Blue Elephant Theatre – 2012 Autumn Season

Blue Elephant Theatre Celebrates:
Let’s make a Song and Dance about it

“This really was the most beautiful piece of theatre I have seen all year.”
Stage Won on Blue Elephant In-House Production:
The Fantastical Adventures of [Not] Being With You

Following a jubilant Spring Season, the Blue Elephant Theatre is delighted to celebrate the success of the companies it has worked with. Not only did the season garner four and five star reviews from What’s On Stage and Time Out but two productions, The Fantasist and Machines For Living, have furthered their success with acclaimed Edinburgh runs.

Both Machines For Living and The Fantasist made it into Spoonfed’s Top Ten Theatre Shows To See in Edinburgh as “Blue Elephant finds” while What’s On Stage predicted in March that “haunting and enchanting in equal measure, The Fantasist would surely be a hit at the Edinburgh fringe”. It seems the secret is spreading that you should head to the Blue Elephant for a programme of exciting new work that you won’t find anywhere else in London. On this high note, the Blue Elephant announces its Autumn Season.

Music and dance feature strongly this season with choreographer Heather Cupid presenting the first show of the season during Black History Month, followed by puppetry, physical theatre and live music in The Wordcatcher and Shakespeare retold in Beatrice on Fire. In October, emerging company Sounding Motion explores the relationship between music and dance in their show Signs, Games and Messages, a cross art form collaboration which follows in the wake of last season’s “strikingly innovative” Sonata Movements (The Daily Telegraph).

Fringe Report’s Best Artistic Director of 2012, Ricky Dukes, returns in October with the European premiere of Australian musical, The Hatpin, co-produced with Greenwich Theatre, the first time the Blue Elephant has collaborated with another venue in this way. Fans of Dukes’ contemporary retellings of classic works will also not be disappointed as his Lazarus Theatre Company will present the Blue Elephant’s Christmas show, the enchanting A Midsummer Night’s Dream.







Listings Information:

Venue:
Blue Elephant Theatre, 59a Bethwin Rd, Camberwell, SE5 0XT (entrance on Thompson Ave)
Nearest tube: Oval (Northern Line)
Wheelchair accessible
Box Office: 020 7701 0100/084 4477 1000
www.blueelephanttheatre.co.uk
info@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk
Twitter: @BETCamberwell

Please Note: Tickets for The Hatpin should be booked through Greenwich Theatre at www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk or 020 8858 7755.



Visual Arts

Image-in Self (migration)

27 September – 27 October

Our Tell-Tale Bodies

Image-in Self (migration) runs throughout Black History Month to explore what we reveal and conceal in our bodies, sometimes unbeknownst to ourselves.

The body is one of a myriad of means of inscribing culture. And of the millions of ways to inscribe culture, be it music, language or government, the body harbours the closest connection to identity.

Image-in Self (migration) explores how much information is encrypted on our bodies through migration and how it is communicated back to others. The beliefs we grow up with and those we learn all impact on that which we are.

Is this lost in every new place we go? Or is it compromised by the new way of living? Where do we cross the line?

Artist: Sanaa AbstraKt

Dates: Thursday 27 – Saturday 27 October (open pre- and post-show). Appointments may be arranged in advance during other times.
Admission Free




Dance

What The Soul Can’t Hide/Harbour

4 – 6 October

A Double-Bill of Contemporary and Caribbean/Afro-Contemporary Dance
Marking Black History Month at the Blue Elephant, What The Soul Can’t Hide/Harbour brings two separate stories together in a vibrant and resonant performance.
Together they bring us on a journey of personal battle, cultural difference and ultimately celebration.
Choreographer Heather Cupid presents an evening of work where contemporary and Caribbean/Afro-contemporary dance coincide.
Choreographer: Heather Cupid




Theatre

Beatrice on Fire

12 – 13 October

Much Ado About Beatrice
A comedic and absurd retelling of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, as presented by a young woman navigating her way through depression, bereavement and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Combining visual and physical theatre, puppetry, storytelling and music, Beatrice on Fire is a completely new take on the story of Beatrice and Benedick. This work-in-progress performance aims to keep the audience on their toes with a smile on their faces.
Hattie Thomas is an actor and puppeteer, creating bizarre and exciting work which brings new stories to life.






Theatre

The Wordcatcher

Smoking Apples
16 – 20 October

A Bizarre Tale of Something and Nothing
Welcome to the world of The Wordcatcher – a world of sound and of silence both in the heart and in the mind, where we try to fix things in place that don’t fit together.
Through the expert use of miscommunication, the holes and gaps in this story fill a void rather than leave one.
Following Seemingly Invisible last year, Smoking Apples return to the Blue Elephant with a new piece using puppetry, physical theatre and live music. Smoking Apples aim to ignite the adult imagination to find wonder in the most human and mundane of situations.
Praise for Seemingly Invisible and Smoking Apples:
“…a heart-melting play, especially for those hardened by fast city-living, about the magic found in the simplest of human exchanges” Katie Shellard, Running in Heels
"Smoking Apples is a company to watch. Their use of puppetry, in the broadest sense, is creative and exciting.” Linda Lewis, Puppet Centre Trust
Devising Cast: Molly Freeman, Matt Lloyd and Hattie Thomas.

Post show discussion: Wednesday 17 October





Dance & Music

Signs, Games and Messages

Sounding Motion - www.soundingmotion.com
24 – 27 October

Where Dance and Music Meet…
Fusing electronics, innovative choreography and the music of cutting-edge composers, Signs, Games and Messages probes the subtleties of being human: the minute signs and idiosyncrasies that let us glimpse who we truly are, the games we play with each other and the hidden messages we send.
Sounding Motion is an exciting new company of musicians and dancers. Its members are graduates from Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London Contemporary Dance School, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Laban and the Duncan Centre Conservatory. They aim to explore what happens when dance and music meet; how one informs the other and how this enhances the audience’s experience.
Music by György Kurtág, Tigran Mansurian, Javier Alvarez and Sounding Motion's resident composer Benjamin Graves.
Musicians: Stephen Upshaw (viola), Calie Hough (percussion)
Dancers: Imogen Bland, Adrian Gillott, Jaya Hartlein, Michael Kitchin and Anne Marie Kristensen
Choreographers: Imogen Bland, Anne Marie Kristensen and Dominick Mitchell-Bennett
Lighting Designer: Greg Gould




Theatre

The Hatpin

Heather Doole, Blue Elephant Theatre and Greenwich Theatre in association with Lazarus Theatre Company

30 October – 24 November

An Award-Winning Musical, brought to the UK for the first time
Amber Murray gives up her son to the wealthy Makin family in the belief that he will have a better life. When she is unable to visit him, her suspicions are aroused. Refusing to be brushed off with excuses, she begins to look more closely into the family she has entrusted with her son. The Hatpin is about being brave enough to find the truth, and then having the strength to face it.
One of the most shocking and influential trials in Australian history inspires this haunting musical, receiving its European premiere at the Blue Elephant.
Described as “a must see” and “a landmark moment in Australian musical theatre” by The Sydney Morning Herald when it was first produced, The Hatpin is directed by Ricky Dukes, named Fringe
Report’s Best Artistic Director earlier this year.
“…An evening of unusually strong and emotive theatre…Ricky Dukes has directed an astonishing interpretation…” Kevin Quarmby, Big Q Reviews on Women of Troy

*The Hatpin was originally produced by Neil Gooding Productions and White Box Theatre at the York Theatre, Sydney, February 2008. The American premiere was presented at the 2008 New York Musical Theatre Festival.

Music: Peter Rutherford
Book and Lyrics: James Millar

Director and Designer: Ricky Dukes
Musical Director: Aaron Clingham
Costume Designer: Alice Pocock
Associate Director: Gavin Harrington-Odedra




Theatre

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Lazarus Theatre Company – www.lazarustheatrecompany.webs.com

27 November – 15 December

A Spell-binding and Striking Re-Imagining
Lazarus Theatre Company returns to the Blue Elephant to herald in Christmas with a touch of magic and enchantment.
One of Shakespeare’s best-loved comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is transported to a frozen forest by a company whose work is “a superb lesson in how to adapt an old classic for a contemporary audience" (Spoonfed).
High in the mountains, four young lovers find themselves far from home, following romance at all costs. With the fairies at hand to weave their spells, nothing is quite as it seems until confusion gives way to happily-ever-after.
"If you know anyone unsure of Shakespeare then take them to see this and have them fall in love!"
Dave Jordan, WhatsonStage on Macbeth

Director and Designer: Ricky Dukes
Lighting Designer: Alex Musgrave
Costume Designer: Rachel Dingle