North East theatre company’s audience
grows from dozens to potentially thousands thanks to latest live streamed
production
A theatre company’s latest live stream production will see
it broadcast to potentially thousands of people worldwide – including the
play’s writer 8,500 miles away.
Only four years ago Elysium Theatre Company, which is based in Durham, was putting on its first play in front of just dozens of people at the city’s Assembly Rooms.
But its latest offering – Hello and Goodbye, by
South Africa’s leading playwright Athol Fugard – will be filmed and streamed
across the internet for the world to see, when it is performed at Northern
School of Art, Hartlepool, at 7.30pm on Wednesday 23rd June.
Students from the school’s Film & TV Production Design
course will set up and manage the live streaming of the show, which has been
co-produced by Queen’s Hall Arts Centre, Hexham. The show’s director Jake Murray said: “It is
amazing to think that Athol Fugard could be watching one of his own plays
online for the very first time, thousands of miles away from where it is being
performed.
“I would love it if he does get to watch, it would mean the
world to me and the company. He’s one of the world’s great playwrights and a
living legend. We wanted to broadcast the show online, instead of embarking on
a tour, so that if we were in lockdown we could still do it as planned. This
collaboration between ourselves, the Queen’s Hall and the Northern School of
Art in Hartlepool truly brings together the best of the North East. Expect more
to come!”
Featuring just two
characters - Johnnie
and Hester Smits – Hello and Goodbye is
set in the 1960s in Apartheid South Africa. It is a funny, moving drama about
families, siblings, love, regret and the debts we owe each other, emotional as
well as financial.
It is the seventh production from four-year-old
Elysium. Almost
all of its plays have toured theatres across the North East including Queen’s
Hall Arts Centre, Hexham; The Exchange in North Shields; Gala Theatre and City
Theatre, Durham; and The Majestic Theatre, Darlington.
Hello and Goodbye stars Jake’s co-founders Danny
Solomon and Hannah Ellis Ryan. Hannah shot to stardom after appearing in
Coronation Street in 2018 as ‘baddie’ Hannah Gilmore, the lover of Jim
McDonald and impersonator of his late daughter Katie.
The Australian has lived in the UK for eight
years, and is excited to perform for her family who will be able to watch the
show from thousands of miles away thanks to cameras on the night.
She said: “I am so excited! Even my mum in Brisbane will
be able to watch me for the first time in years. I can send my whole family a
link for them to watch me from thousands of miles away, and that’s something
that is so special, and something I have to be grateful for.”
She added: “We want to give the audience the feeling
of an authentic theatre experience, even though they aren’t in the room. Acting
for theatre and camera is very different, so it will be a challenge to act for
both! In a theatre, it is all about reaching to the back of the room, whereas
for something like Coronation Street, it can be about even the smallest of
eyebrow movements.”
Danny, who has never acted for camera before, added: “The
live aspect can be quite scary, and it will be different to just playing to a
seated audience, but I am looking forward to getting a couple of run-throughs
under my belt to be ready for the real thing. It is great that the play can be
available to so many people at once, without them having to leave their home.
It is a wonderful idea and I imagine we will be doing more live-streaming in
future.”
Tickets:
Tickets
for the show can be purchased for £5 (£3.50 concessions) here: https://www.queenshall.co.uk/events/hello-and-goodbye
Ticket
holders will be given a link and a password, and can then watch the play live on
Wednesday 23rd June or ‘catch-up’ from June 25th until
July 1.
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