Ah har, Me Lads & Lasses! It’s Swallows & Amazons Time

Outside The Festival Theatre yesterday, a chilly February frost soon melted to the warming chirps and trills of excited pupils from Sacred Heart Primary School, Penicuik.

Eager eyes sparkling in brilliant sunshine were looking forward to a midweek matinee performance of  the Bristol Old  Vic’s musical stage adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s age of innocence, ‘messing about in boats’ childhood adventure, ‘Swallows And Amazons’.

And a pre-performance treat was also on offer with a hands-on workshop led by Staff Director, Cressida Brown. Pupils were able to share interpretations of storm-tossed ships in group soundscapes and mimes beneath the very proscenium arch where the show was soon to commence.

Speaking to The Edinburgh Reporter shortly before the performance, Headteacher and visit organiser, Mary Durkacz, praised both The Festival Theatre and Bristol Vic’s determination to make this an unforgettable day for pupils and staff (all on their very best behaviour of course! ER).

And Headteacher’s final report? ‘This was a charming, imaginative and refreshing production. It held the children completely spellbound and brought many adults fond reminiscences of lakeside summers they have only had in their imaginations. Full praise then to Tom Morris’ deft direction of Helen Edmunson’s sympathetic and evocative adaptation.’

The show runs until February 4th and is a delightfully witty celebration of a magical story enhanced  by  ingenious mechanical effects and mind-boggling mime. All aboard me hearties!

Numberjacks comes to Edinburgh

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh Mon 10^th – Tues 11^th Oct

 An award winning television series running on BBC TV’s CBeebies since 2006, the animated Numberjacks help young children learn about numbers, shapes and sizes in a fun and imaginative way.  The Numberjacks are ten superheroes who live inside a sofa, but now they are emerging from their home and TV screen for their first live show!

Touring across the UK, the Numberjacks need the children’s help to solve tricky problems and beat the dastardly Meanies, like the Numbertaker and Spooky Spoon, who do all they can to disrupt proceedings, but with help from viewers, the heroic Numberjacks will win the day.

The series won the Royal Television Society Award for the best pre-school educational programme two years running, and adheres to the Early Years Foundation Stage syllabus and the Primary National Strategy Framework for Teaching Mathematics.  The show introduces children as young as two to the world of maths in a fun and lively way.

Since its founding in 1989, Open Mind Productions have produced hundreds of children’s shows for BBC, Channel 4, SEAC and CBeebies including Numberjacks, BAFTA Award-winning Ratatatat (1999), RTS Primary Literacy and Numeracy Award-winning The Number Crew (2000), and Living Proof, which received the Royal Television Society Best Junior Programme Award for 1996 and was nominated for the Japan Prize. The company was founded by former BBC film editor Roland Tongue, and Chris Ellis, former teacher, TV scriptwriter and producer.

 

Lenny Henry – Cradle to Rave

Lenny Henry’s new one man show is on at the Festival Theatre tonight. You might be lucky enough to get a ticket. If you do let us know what you think – room for comments below!

‘Cradle to Rave’ is a comical musical journey, exploring the role that music has had – and will have -in Henry’s life from the “womb to the tomb”, written by Lenny Henry and Jon Canter.

Doors open at 7.30 pm and tickets are £25 – see https://booking.fctt.co.uk/EventSeatBlockOption.aspx to book online or call the box office on 0131 529 6000.

Edinburgh Jobs – Student Ambassadors

This is an unpaid job but could be one worth putting on your CV.

The job advert reads as follows:-

In January 2010 the Festival City Trust launched a new Student Ambassador Scheme. Students from Edinburgh, Napier and Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh College of Art, Stirling University and Telford College were given the opportunity to get an insight into the work of the Trust with hands on marketing experience that has added meat to their C.V.s!

We are now looking for more students  to work in campus focus groups to promote the Trust’s productions (lots of amazing ones coming up!), and discounts; like our £10 Student Standby tickets throughout the new Academic Year 11/12.

If you’d like to apply we’d love to hear from you. Please email emma.robertson@eft.co.uk for more information on what the Ambassador position would involve.

You can also read the advert on the Festival City Theatre Trust website.

Lenny Henry coming to Edinburgh

Lenny Henry returns to his musical roots in his new one man comedy

show

Cradle To Rave

Tues 26th April 2011 – Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Music has always been a huge part of Lenny’s life and it was impersonating Stevie Wonder that first catapulted him into the entertainment industry in 1975. Lenny won the New Faces talent show at 16 years old and has been a comedian ever since.

An accomplished comedian, actor, writer, TV presenter and fund-raiser, Lenny still cites his first love as music.

Cradle To Rave which Lenny co-wrote with Jon Carter, will take audiences on a voyage through the decades exploring the exact role music has played in his life and continues to play. It is a touching journey but, in true Lenny style there are plenty of laughs and lots of funky tunes.

The show is a departure from Lenny’s last critically acclaimed performance playing Othello in Northern Broadsides award winning Shakespeare production.

Listings:
Edinburgh, Festival Theatre
Lenny Henry – Cradle to Rave
Tue 26 April
7.30pm
Tickets £25.50
Box Office: 0131 529 6000/http://www.festivaltheatre.org.uk

Blues Brothers competition – We have winners!

The question was:- Apart from The Blues Brothers name two other films in which John Belushi starred with Dan Aykroyd.

The answer is:- 1941 and Neighbors

We have emailed the winners. Well done to all three who win a pair of tickets to go and see The Blues Brothers when the show comes to The Festival Theatre on 22 February.

And thank you to The Festival Theatre for donating the prizes.

Maria Callas at The King’s

Actress Stephanie Beacham, known worldwide for her role as Sable Colby in The Colbys and Dynasty, takes to the stage this season as the great diva Maria Callas, in the award winning Master Class by Terence McNally, directed by Jonathan Church.

Maria Callas remains one of the towering figures of the opera world. Larger- than-life and gorgeously glamorous she is as famous for her private life, her passionate love affair with the tycoon Aristotle Onassis, her rivalry with other opera singers and her untimely death in 1977, as for her extraordinary musical and dramatic talents.

Inspired by the master classes Callas gave in New York in the early seventies, MASTER CLASS invites you to observe the great diva in action as she puts three aspiring singers through their paces. Witty, bitchy, grandiose, demanding and insecure, she reminisces on the triumphs and tragedies of her life and career now that both her voice and her personal life have fallen apart.

STEPHANIE BEACHAM plays the iconic Callas. As well as The Colbys and Dynasty, Stephanie’s other major television credits include Tenko and Bad Girls. She also performed in series 6 of Strictly Come Dancing, played Martha, a love interest for Ken Barlow in Coronation Street and starred in Celebrity Big Brother 2010. Extensive stage work includes, most recently, Peter Hall’s production of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever.

MASTER CLASS was a huge hit on Broadway where it won both the 1996 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play and the 1996 Tony Award for Best Play. This new production is directed by Jonathan Church, the acclaimed artistic director of Chichester Festival Theatre. Multi Award-winning American playwright Terrence McNally’s work includes The Ritz, The Lisbon Traviata, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and Love! Valour! Compassion! He has also written librettos for musicals including The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Ragtime and the USA version of The Full Monty.

MASTER CLASS is produced by Theatre Royal Bath Productions whose recent productions include The History Boys, Enjoy with Alison Steadman in the West End and on tour and Mrs Warren’s Profession with Felicity Kendall, also West End and on tour. Current productions include The Rivals with Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles and Blithe Spirit with Alison Steadman, Hermione Norris, Robert Bathurst and Ruthie Henshall, which will be touring before a West End transfer early next year.

Master Class
Tue 8 – Sat 12 February
7.30pm / Wed & Sat 2.30pm
Tickets:  Opening Night & matinees £14.50 – £23.00 /Eves £16.50 – £27.50
Box Office – 0131 529 6000

Pinocchio at The Festival Theatre

Opera North’s production makes a return to entertain a new generation of opera-goers, after its great success when it premiered three years ago and their website promises that they have loads to tell you about it, including video, music clips, a kids storybook, cast interviews, reviews, and a gallery full of initial designs and production shots.

Created by talented duo, Jonathan Dove and librettist, Alasdair Middleton, it is based on the original 1883 book by Carlo Collodi.

Enter a fairytale world full of colourful characters, and join Pinocchio on his quest to become a real boy. Guided by the Blue Fairy and chirruping Cricket, Pinocchio still can’t help tumbling nose first into trouble: he’s tricked by the sly Fox and clever Cat, his lying nose is pecked by woodpeckers, he’s captured in the Big Green Fisherman’s net and is even turned into a performing donkey. Spellbinding music, memorable songs and a magical set shape this fantastical production, which captures all the inventiveness and charm of the original creation.

[caption id="attachment_3643" align="alignleft" width="350" caption="Photo by Robert Workman"][/caption]

Bringing this irresistible story to life is most of the original cast and creative team. Including the mezzo-soprano Victoria Simmonds (Dorabella, Così fan tutte 2009/10), as Pinocchio, soprano Mary Plazas, singing The Blue Fairy and the renowned baritone, Jonathan Summers, as Geppetto, Pinocchio’s Father.

Booking details on the Festival Theatre website

Sunshine on Leith

Dundee Rep Theatre’s award winning musical Sunshine on Leith, based on the songs of The Proclaimers is staged at The Festival Theatre from 12th-16th October 2010

First performed in 2007 Sunshine on Leith is a touching story about the lives of two Scotsmen who leave the army and return home to their families in Leith. Three very different love stories ensue and are intertwined to create a funny, poignant and hugely entertaining show.

A nine-piece band brings to life 21 much loved Proclaimers’ songs including Letter from America, I’m on My Way, I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) and of course Sunshine on Leith.

Billy Boyd attained worldwide fame and acclaim with his portrayal of Peregrin “Pippin” Took in Peter Jackson’s epic film trilogy of The Lord of the Rings and Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Billy has toured the UK in stage productions of Trainspotting, Widows, Caledonia Dreaming and The Ballad of Crazy Paola.  In 2006 he performed in HOME:GLASGOW which was the first ever show for the National Theatre of Scotland and in 2007 he appeared at the Edinburgh Festival with Uncommitted Crimes.

Craig and Charlie Reid of The Proclaimers said of the show; ‘we are very happy that a theatre company of the quality of Dundee Rep with its fantastic history are producing a musical featuring our music’.

Sunshine on Leith is written by Stephen Greenhorn who is best known as the creator of BBC Scotland’s River City. He has written many plays for television and stage including Passing Places for the Traverse Theatre which has been produced worldwide and Dr Who.  James Brining is Artistic Director and Chief Executive for Dundee Rep.  Previously James worked as Artistic Director for TAG Theatre Company in Glasgow (where Director credits include Othello, Dr Faustus and Julius Ceasar), Orange Tree Richmond (where he directed The Merchant of Venice, The Winter’s Tale and Go Tell it on Table Mountain).

Sunshine on Leith won the 2007 TMA Best Musical Award and was nominated in five categories in 2007 CATS Awards (Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland).

Sunshine on Leith will be shown at 7.30pm /Thurs & Sat 2.30pm Tickets £13.00 – £27.50  Box Office: 0131 529 6000 Website: www.eft.co.uk

Everybody’s reading The Secret Garden!

The Festival Theatre is delighted to announce an exciting new Education Project to coincide with the venue’s spectacular in-house Christmas production, The Secret Garden.

Organised by the theatre’s Education Department, the scheme will offer every Primary 7 class in Edinburgh and the Lothians free copies of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic novel for each of their pupils along with detailed study resources. With many schools already signed up, the project is expected to engage with almost 10,000 young people.

Emma Robertson, Education and Audience Development Officer for the Festival Theatre, said: “We are delighted to be in a position to offer such a wonderful opportunity to local schools. The Secret Garden is a magical story, so we’re very much looking forward to exploring it with schools and to staging our musical version in December.”

The books, published by Penguin Popular Classics, will be delivered to the participating schools by the end of August and accompanying study materials and practical exercises linking to the Second Level Curriculumn for Excellence will be available at www.secretgardenmusical.co.uk.

Using The Secret Garden novel as a source material, the project will provide opportunities for Languages and Literacy work, as well as addressing other study areas such as Health and Wellbeing, Sciences (Our Living World), Social Studies and Religious and Moral Education. In addition, children will be able to explore the Expressive Arts through The Secret Garden stage show.

Robertson added: “With such a huge reach this project has scope to assist hundreds of Scottish Primary Schools make a smooth transition into teaching the Curriculum for Excellence and play a role in helping to give thousands of children a rounded and challenging first term in their last year of primary school.”

First published in 1911, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel continues to appeal to readers of all ages and regularly appears in the Top 10 of all time favourite children’s literature. It tells the tale of orphan Mary Lennox, sent to live with her uncle in his austere and foreboding property on the Yorkshire moors. Left to her own devices, Mary soon discovers her sickly cousin Colin, hidden away in a lonely corner of the house, and a secret walled garden. In bringing Colin and the garden together, can Mary help them both bloom again?

The Secret Garden musical, created by Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman and directed by Anna Linstrum, will become the latest in a line of exciting new in-house musicals produced by the Festival Theatre. The show runs for five weeks from Thursday 9 December 2010 to Saturday 8 January 2011. Then, at the invitation of Canada’s most prolific theatre producer and theatre manager David Mirvish, the production will transfer to the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, Canada.