Thanks to creative collaboration, the Everyman and Playhouse have this year produced a rich and ambitious programme, launched the two buildings into the future and reached out to many new audiences.
2011 has been a very busy year, with seven world premières, the 100th birthday celebrations of the Liverpool Repertory Company and the start of the journey to a new Everyman. After an absence of 15 years the Playhouse Studio was re-launched in October with the world première of The Swallowing Dark, which transferred to London’s theatre503 where it was nominated for five Offie awards. And Gemma Bodinetz’s production of Macbeth, featuring David Morrissey, has been shortlisted as Best Regional Production in the What’s On Stage Awards.
Co-productions with Fiery Angel, ETT, the Lyric Hammersmith, Nottingham Playhouse, Northern Stage, theatre503 and 20 Stories High have allowed the theatres’ productions to tour both near and far, including Edinburgh and Exeter, Toxteth and Toronto, Watford and the West End. By the end of 2011, Everyman and Playhouse productions will have been seen by more than 200,000 people outside Liverpool. And at home, the number of visitors from outside the city has increased by 40 per cent.
Next year the acclaimed Everyman production of The Caretaker with Jonathan Pryce will tour internationally, to Australia and the USA, culminating in a two-month run at New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music. Macbeth with David Morrissey, the final production at the Everyman before the redevelopment, is now available to theatre audiences around the world as a downloadable film via Digital Theatre and has been nominated as Best Regional Production in the Whats On Stage Awards. And another national tour and London season will begin with a Liverpool run, in the form of a collaboration with Shakespeare’s Globe on Henry V.
Engagement with new audiences continues to grow with attendances by under 26s up by 52 per cent in 2011, while the verbatim play, Endz, toured with a professional cast and company to 11 community venues in Liverpool and Knowsley, including Norris Green, West Everton and Huyton, reaching 1,400 people.
The extensive ongoing outreach programme of work with young people in North Liverpool, Toxteth, Alt Valley and East Liverpool saw over 7,000 under 26s engage with cultural and creative projects including West Everton Symbol of Hope, ‘The Pad’, a creative space for young people in a disused shop in Norris Green, and De:Light, a project for young people to train alongside professional technicians, developing skills and experience ‘on the job’ in lighting, sound and audio-visual media.
In the New Year the theatres will launch Young Everyman/Playhouse (YEP), an initiative, funded by Arts Council England’s Grants for the Arts, which will put young people at the heart of the organisation. Aimed at 14 to 25 years-olds YEP will build on the existing work of the theatres’ outreach, education and Youth Theatre programmes to nurture the writers and actors, the technicians, the audiences and the cultural leaders of the future.
2011 has also been a dynamic year for new work, with three new plays - Dead Heavy Fantastic by Robert Farquhar, Lizzie Nunnery’s The Swallowing Dark and Tiny Volcanoes by Laurence Wilson - becoming full productions. The theatres also collaborated with 20 Stories High to support a regional and national tour of Laurence Wilson’s Brian Way Award-winning play for young audiences, Blackberry Trout Face.
The Young Writers' Programme received a record number of applications this year. Graduates of that programme Joe Ward Munrow and Mwewa Sumbwanyambe have been Shortlisted for the prestigious Alfred Bradley Award. And Joy Wilkinson’s nomination as finalist in the international Susan Smith Blackburn Award was the fourth consecutive year one of the theatres’ writers has been recognised in this way.
PLAYHOUSE 100th BIRTHDAY
This mighty milestone was celebrated with a gala performance of The Ladykillers and the launch of a new book, Liverpool Playhouse: A Theatre and Its City and a promenade performance by High Hearted Theatre.
Liverpool Playhouse: A Theatre and Its City is available direct from Everyman and Playhouse for £20 (rrp £25) here:
https://tickets.everymanplayhouse.com/public/merchandise_list.asp
Images of the 100th Birthday are here:
http://www.everymanplayhouse.com/News/Centenary_Day___in_pictures/726.aspx
EVERYMAN FINALE
Before work began on the brand new Everyman, more than 3,000 people joined us in celebrating the first 47 years of its history with a special send-off on Hope Street on the evening of Saturday 2 July.
Video and images from that day are here: http://www.everymanplayhouse.com/Content/Home/AboutUs/NewEveryman.aspx
Cologne Girls Choir to join girl choristers from both Liverpool Cathedrals for unique concert
(Tue 22/05)
Liverpool Music Awards 2012 Launches
(Tue 22/05)
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