There is exciting venue news in the West Midlands. Our esteemed friends in Coventry, Theatre Absolute, have commandeered an old Fish and Chip shop for 18 months and set up a “Shop Front Theatre”. The company who specialising in helping new playwrights develop their skills as well as staging the dynamic writing of Artistic Director Chris O’Connell are excited at how having a physical presence in a shopping centre will impact on their work and the relationship with their audience. By necessity they expect productions staged there to be stripped back and elemental, no bad thing as one of their principle interests is the power of words and strong acting. First up is a rehearsed reading of Chris’s acclaimed (and now 10 year old) tale of Joyriding: Car, which I enjoyed very much the first time round.
James
Great to hear about shop being used that way. I went to Bracknell sometimes ago and walking on the shopping street I was arrested by a shop front that was used by a performance group, another shop that was used by a group of visual artists as their studio and they allowed other artists to use the window to display their works for few weeks, another shop that had become the community centre and another one that was used by FigureGround for running their workshop on public art. I found this idea of blending art and shopping very exciting.
That sounds great and Bracknell has yet to inspire me in other ways so well done them. Yes, it turns out there are things people can do in their spare time other buy things.