NEWS: Newcastle’s Live Theatre announces the line-up of plays for Your Voice: North East

Newcastle’s Live Theatre announces the line-up of plays for Your Voice: North East

Thursday 23  – Sunday 26 September 2021

 

Ø Pints by Ellie Carroll

Ø The Big Welcome by Vivek Nityananda

Ø It Takes Two by Becci Sharrock

Ø Black Dark by Aimee Shields

Ø Once a Dunstoner, Always a Dunstoner by Holly Readshaw

Ø Through The Hurricane by Nick Tennant

Ø Networking by Catherine O’Neill 

Live Theatre is delighted to announce the seven short plays selected for Your Voice: North East. The writers and artists commissioned have not previously had work performed professionally at Live Theatre so it is a great opportunity for audiences to experience work by new voices and the theatre talent of the future. The diverse line up of new plays, tell the untold stories of the contemporary lived experience in the North East.

In Pints by Ellie Carroll, weeknight shifts in the bar serve as a welcome distraction from the last year for Newcastle student Abbie. Even the vomit, harassment and ignorant customers don’t grate as badly as they used to. As she tries to ignore the inevitable moments of quiet, alone between work and home, she can’t help but wonder why you never see old people anymore?

Vivek Nityananda’s The Big Welcome shows that sometimes we find answers in the most unsuspecting of places. Jyoti is just moments away from a life changing ceremony when she gets cold feet. Can her wife Nooreen convince her to go through with it? Are her dreams of an ideal nationhood and citizenship pulling her in a new direction?

Anna is out alone and looking to pull in It Takes Two by Becci Sharrock. But with every sip of her cocktail, Anna’s motives slowly come into focus, she’s not just looking for a one night stand, she’s after much more than that.

Black Dark by Aimee Shields questions whether you can rebuild your dreams after moving? It’s about moving back from London when your dreams don’t work out, losing love and realising that sometimes your soulmate is your best friend.

In Holly Readshaw’s Once a Dunstoner, Always a Dunstoner, it’s Georgia’s birthday and she’s going to celebrate it how she wants – sat on Dunston Staiths with her best friend Maya. Georgia did try to leave once. Maya never got as far as that. Taking a moment to appreciate their home, they question life’s biggest mystery – can anyone ever leave Dunston?

It’s a daunting prospect starting over again, knowing that we didn’t make it first time around. But life is all about making mistales and learning from them in Through The Hurricane by Nick Tennant.

The final short is Catherine O’Neill’s Networking. Why watch the TV when there’s so much going on in the street outside your window? At least that’s what Barbara thinks. With romance scandals, wild mice being adopted as pets and seagulls attacking Rentokil workers – what else could you need? A little company perhaps?

Graeme Thompson, Interim Creative Producer at Live Theatre said: “The seven short plays that make up Your Voice: North East are like tiny little windows into the lives and experiences of our community and region. Each one is really compelling and there is a big range of emotion to keep you entertained. We had over 100 short scripts sent to us for this production and choosing from the wealth of talent we have in the North-East was a tough job. But it’s a real privilege to introduce audiences to new voices and to get people back to Live with this showcase of fresh writing talent.”

Tickets:

Tickets for Your Voice: North East at Live Theatre from Thursday 23 to Sunday 26 September are available from £6 from www.live.org.uk or 0191 232 1232.