion. In describing rehearsals it is nearly impossible to give an accurate impression of the work that goes on. From the outside, it is a very simple process: the actors and director read or act a section of the play, they stop and discuss what they’ve just done, and then often go back over it again to apply what was discussed. It is as practical as that. But what that discussion covers changes from director to director, actor to actor, play to play, and even day to day. In the first week, Erica wanted us to find out who these characters are, and the circumstances in which they live. Her first question to the cast was ‘what do you like about your character?’. In reading a play we are accustomed to focussing on the antagonism, but in order to play the parts the actors have to find something in that character they admire, for if they cannot find that themselves, the audience will not either, and therefore never truly understand what is at stake. Erica’s question is deceptively simple, and is a useful tool for unpicking the minds of the characters - and the actors playing them. Bill Ward, playing Jimmy, seemingly has the hardest job answering the question, given Jimmy’s almost continual outbursts of rage and cruelty. But even his first, instinctive answers give great possibilities: honesty, the ability to strip away the trivial, the desire for people to connect, to live fully, to feel deeply.

LBIA: Rehearsal gallery

At the moment we're writing up the first part of the rehearsal diary for Look Back in Anger, but to keep you occupied in the meantime here's a slideshow taken straight from the rehearsal rooms in Byker. You can go to the main gallery to see them all at a higher resolution.

Dine 1950s style

To celebrate our production of John Osborne’s 1956 play Look Back in Anger, Northern Stage and McKenna’s restaurant have joined forces to create a menu true to the period.

When you buy your ticket for the show, why not book and enjoy a 1950s inspired pre-show meal of two courses for just £10 per person? Choose from either a starter and main or main and desert. Your table will be reserved and ready for you an hour and a half prior to the evening performance.

Normal booking conditions apply. Limited to 20 bookings per night. Call the Box Office on 0191 230 5151 to reserve your seats.

1950’s Bistro Menu

Starters

Soup of the Day

Classic Prawn Cocktail

Melon Boat

Main Course

Belly Pork served with Apple Mash

Liver and Onions served with Turnip and Carrot Mash

Nut Cutlet served with Ratatouille

Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding

Fruit Crumble with Custard

Chocolate Mousse – McKenna’s version of Angel Delight

Speak Of Me As I Am

Speak Of Me As I Am
Pre-show talk
Stage 3, 5.30-6.30pm (Othello begins at 7.30pm)
FREE

Paul Robeson was the first black actor of the 20th Century to play Shakespeare's Othello. He used the show to combat racism but when on tour he was under constant surveillance as authorities tried relentlessly to silence him.

On Friday 20th February Tony Howard, specialist lecturer in Shakespeare and Performance, will host a pre-show discussion exploring Robeson's extraordinary career. He will draw on MI5 and Special Branch secret files relating to Robeson's activities, as well as comments from local left-wing contacts in Newcastle and Gateshead in 1949. He will also present rare recordings of Robeson's performance as Othello.

An exhibition of Robeson's career and legacy will also run alongside the production of Othello.

To book your place at the pre-show discussion ring the Box Office on 0191 230 5151.

Look Back in Anger marketing meeting

As a student ambassador for Northern Stage I am working closely with the marketing team for the up and coming production for Look back in Anger and I sat in on the marketing meeting on the 28th January. I went into the meeting not knowing much about the play or how meetings like this work.

In the meeting we were asked: How do we market this play to people know it and also to people like me that don’t know much about it?

What we spoke about:.

• How we don’t want people to think that Look Back In Anger is an easy watch.
  
• How the marketing of Look Back In Anger would have to be different to that of A Dolls House as the plot line of the show and the messages that the play gives off are different.
  
• How the play could be seen as naturalistic and how it is real but so unreal at the same time.
  
• How we could get the audience involved. Dysfunctional relationships are so common these days and we could use this to make the audience ask themselves how they would cope in that position.
  
• How we can play on the entrapment of Jimmy. For example he is trapped by society.
  
• We could also play on the metaphor of the sweet stall.

I came out of the meeting with lots of different ideas about the production of Look Back In Anger. One example is that it could be staged in a similar way to my unit 4 drama devised piece. They could have ripped wallpaper to show the devastation that Jimmy causes for himself and the people around him. They can use blue floods and this will also tie in with the devastation.

I feel that people should see this play because it doesn’t just apply to the time it was set. The themes and issues of the play also tie in with modern times. I feel that this play will give you a wider knowledge of what can go on around you that you may not be aware of, also this play will leave you analysing your own lifestyle and allow you to make changes in the way that you live your life in these hard times.

RSC season on sale at midnight

The RSC's Autumn Season goes on sale at midnight tonight:

Days of Significance
21 - 24 October

A Tender Thing
29 October - 7 November

Twelfth Floor Videos

Dance Touring Partnership have sent us a couple of videos promoting Tanja Liedtke's Twelfth Floor, which is in Stage 1 tomorrow evening.





Twelfth Floor
Sat 14 February, 7.30pm

find out more / book now

Listen at Lunch call for Short Stories

New Writing North has got together with Northern Stage to invite people to submit stories inspired by plays in Northern Stage’s new season for a programme of lunchtime readings. The first of these will be Northern Stage’s production of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger.

Look Back in Anger was a sensation when it originally appeared at the Royal Court Theatre in 1956. Jimmy Porter is the original ‘angry young man’. Funny, clever, charismatic; he should have it all. Has the world let him down? Or is he intent on destroying himself and everyone he loves? Alison, his wife, suffers his furies on a daily basis and the arrival of her upper-class best friend can only inflame Jimmy more.

You can respond in any way you wish to this seminal piece of theatre, it may be the themes, the politics, the characters or narrative or it could be about its place in the history of theatre – it’s up to you. Please submit your Look Back in Anger inspired story, which should be no more than 2000 words by Monday 23 February 2009.

The selected stories will be read by actors from the cast of each show for an audience who will eat their lunch while they listen to the stories in Stage 3 at Northern Stage. The Look Back in Anger event will take place on Thursday 19 March 2009

Please submit your stories as a word document attachment to New Writing North at: olivia@newwritingnorth.com or post them to Listen at Lunch, New Writing North, Culture Lab, Kings Walk, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU (if you are posting them please send two copies of the story)

Summer School 2009 - Apply Now!

20th to 25th July 2009
£120
11 – 20 year olds

For this one week only, the entire theatre is opened up to young people, giving them the chance to make their own show and perform it on our main stage. Alongside sessions on acting and devising theatre, there are lots of opportunities to get involved with the technical, costume, and marketing sides of making theatre.

For any young people who want to get involved but don't fancy acting, we also run a technical strand to the summer school, where participants find out all about lighting, sound and staging working with Northern Stage’s technical team.

The last two Summer Schools have been a huge success and demand has exceeded the 50 places we can offer. This year, to give as many young people as possible access we have decided to assign half of the places to new participants. All places will still be allocated on a first come, first served basis, so previous summer schoolers and new participants alike, you need to be quick to get your form in as places are limited!

To register your interest in taking part please download and complete either the acting or technical application form and return it to Jo Cundall, Participation & Programming Co-ordinator (The return address is on the form).

Please do not send payment now. Payment arrangements will be made once your place has been confirmed.

Jo will be in touch with those of you who have got a place by the end of March.

Subsidised Places

Northern Stage offers a subsidised place scheme for people who love theatre but would otherwise not be able to afford to attend the summer school. This year we will be offering 5 places for the reduced price of £30 each.

If you would like to be considered for a subsidised place please indicate this on your application form. Subsidised places will be confirmed by April.

Waygood Art Boutique @ Northern Stage

A series of exhibitions featuring art from Waygood Art Boutique can be seen in the Dickinson Dees Room at Northern Stage, during normal opening hours (except during private events).

Kairos, Dee Shaw
9 February – 21 March 2009
Reception: 2-4pm Saturday 28 February 2009



The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos, meaning chronological time which is quantative and kairos indicating a moment of undetermined time when something of importance happens. This aspect is qualitative.

“I took these photographs as I walked along Depot Road on the way to my studio at Harker’s Building. Within three days these windows were hidden from view behind sheets of wood. And as we witnessed, they were spectacularly demolished along with the rest of the Parson/Siemens building. The windows in their cracked form, beautifully repaired with industrial silicone were like a gallery of paintings fulfilling the qualitative meaning of time and the upheaval to come.”

In antiquity Kairos was the god of the fleeting moment.

---

Waygood is an artist-led gallery and studios undergoing a major £7.8million redevelopment to create a new cultural venue on High Bridge in the centre of Newcastle.

Whilst the redevelopment continues on the warehouses behind, Waygood Art Boutique, a small selling gallery offering contemporary art by artists associated with Waygood, is open at 31 High Bridge, Newcastle between 12noon and 5pm Wednesdays - Saturdays.

More seats on sale for Othello

The RSC have confirmed that they won't need a sound desk inside the auditorium for Othello, so we're happy to say that there are an extra 16 seats available for every performance of this previously sold out show.

Othello