The third edition of Croydonites Festival of New Theatre will present works over four weeks between 27 April and 20 May 2018. Their mission is to bring new performance work to Croydon and provide a platform for local artists, with seven of the twelve based in the borough.
The organisers say,
“Get ready to be thrilled, soothed and made over. Get cosy with some late night radio, and spar with wolves. Take a thrilling ride around the streets of Croydon, or find a better more beautiful you. Get ready for the surreal, the singular and the sincere. Feel included, feel left out and see Croydon through the eyes of a Hollywood lens. Then rise like a phoenix and soar to the tunes of a master. All in Croydon.”
Croydonites is spreading its theatrical wings in 2018 and heading to new territory. From personal memoir to pop-up opera, parody to pathos and immersive to intimate, it’s welcoming new genres of performance to its programme from UK and Croydon based artists. Featuring four UK premieres and a film commissioned by Croydonites (and made on location here), the festival showcases fantastic British theatre and performance, with seven local artists leading the way.
Schedule
27-28 April Gill Manly – Spread Eagle Pub Theatre
28 April Scottee – Croydon Boxing Academy
3-20 May Parabolic Theatre Company – Site Specific
4 May Double Bill: Sarah Blanc & DISCO DISCO – Matthews Yard Theatre
11-12 May Vinicius Salles – Braithwaite Hall
12 May Double Bill: Beeja Dance Company & SLiDE Dance – Braithwaite Hall
17 May Pop-Up Opera – St Andrews Church
18 May Richard DeDomenici – on location & Matthews Yard Theatre
19 May Anita Wadsworth – Whitgift Centre
19 May Soho Theatre & Talawa Theatre Company – Matthews Yard Theatre
Gill Manly / Radio Apocalypse
A late night radio host soldiers on with her programme, while the world implodes outside the studio.
Scottee / BRAVADO
Scottee grew up around strong, brave and violent men and boys. BRAVADO is his memoir of working-class masculinity from 1991 to 1999 as seen by a sheep in wolfs clothing. For Croydonites BRAVADO will be occupying the sweaty, heady space of the Croydon Boxing Academy.
Parabolic Theatre Company / Land of Nod
Immersive theatre company Parabolic, return with their site-specific promenade work NOD, examining knife crime in a thrilling up-close experience on the streets of Croydon.
Sarah Blanc / My Feminist Boner
Fierce and funny, Sarah Blanc breaks down the rules of beauty in her new one-woman dance comedy show. Join her as she tests a range of over the counter beauty contraptions, all designed for making the better you.
DISCO DISCO / A New Performance
A brand new absurd and surreal theatre performance from DISCO DISCO – a company of artists with learning disabilities, based in Croydon; part of performance company Drunken Chorus.
Vinicius Salles / Glitch
Glitch is an interactive dance performance that mixes reality and fiction. It is about isolation and singularity. About being surrounded, yet feeling alone. You are invited to choose between experience or interaction while a life unravels around you.
Beeja Dance Company / From the heart
From the Heart challenges notions of normal and abnormal, drawing inspiration from Anusha Subramanyam’s therapeutic and creative movement work with people with physical and mental challenges. An exploration of the dance that they created, using movement that is raw and sincere – straight from the heart.
SLiDE Dance Company / Insert Title Here
A diverse group of performers explore relationships and connections between themselves and their embodied memories. These fragments are recycled and revisited and set to an original musical score from a live cellist. Insert title here is presented by a local inclusive dance company SLiDE, and is the result of their unique collaboration with Louise Katerega (Foot in Hand) and the London Mozart Players.
Pop-Up Opera / Mozart Double Bill
Pop-Up Opera presents Mozart’s Bastein & Basienne and The Impresario, two delicious one-act comedies in which a pair of lovers tease and test their feelings for each other, and a pair of actresses battle it out to be the prima donna.
Richard DeDomenici / American Assassin: Redux
Take a walking tour of Hollywood movie locations in Croydon town centre with artist Richard DeDomenici, followed by the premiere of American Assassin: Redux, his low-budget recreation of several minutes of the 2017 Michael Keaton action thriller American Assassin, set in Istanbul, but actually filmed in St George’s Walk, Croydon. Commissioned by Croydonites as part of DeDomenici’s ongoing The Redux Project. www.thereduxproject.org #americanassassinredux
Anita Wadsworth / Show and Tell
Throw open your bag and empty your pockets to get cosy and creative with your stuff. Show and Tell is a one to one experience: it’s part workshop, part art event and all anti-anxious-action where we calmly explore, curate and document a tiny exhibition of ourselves as seen through the things we carry with us.
Soho Theatre and Talawa Theatre Company / Half Breed
Following its world premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2017, a run at London’s Soho Theatre and a five-week tour of India, Soho Theatre and Talawa Theatre Company present Half Breed, Natasha Marshall’s semi-autobiographical dark comedy about finding your voice.
For more information and booking: www.croydonites.com
Contact: info@croydonites.com
Tickets range from £0 – £20, concessions available
Keep up to date
Find Croydonites
on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/croydonites
on Twitter at @Croydonites
and on Instagram at CroydonitesFestival
You can also listen to Anna Arthur, Director of Croydonites, being interviewed on Croydon Arts Radio here. along with Gill Manly and Vinicius Salles.
