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

Take Part at Northern Stage

The participation team is proud to announce a wealth of activities taking place this Autumn.

There’s loads going on for young people this season, not least the launch of Northern Stage’s first ever Young Performance Group in September. If you’re aged between 13 – 16 and full of ideas and enthusiasm you should sign up now for the chance to take part in this 10 week project which will culminate in a performance on the magical set of our under sixes Christmas show, The Goblin Who Saved Christmas. We’ll be hosting a variety of performances and events throughout ‘Juice’, a celebration of work by young people for young people throughout October and November, and on the 1 November we welcome the return of our popular Family Day. Why not come along and make your very own gingerbread house that will be displayed in the theatre for all to see over the festive season?

For more chances to get involved with our two fabulous Christmas shows, Hansel & Gretel and The Goblin Who Saved Christmas head along to Seven Stories to meet the cast in an extra special story telling session and make Goblin decorations to adorn the Northern Stage Christmas tree (more info coming soon). Don’t forget you can purchase a limited edition A4 picturebook of The Goblin Who Saved Christmas when you book your tickets for the show online or at Box Office.

This autumn we have decided that it shouldn’t just be the performance group who get the chance to get involved with Northern Stage skills workshops so we are delighted to announce a new season of workshops open to everybody. They take place on a one off basis so you can just pick and choose which sessions you think you would enjoy. You don’t need any special knowledge or skills, just come along and have some fun and learn something new. The first session is with Monkfish productions on Wednesday 8 October and even better, it’s FREE with a ticket to the show!

Next month the participation team will be starting some behind the scenes work on the Looking For Bill project which will take place in and around Newcastle in October. Forming part of Northern Stage’s ongoing exploration of theatre taking place in unusual spaces and theatre spaces being used in unusual ways, Looking For Bill will culminate with some of Shakespeare’s most remarkable monologues being performed in places you would least expect them...keep your eyes peeled on the Metro!

For more information on any of these projects see the participation section of the website.

Hopefully see you soon! Sophie.

Workshops update

Being off-site, you don't often see or hear much from our workshops team, but they're the people behind all the fantastic sets you'll see in our shows as well as the same team who designed and made much of the furniture you'll find around the building.

At the moment they're hard at work building the set for The Bloody Chamber, which amongst other things features this custom made Grand Piano. You can click on the images for larger versions.





What you may not realise is that they also build a lot of commissioned work. They've recently built a giant disco wardrobe which is being taken to Edinburgh for The Gymnast, and they're hard at working building the set for Skellig at the Sage Gateshead, based on a design by Rea Smith. You can see photos of the model box below.







Thanks to Mike Wymark, Head of Workshops for the photographs.