New Strides Productions

This year New Strides returns to the Calton Cafe Theatre bar in Montgomery St with a great line up of plays and music. Along with Red Card Theatre and Meanwhile Theatre we are showing five newly written plays and in the evenings we are blessed with the presence of some great jazz musicans. The line up is as follows:

ASTURIAS - NEW STRIDES THEATRE

7-12th Aug, 14-19 Aug, 22nd-26th Aug at 6.00pm (£7.50, concs £6)

Mineworkers and Government in conflict! Spanish miners joining a political uprising find themselves standing alone against Francisco Franco and an army of Moroccan mercenaries. Pathos, despair, hope and humour. Free tapas and a glass of sidra set the mood.

FROGMAN - Meanwhile Theatre - 7th-12th Aug, 14th-19th Aug, 22nd-26th Aug at 1.45pm (£7.50)

From suburban nightmare to sub aquatic bliss. The police frogman whose work takes on a life of its own, the smoking teenager who dreams of flight and the dancing asthma queen who turns her prince into a frog…

RED CARD THEATRE - DESCENT

7-12th Aug, 14-19th Aug, 22nd-26th Aug at 12 Noon (£7.50, concs £6.00)

1943. A woman prepares alone for the last of many journeys. There is only a single suitcase for her possessions, memory and reminiscence. Tomorrow she travels eastwards to an unknown destination. Perhaps life will be better.

DENIAL - RED CARD THEATRE

7-12th Aug, 14th-19th Aug, 22nd -26th Aug at 4pm (£7.50, concs £6.00)

Three ‘pilgrims’ visit Auschwitz in the present day. They come not to mourn the dead but to celebrate the architects of the final solution. A powerful and disturbing insight into holocaust denial. Poignant, shocking but ultimately hopeful.

DARK LANTERN - RED CARD THEATRE

7-12th Aug,14th-19th Aug,22nd-26th Aug at 6.30pm (£7.50, concs £6)

Lorenzo hears the voices of the saved, the survivors of the holocaust. Each has a different story clamouring to be heard, an individual story of resistance, dissent or acquiescence burning brightly within the dark lantern.

BORN TO SWING -THE GEOFF CASTLE TRIO + SPECIAL GUESTS

6-26th August at 8.45pm (£9, conc £7.50)

Pianist Geoff Castle’s Jazz ‘n’ Latin trio features star vocalist and percussionist Frank Holder, plus top US altosaxist Bob Martin. Special guests Freddy King, the Powder Jazz Trio. Great food and wine in an intimate club atmosphere. All seated.

SPECIAL OFFER!

See all of the Red Card triology (Descent, Denial and Dark Lantern) for the special price of £19 (£15.00 concs).

Shows may be seen on different days throughout the fringe period.These tickets can only be reserved through the Calton Box Office (07757 352709) or bought at the venue from the 6th August.

Some new photographs from performances of Tea With Mrs. Pankhurst are now on the site. View the photos here.

When school children Gemma and Harry find a purse on the street, they can’t believe their luck. Gemma can buy some nice things for her mum who isn’t very well, and some sweets and Harry can get the CD he wants. But questions begin to arise. Do they really have the right to keep the purse? And will they get into trouble if they spend the money?

DEBATE! is a new interactive drama experience for primary schools (Key Stage 2/P4, 5,6,7), set up to encourage and develop children’s debating skills.

Beginning with a twenty-minute play, four professional actors present a live ‘video’ of a moral dilemma. As the characters find the situation going wrong, they ‘rewind’ – and with the help of the audience, show different outcomes to the problem.

Following on from the play, drama games and exercises are applied to demonstrate the importance of listening and responding accordingly in a debate. The session culminates with a formal ‘parliamentary’ debate by the participants of the topics raised.

DEBATE! has been piloted in London to great success and is available as part on an ongoing project.

We have now successfully adapted our play ‘Tea With Mrs Pankhurst’ for schools. It needed only small alteration and it has had a great response from young people everywhere it has gone.

The Play
Emmeline Pankhurst and Selina Cooper took tea together many times. Yet these two suffrage leaders had not only different approaches to gaining the vote, but also different motives.

Exploring the suffrage movement and the conflicts within it, this fast paced production gives great insight into Edwardian Britain and beyond. It also shows the impact that war had upon the suffrage movement and begs the questions ‘ who won the vote?’

The Curriculum
Suitable for Key Stages 3 and 4 and S3-6, Tea With Mrs Pankhurst incorporates both History and Citizenship. It encourages debate and discussion and encourages young people to respect the right to vote. It also demonstrates the different methods employed by suffragists and suffragettes and asks important questions about the impact of the franchise movement upon society. The play is available with a full teachers pack and an after-show character ‘hot-seating’ session as well as actor discussion with the audience.

With a cast of four professional actors playing a whole host of colourful characters, Tea With Mrs Pankhurst brings the suffrage campaign to life and shows how this historic movement is still relevant today.

“Featuring sophisticated agitprop, friendly audience participation and some lovely moments of wit, the play’s historical content unfolds in a series of short episodes, beautifully enacted by the cast” The Stage & Television Today, review of Tea with Mrs Pankhurst.

BOOK EARLY TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT Please call 07792752409 for further details

2004 has been a busy year (as usual) for the company. We have continued to tour both our plays Tea With Mrs Pankhurst and Purge to all sorts of different venues nationwide and we have expanded our Pankhurst tour to schools. This has been greatly received. We also had the privilege of performing it at the Unity Hall in Nelson, Selina’s home town and the hall that she herself laid the foundation stone for. A talk was given by historian and author Jill Liddington and suffrage songs were sung by a local choir. The hall was packed with local Nelson people some of whom actually knew Selina and her daughter Mary. (see pictures of Nelson performance)We also performed Purge at the TUC conference in Brighton at the Old Market Theatre. As usual there were some minor cast alterations with new boy Garth Williams gallantly taking the role of Paolo and Lori doing a wonderful Maganzinni.

Another of our old allies Colleen Daley (Indestructible Man) has also joined the Pankhurst team and Lori, Ruth, Nicki and Coll are having great fun on the road together (as well as handling tricky ‘hot-seating’ sessions in schools).

Both ‘Debate’ for primary schools and Tea With Mrs Pankhurst (for secondary schools and community venues) will be touring extensively throughout 2005. As well as this we have many projects on the back boiler to be revealed shortly. We are also trying to get some funding this year (about time!). The going is tough as it is for all small-scale theatre companies, but each year New Strides seems to expand more and we are optimistic for the future.

One of our bases has now changed. We no longer have a base in Northern Ireland as Ruth has moved to Calderdale (West Yorks). See our brochure or contact page for the new address.

This year has been a busy one so far for us as New Strides continues to spread its wings. As well as continuing performances of both Tea With Mrs Pankhurst (see Tea With Mrs. Pankhurst below for details of upcoming shows) and Purge (see Unison Conference 2004below for a report on our last run in Glasgow), we have been involved in many successful workshops including a conference in Wales for a self advocacy group of people with learning difficulties (in which Lori, Tiran, Eve and James found out that shaving foam isn’t the best substance to use for custard pies!). We also ran a week long workshop for children in Hebden Bridge on the theme of legends ending in a performance of ‘The Sword in the Stone’ to parents and friends. This was great week and due to popular demand we are running a longer workshop in July (details to be posted soon).

Tea with Mrs Pankhurst will be opening the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival in June. Then from the Autumn we shall be taking it on tour around secondary schools as well as different arts venues across the country.For details of either please email us or telephone 07792 752409.

Purge was played to great success at the Arches Theatre in Glasgow at the end of April as part of the Unison Conference. The cast was slightly altered due to actors commitments elsewhere – Tiran, Neil and Ruth remained in role and were joined by Nicki V, Wendy and the latest addition to our ever expanding New Strides family, Michael Hugo. All credit to these three actors who had only a week to get to grips with the script.We had good audiences for each performance and it was a pleasure to play in such a nice venue. Thanks to Unison for support and also for allowing us to invade their union social. Much wine was drunk and much bad karaoke sung to startled delegates, including the girls singing ‘Its Raining Men’ (against their will) and a very cute version of ‘I got you Babe’ by Mike and Ben. By the end of the evening however, everybody in the room was doing the Highland fling.

We look forward to working more with Unison. We are presently trying to organise a national tour of Purge. Updates on this soon.