BLACK COUNTRY TOURING
Big Ideas In Small Spaces
Bringing Theatre & Dance to the Black Country
Extant will be performing in Wolverhampton in March and April
Welcome to a new season at Black Country Touring. We have an exciting new brochure full of exciting and interesting shows. Including Effing and Blinding! Cabaret Show by Extant which has been brought to the Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton as part of the Impress strand of Black Country Touring's work. The company is the UK's leading Blind Theatre Company. And the show will be a cabaret entirely in the dark. The company will also be at Wolverhampton Art Gallery with Eye-for-um-eye, a show that highlights the issues for visually impaired actors and audiences and aid accessible performances.
Arts Council News - At the beginning of February we received confirmation from the Arts Council of their continued support for BCT’s work, and in recognition of ‘the excellent work’, an uplift in our funding to ensure that BCT’s Resonate programme is now included in our core funding – fantastic news! Also watch this space for exciting news on our next major project - The Corner Shop.
News
r:evolve
Over the past few years we have been working with the Arena Theatre and mac, as part of r:evolve, to develop more theatre by diverse minority artists living in the West Midlands. The process is now coming to an end and there are some exciting results of the project to be seen.
Things That Can’t Be Said (a r:evolve and Apples & Snakes co-production)
Things That Can’t Be Said, our first performance poetry production, has finished touring and was warmly received by audiences. Last year we recruited and commissioned 5 spoken word artists: Michéle A.L. Barzey, Marcia Calame, Cheri Gillings, Vincent Gould and Shaun Welch, to respond to the theme of the project’s name.
Evolved – a festival of new work
A range of bright, exciting and emotive work has been produced over the past year, which will be showcased at the festival at Black Country venues as well as the Arena and mac from 4 – 15 March.
Black Country Show Dates
Danger!… Gulaam Fatima
(suitability 11+)
By Ulfah Arts (developing artists);
Shamshad Khan and Black Voices
4 March 7.30pm Bantock House, Wolverhampton (BSL signed)
Joey Boy (suitability 13+)
A r:evolve production in association with Nu Century Arts
6 March 7.30pm Community Action Project, Smethwick
For more information about r:evolve click here
News
A Thin Red Line
A new play, produced in partnership with Birmingham Rep Theatre and Kali Theatre Company after we decided to do something together to mark the 60th anniversary of the Partition of India.
We recruited and commissioned Sonali Bhattacharyya to write a play that explored partition in present-day Britain. Initially we ran workshops with 5 distinct and cross-generational community groups across the Black Country exploring this theme.
The play that emerged is about a relationship between a British Pakistani man and a white woman who fall in love, crossing cultural, religious and social divides. Their relationship is put to the test, when they return home to deal with a family crisis and have to redefine who they are.
For more information about A Thin Red Line click here
News
The Audience Survey
Many people who came to shows in the last season (Autumn-Winter 07) were kind enough to fill out our Audience Questionnaire. The people who filled them out don’t often get to see the results, so here are a few interesting things that came through.
- 90% of you thought the shows you saw were either good or excellent.
- Half of you come from within two miles of the venue.
- For a quarter of you, you only see shows in BCT venues
- 60% of you come because some one has told you about it – never underestimate the power of the spoken word!
- When asked what kind of shows you most liked to see, top came comedy, closely followed by physical theatre and stories from other cultures. So companies out there wondering what to do next, a sure fire winner would be a cross-cultural physical comedy show!
