Spring Season 2013 at Warwick Arts Centre
Big names, new shoots, jet-setters and home-grown talent: Put a spring in your step with brilliant days and nights out at Warwick Arts Centre.
Head of Programme and Audiences, Matt Burman, says: “As 2012 draws to a close, Warwick Arts Centre is looking ahead to fantastic year of the very best artistic experiences. The vital delights Warwick Arts Centre is sharing with local and national audiences includes ground-breaking theatre, visually stunning dance, moving music, thought-provoking visual arts, belly-laughs and more. This confident and bold season will put a spring in the step for all that lies ahead. Come along and get closer to the arts in 2013”.
Warwick Arts Centre is committed to bringing audiences the best theatre from around the world to entertain, inspire and amaze. The critically-acclaimed Cheek by Jowl is welcomed back to Coventry for the UK premiere of the anarchic, darkly funny Ubu Roi (which roughly translates as King Turd). After touring the world and a sell-out run at the National Theatre, multi-award winning 1927’s “mind-blowingly beautiful”(Time Out) melange of live music, storytelling and film - The Animals and Children Took to the Streets – has been eagerly-awaited by theatre fans. For dance aficionados, the phenomenon that is BalletBoyz brings a crop of the best young dancers to the stage in the TALENT 2013, with new pieces by celebrated choreographers Russell Maliphant and Liam Scarlett.
As part of an on-going dedication to the creation of new performance with the country’s finest theatre-makers, this season Warwick Arts Centre is proud to be supporting work by some genuinely visionary and compelling artists. As well known in France and Germany as they are in their hometown of Birmingham, Stan’s Cafe return with a fascinating adaptation of The Anatomy of Melancholy, a 17th century tome that continues to resonate across the centuries. Fevered Sleep will transform the studio into a beautiful immersive work of art, with performance, music and film exploring our relationship with nature in Above Me The Wide Blue Sky.
Warwick Arts Centre believes young audiences deserve brilliant new things too. So the co-production of Rubbish with the outstanding Theatre-Rites finds performers and puppets imagining a world that celebrates its discarded items; and in MACBETH: Blood Will Have Blood, with Contender Charlie & China Plate, intrepid young people get to explore the Scottish Play in exciting new ways. There’s more Shakespeare for little ones with Oily Cart’s In a Pickle, clowning comedy and wonderful physical theatre from Plutôt la Vie in By the Seat of Your Pants, and during the February half-term Play in a Day returns for those who fancy becoming the next David Tennant or Helen Mirren.
The bravura classical music season continues con brio, with superstar soloists and the world’s best orchestras. Pianist Peter Donohoe explores composers’ Opus Ones, globe-trotting violinist Tasmin Little joins the European Union Chamber Orchestra for a dazzling programme, and the country’s pre-eminent vocal group the Hilliard Ensemble alongside early music specialists Fretwork present a unique programme featuring a new work by Nico Mulhy.
For new sounds there’s an electrifying mix of award-winning international musicians. Cowboy Junkies and The Be Good Tanyas visit from the US, bringing a subtle twang of Americana to the season. Bellowhead, named best live act at the BBC Folk Awards, will bowl audiences over with a high-energy show, and West-End legend Ruthie Henshall will light up the theatre with some classic show tunes. I Am Kloot are sure to dazzle with tracks from the critically-acclaimed Let It All In, there’s genre-defying performance from multi-instrumentalist Ergo Phizmiz, and multimedia wizards The Light Surgeons perform the world premiere of the visually stunning Super Everything*.
This season the Mead Gallery presents a series of international film works of the highest quality which will strike a chord with everyone, in the exhibition Workplace. Exploring the workplace as a universal experience which cuts across political and geographical boundaries, the exhibition also examines the frustration and alienation of a contemporary workforce and the often humorous strategies devised for survival. For the duration of this exhibition, visitors to the gallery will be invited to become part of the art and bring their own work into our exhibition space.
As one of the country’s premier venues for the best of British comedy, headliners this Spring include Bill Bailey, Julian Clary (latterly winner of Celebrity Big Brother), Chris Addison and Rich Hall, as well as rising stars like James Acaster, Zoe Lyons and Tony Law.
