News: Your Voice Your Future: North East – a theatrical rollercoaster of a journey at Live Theatre this September

Your Voice Your Future: North East – a theatrical rollercoaster of a journey at Live Theatre

Your Voice Your Future: North East

Newcastle Live Theatre

Thursday 15 - Sunday 18 September 2022

Live Theatre Newcastle Upon Tyne is excited to announce the eight North East writers/artists selected and commissioned for Your Voice Your Future: North East which runs from Thursday 15 to Sunday 18 September 2022. A theatrical rollercoaster of a journey through the North East region, exploring the people, the politics and the place, the writers answer the questions: what is the future we want for ourselves and how might the world be reimagined? 

Selected from an open submission call out, the successful writers/artists are Lydia Brickland, Miles Kinsley, Lizzie Lovejoy, Fleur Nixon, Nic O’Keeffe, Susannah Ronnie, Jenni Winter and Jack Young. As the eight commissions were only for writers and artists who have not previously had work performed professionally at Live Theatre, it is an unique opportunity to discover new voices and fresh writing talent. Your Voice Your Future: North East will be co-directed by Live’s Creative Producer, Graeme Thompson and RYTDS Resident Assistant Director, Bex Bowsher. 

Your Voice Your Future: North East features a thrilling line up of visionary ten-minute short plays that boldly imagine the world ahead of us. 

In Frubes, Crème Eggs and Massive Slags by Lydia Brickland, Chelsea, Sally and Trix are on their lunch break, talking school, life and relationships. However, when the conversation turns to Chelsea’s secret boyfriend, things are definitely not as they seem! Lydia Brickland is a performer, writer and burlesque artist from Gateshead and a founding member of womxn’s comedy collective Your Aunt Fanny. 

The Southern Side Of The Wall by South Shields based actor, writer and theatre practitioner Miles Kinsley, sees Sal and Baz posted to the wall that now separates England and Scotland. With nothing else to do, they question what life in Scotland looks like, and whether this newly established independence might ever be possible for the North.  

Lizzie Lovejoy’s Do You Know Who We Are? is a spoken-word protest about a future which is far too close to reality. We are in the words we speak, but what is speech when it’s not free? Lizzie Lovejoy is a working-class story-telling artist who observes, writes and visually interprets the stories and histories of the North East. 

A group of strangers trapped on a delayed Metro discover that outward appearances aren’t always what they appear to be in Labels by Fleur Nixon. Fleur has been writing short stories since school and started writing plays in the last two years and completed Live Theatre’s online Playwriting course in 2021.  

Nic O’Keeffe is a writer and performer from Sunderland. Nic enjoys exploring themes of loss, loneliness and self-discovery and her work often draws on her experience as a queer, working class, northern woman. In Wyrm  post break up, Lucy moves back to Sunderland and begins to have unsettling dreams about something growing at the foot of Penshaw Monument, until reconnecting with an old school friend causes her to re-examine what she thinks of ‘home’. 

On The Edge by Susannah Ronnie sees Jac sitting on the cliff edge eating Mars bars, swigging vodka and talking to a stranger whilst A level results and environmental disaster both loom on the horizon.  Susannah works across playwriting, poetry and visual art and her focus is the fictionalising of history 

The rise and fall of a northern Prime Minister who discovers the power of unchecked rhetoric, with devastating consequences is told in Tenure by South Shields writer and actor, Jack Young. He is currently a student at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and completed Live Theatre’s Playwriting course in 2021. 

Framing the plays are a selection of brand new cabaret showtunes composed and performed by musician Jenni Winter and her Piano of Destiny. Your Future Cabaret Show has sublime songs, the singers are sensational and the orchestra is beautiful.  

Graeme Thompson, Creative Producer at Live Theatre said: “We asked for stories that reflected a contemporary North East and its future and we had some fantastic ideas in amongst almost a hundred applications. The is the Live Theatre debut for all eight of these writers and it’s a pleasure to introduce audiences to fresh work and to support the professional development of early career artists.  The short plays that make up Your Voice Your Future: North East in 2022, provide a glimpse into life today and a boldly imagined future.” 

Tickets:

Your Voice Your Future: North East, at Live Theatre from Thursday 15 to Sunday 18 September 2022, is generously supported by The Idlewild Trust. Tickets are priced £10 to £15 with concessions from £6 available from www.live.org.uk or (0191) 232 1232. Get ready to experience new work today by the stars of tomorrow.