Engagement

Through a range of artist development activities, professional support and industry mentoring, Greenwich Theatre has become a creative hub for a range of new, young or emerging companies. Three of those companies have now been made formal Associate Artists of Greenwich Theatre.

LIVE CANON

Live Canon are an ensemble performing poetry in the English Language (and occasionally bursting into song). They are a group of professional actors and theatre-makers, led by artistic director, Helen Eastman, who founded the ensemble in 2008.

Helen felt that there were many opportunities to hear contemporary poetry live, and have an aural experience of it, but very few opportunities to hear the’ back catalogue’, as it were. Live Canon aims to rectify that and perform poetry from across generations and across the world.

Live Canon performances aren’t readings. Live Canon actors learn all the poetry and perform it from memory. Their performances make poetry accessible and visceral. Performances are often interspersed with live music, featuring newly commissioned a cappella settings of many classic poems, ultimately creating a thoroughly enjoyable, unpretentious way to celebrate the richness of poetry written in the English language over the last five hundred years. Live Canon shows are a mixture of old classics you may know and love, and less well-known gems we hope may surprise you.

The company perform at venues, festivals and special events, from Oxford Playhouse to Exeter Northcott, Richmond Park to the V&A and make bespoke shows for events, galleries and museums. Recently the company has also started recording, collaborating with the V&A on their first app for iPhone, and they are about to embark on creating an MP3 poetry walk of Oxford. They are a number of audio CDs in the pipeline.

Live Canon run a biennial poetry competition, with a £1000 first prize, and perform and publish all the shortlisted poetry.

FILAMENT THEATRE

Filament is a music theatre company fusing devised physical work with polyphonic music. The company makes original music theatre for both traditional and non-traditional spaces, in a bid to confound expectations of what musical theatre can be.

The company is led by its two founders Sabina Netherclift (director) and Osnat Schmool (composer), who first worked as creative collaborators on a project called Re:Love, produced by the Bridewell Theatre Company. Osnat wrote the show having been inspired by Sam Shepherd’s Savage Love and the show followed four couples at different stages of their relationships.

Our first collaboration with Osnat and Sabina was built around Drive Ride Walk, an astonishing piece of a cappella music theatre. In March 2009 a 30 minute festival version of the show was seen by over 1500 people over two weeks in a tour which saw it play in venues as diverse as Chrisp Street Ideas Store, St Pancras Station, The Geffrye Museum and St Thomas Hospital, and in this borough at the Eltham Centre, Heritage Centre in Woolwich and at Charlton Assembly Rooms.

In 2010 with the support of our Artist Development Programme, Sabina and Osnat formed Filament and in 2011 we co-produced the full 90 minute version of Drive Ride Walk which toured to Greenwich Theatre, Stratford Circus, Chelsea Theatre and Jacksons Lane alongside festival performances at the O2, Spitalfields Market, Channel 4, Whittington Hospital and more.

“The future of new British musical theatre writing depends on work like this… a virtuosic new show… Osnat Schmool’s thrilling a cappella score, combined with Sabina Netherclift’s dynamic direction, makes for one of the most exciting and funny evenings of musical theatre I’ve had the pleasure to witness” WHATSONSTAGE.COM

CLOWN FUNERAL

Clown Funeral was founded in 2015 by a group of collaborators from Warwick University. During their time at Warwick, the company produced a variety of New Writing/Devised work before graduating in 2016, including The Faithless Healer, written and produced by the team, which was performed at the Warwick Arts Centre Studio in Autumn 2015 before being selected for the National Student Drama Festival 2016. This also secured funding support from Freshblood Theatre and the Vice Chancellor’s Fund. Their first professional show, Mr Poe’s Legendarium, ran at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2015, securing funding support from the Lord Rootes Memorial Fund and the Clive Barker Award for Performance.

After graduating, the company became Supported Artists of the New Diorama Theatre in London through their Graduate Emerging Companies Scheme, and SPARK Artists for Pegasus Theatre. They have produced 2 national tours with The Murderer, a playful adaptation of Luke Kennard’s synonymous poem, and Things We Chose To Save, a thoughtful and meditative look at memory and family. Their latest show, A Pattern of Bad Behaviour, a comic thriller they describe as ‘Fight Club meets The Office’, explores the impact of boredom and confinement on human behaviour, and the balance between risk-taking and destructiveness. The company has toured to various locations and festivals, including Incoming, Warwick Arts Centre’s EMERGE Festival, VAULT Festival, and the Edinburgh Fringe.

FAMILIA DE LA NOCHE

Familia de la Noche is a breakout theatre company looking to craft something new out of the accepted conventions of theatre.

A Pandora ’s Box of actors, clowns, designers, puppeteers and musicians we have sworn a solemn oath to create shows that are brilliant, funny affecting devastating charming and raucously entertaining with a contagious spirit and a lust for life.

Familia de la Noche have a wealth of experienced ‘Walkabout’ and event performers. They have directed and managed events and interactive performance for The Vaults, Lost Lectures, Shuffle Festival, Wales Millenium Center, Secret Garden Party, Glastonbury Festival and The National Eisteddfod.

Familia de la Noche are passionate about theatre and the change it can make in young people’s lives. The company has worked in schools and theatres across the UK helping children and young people from a wide spectrum of backgrounds and abilities right up to degree level at Royal Welsh College. Click here for more information on the company’s education work.

“Flawless and Amusing, Terrifying and Twisted” THREE WEEKS ★★★★

“Every now and then, you come across a play that seems to ignore the lines between children’s and adults’ theatre, comedy and tragedy, circus act and bare monologue to convey the sublime itself. Familia de la Noche’s The Greatest Liar in All the World is not that play. It’s funnier.” THE SKINNY ★★★★★

INCOGNITO THEATRE COMPANY

Incognito Theatre Company is an award-winning theatre company committed to adapting and creating energetic and cinematic physical theatre.

Incognito were one of the first companies to be nurtured by the Pleasance Theatre Trust as part of their ‘Pleasance Futures’ initiative. Their debut show, an adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s ‘Government Inspector’ enjoyed success at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Incognito went on to enjoy two back-to-back sell out runs at Edinburgh with their shows ‘Dorian Gray’ and ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ whilst being supported by the Pleasance Futures Initiative. After their 2016 run, Incognito became an independent company and ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ transferred to the Soho Playhouse New York for their Fringe Encore series and in 2017 Incognito returned to Edinburgh to reprise ‘All Quiet..’, enjoying a critically acclaimed 2 week run.

Their latest show, ‘Tobacco Road’ won the Les Enfants Terribles Greenwich Partnership Award 2018. The show sold out at Edinburgh Fringe 2018 and transferred to VAULT Festival 2019 and will transfer to Hong Kong Theatre Festival in June 2019.

★★★★★ – [The production] exquisitely entertains and reveals an exceptional amount of showmanship for Incognito – who unquestionably are a company to keep an eye on. BROADWAY WORLD on Tobacco Road

★★★★★ – Enthralling, moving and fundamentally, beautifully human. THREE WEEKS on All Quiet on the Western Front on All Quiet on the Western Front

SHARKLEGS

SharkLegs are an award winning visual theatre company formed in 2014.

They have mounted 5 full length productions, and their work has been featured on BBC Breakfast, and Radio 4. They have also appeared in The Guardian Newspaper and the podcast ‘We are Women’, talking about their work, as well as playing to sell out audience across the UK.

SharkLegs’ work is poignant, silly and innovative … (with more references to 80’s cartoons and electro-swing than is perhaps healthy.)

They make creative work for the creative audience – finding new ways to explore the links between the performer and the audience, finding ways of harnessing, encouraging and elucidating the creativity within audiences’ lives.

It is their mission to make creative work for the creative audience: work which inspires audiences to find their own creativity and look at the world in a new way – to see the robot in the cardboard box or the paper puppet in the copy of the Metro

In this inventive and ambitious piece of theatre, SharkLegs pulls off an impressive feat by making an interactive adventure story both touching and very, very silly. A YOUNGER THEATRE on The Inevitable Heartbreak of Gavin Plimsole.

Wonderbox

Wonderbox is female-led theatre company focusing on exploding taboo subjects, telling untold stories, and keeping female experience at the core of their work. They work as a slick ensemble on stage, developing work full of group movement, striking imagery and visceral real-life experience. They want their work to make people think and inspire social change.

Wonderbox has been funded by the Women’s Centenary Fund, Arts Council England and supported by the Charlie Hartill Special Reserve Fund. As of Autumn 2018, they began their time as Associate Company at The Space Theatre, Isle of Dogs, and are also currently part of the Pleasance Theatre Trust’s initiative ‘Pleasance Futures’.

Their debut show A Womb of One’s Own received excellent reviews from performances in Birmingham, Bristol and London and was a BBC Comedy Writersroom finalist, 2017. Their second show, produced with Arts Council funding, showcased three emerging directors and shone a light on the frustrations women face in society today.

“This production certainly doesn’t end at the ‘final curtain’ you will be discussing the issues raised for quite some time afterwards. Highly recommended.” BEHIND THE ARRAS ★★★★★

“An impressive and unexpectedly joyous production” LONDON THEATRE 1 ★★★★

“What it does best is to remind us just how funny feminism can be.” WHATS ON LIVE ★★★★

“I loved this. Skill and daring from a really promising young company”. PAUL MCGANN

SMOOTH FACED GENTLEMEN

Smooth Faced Gentlemen is the UK’s only dedicated all-female Shakespeare Company.

They create fast, funny, fresh and faithful productions of Shakespeare plays, with visual inventiveness, high production values, and a healthy dose of anarchy. By approaching Shakespeare with an all-female lens, the company not only asks important questions about women in theatre, history, and contemporary society but also reinvigorates the texts, inviting new emphases and new audiences.

The company was the first to join Greenwich Theatre as Supported Artists in 2015, presenting Macbeth: The Shakespeare Shuffle in January, a much-anticipated revival of their award-winning production of Titus Andronicus in April, a double-bill of Titus and Othello at the Edinburgh Festival in August, and a London transfer for Othello back to Greenwich in September. Plans for an ambitious programme of work in 2016 are now well underway.

Winner: John Beecher Award for Innovative Theatre with High Production Values

Winner: Mervyn Stutter Spirit of the Fringe Award

Winner: Best Production, Buxton Festival

“Funny, ferocious, creative, brilliantly performed and unflinchingly bloody” THE SKINNY

“One of the most stunning Shakespeare tragedies I’ve ever seen” FEST MAGAZINE

BROKEN LEG THEATRE

Established in 2008, Broken Leg Theatre performed its first production in the basement of a small café and have since gone on to perform two home-grown plays at the Nightingale Theatre, the Hackney Empire and London’s Greenwich Theatre, and two script-in-hand readings at Carriageworks, Leeds and the Marlborough Theatre.  Broken Leg are winners of the Argus Angel Award for Artistic Excellence.

The company received funding from Arts Council England to research their latest production, Three Generations of Women, leading to the collation of thousands of stories on our website, described by the Independent as a “new digital archive that is chronicling the lives of British women over the past hundred years”. 

Anna has been writing and producing her work for theatre since 2004. Before founding Broken Leg Theatre she staged new plays in Leeds and at the Jim Broadbent Theatre and Gainsborough Trinity Arts Centre in Lincolnshire. She is a blogger with a popular, thrice award shortlisted blog- www.youcantakeherhomenow.blogspot.co.uk. Anna has over 10 years arts administration experience and is Deputy Director for New Writing South.

Alice Trueman has an MA in Scriptwriting from Goldsmiths University. One of her stage plays was nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award in 2013 and she was selected for a BBC Continuing Drama Workshop. Alice has also had work produced at Theatre503 and her short films have screened at BAFTA, Shortcutz London and Cornwall Film Festival. Alice is represented by Independent Talent, and currently, works as a freelance script editor and writer.

 

“A warm, hilarious and touching tale, ‘My Second Life’ proved to be a big hit: there was not an empty seat in sight…one thing is for sure, ‘My Second Life’ is certain to please all audiences” THREE WEEKS ★★★★

“some fantastically funny moments…This was an engaging play, well performed, light hearted and full of comedy” LATEST 7

Greenwich Theatre offers a range of bespoke educational opportunities, from pre- and post-show Q&As and venue tours to school based learning. Recent projects have included a 1 year after-school drama club at Kidbrooke Park Primary School and a 2 year project to deliver term-time drama tuition to pupils at Charlton Manor Primary School. In September 2020 we launch a new after-school drama club at Eltham Hill Secondary School. We have also provided production guidance for BA Drama undergraduates and performance masterclasses for professionals.

Whether you would like us to deliver a project in your school, to offer a venue tour to your home-schooled children or to support your university class in reaching their full potential, get in touch with us at education@greenwichtheatre.org.uk and we can discuss your requirements.