In hip hop’s 50th anniversary year and ahead of the first Olympics to feature breaking as a sport, a new pathway for talented performers has been announced by Sadler’s Wells. Applications open today for Academy Breakin’ Convention, the new hip hop theatre school that’s one of the major initiatives at Sadler’s Wells’ fourth London venue, Sadler’s Wells East, due to open next year as part of the East Bank development in Stratford’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Heading up the groundbreaking project is artist-educator Niquelle LaTouche who has been appointed Head of School. The Artistic Director is Jonzi D, founder and Artistic Director of Breakin’ Convention and a Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist.
Young people are invited to apply for Academy Breakin’ Convention’s two-year course for 16 – 19 year olds, based at the state-of-the-art dance facilities of Sadler’s Wells East. With intensive, practical training in hip hop performing arts and a focus on live performance and theatre production at an international standard, the academy aims to develop the next generation of hip hop theatre artists.
The theatrical form of Cabaret has entertained audiences alike for over 500 years – a French form fusing dining and entertainment – the end result creating a relaxed atmosphere for theatregoers to shut off from the harsh realities of the outside world. A celebration of variety performance, live performance is given the platform to shine, to dazzle – something increasingly important in our new day and age. Hosting an evening of glamorous, daring, flirtatious live art, Cabaret All Stars Disco promises an experience filled with lots of laughs and entertainment.
Kiln Theatre today announces the appointment of Amit Sharma as Artistic Director and CEO – he takes up the role on 1 December 2023. Sharma is currently Associate Director at Kiln Theatre, and also works as a freelance director.
The 2023 UK Theatre Awards winners were revealed today (Sunday 8 October) in a ceremony at London’s Guildhall, hosted by Musical Theatre star Zoe Birkett. Lyric Theatre Belfast enjoyed double celebrations with The Beauty Queen Of Leenane, a collaborative production between Lyric Theatre Belfast and Prime Cut winning Best Play revival and Garry Hynes winning Best Director for the Druid Theatre production Druid O’Casey, a trilogy of stories written by Irish dramatist Sean O’Casey. In total, Irish theatres and production companies had four nods in the winners list.
The Faber New Play Award, which offers publication to coincide with the premiere, and a prize of £5,000, was granted to the best play written by an unpublished playwright under the WGGB New Play Commission Scheme. The scheme was a response to the decline in new theatre commissions during the Covid-19 pandemic, and offered eighteen commissions for playwrights across England in 2022. Under the scheme, And The Earth Opened Up Under Her has been commissioned by Pilot Theatre, York.
A major new training programme for early-career theatre-makers, THE KNOT brings together a cohort of 25 participants to explore and interrogate the essential skills needed to create work on their own terms at a time when the business of theatre has never felt tougher.
“We have reimagined what a night of illusion can be… I think we have liberated the magic show, it’s going to be a glorious thing”, quotes Derren Brown, renowned mentalist and illusionist recognised for his unique brand of magic which helped define the British magical landscape in the early naughties. Televisual feats defying expectation and putting magic on the map! Now crafting his latest stage show Unbelievable – a co-production with the Mercury Theatre Colchester, currently available to experience at the Criterion Theatre, Brown steps back from hosting and instead channels his skill through the charm and charisma of an ensemble of illusionists.