Birmingham’s Rep Theatre are looking to help cultivate and collaborate with the next generation of theatre makers in the local area as part of their new Artist Development Programme, REP Foundry. They want to hear from Writers, Directors, Theatre Makers and Companies to work on a number of projects that will start in early 2013, with Foundry Nights that will give them a chance to test and experiment with their work.

There is so much to this outstanding opportunity, so I’ll let the REP explain it better with some info from the Foundry Page:

New stories, new voices and new visions of the world. As The REP moves into the next phase in its remarkable history it is looking for emerging directors, writers, theatre makers and companies from across the West Midlands to make the journey with them. Offering a new, yearlong development programme, REP Foundry, will support artists through workshops, making and sharing work and professional mentoring. Information on how to apply is available from the Download Panel on this page.

REP Foundry will also offer audiences a unique insight into how new theatre is formed and staged at scratch performance nights. Be the first to see work from REP Foundry artists throughout 2013.

REP Foundry Nights will take place on the last Thursday of the month at 8.00pm on the following dates:

28 February at The Old Rep Theatre and then at The Edge, Digbeth on 28 March, 25 April, 30 May, 27 June, 25 July 

The deadline to be one of the artists contributing to Foundry is 6pm Friday 9th November 2012.

Here is a link to the document that gives all you need to know about applying.

Head over to the the Rep Foundry site for a little look around what else is going on.

If you want to see what YFrog found a little too realistic then you should get down to the Birmingham Made Me expo in the Mailbox before the end of this week.

There were lots of people involved in this one though – it was produced by Birmingham Rep (with a couple of others) in association with FEED and Birmingham Met College (among others) and performed at the mac.

Photo: Hotdogs by Matt Cattell

A few festive bits and bobs happening around Birmingham…

The Frankfurt Christmas Market closes on Friday 23 December, as does the Festive Pop Up Bazaar on New Street.

It’s the BrumNotes/This Is Tmrw Christmas Party at The Victoria tonight. Click the link or ogle the poster below (sidenote: are Lewes Herriot‘s gig posters the best around town at the moment? Answers on a postcard).

Birmingham Hippodrome have Cinderella on until the end of January and has already picked up some really good reviews from the Birmingham Mail and The Stage. I went along to the press night last night (disclosure: that means they gave me free tickets) and liked the lovely horsey best.

In other theatre-based offerings:

• The Rep have The Snowman at the ICC and Sleeping Beauty at the Crescent Theatre.
• Blue Orange Theatre in the Jewellery Quarter are doing A Christmas Carol
• The MAC have The Lost Happy Endings

In fact, Area Guide’s December issue has a Christmas theatre round-up from page 26 onwards. Ah, and Visit Birmingham have a Christmas round-up too.

Film-wise, Kino 10 are showing The Nightmare Before Christmas plus some short films at St Columba Church on Friday 23 Dec and The Electric have a smattering of festive films too.

Town Hall & Symphony Hall have a bundle of events going on:

• Polar (this afternoon)
• The CBSO’s Great Big Choral Christmas
• Christmas Eve Classics
• Boxing Day Gala

Meanwhile, down in that London, Birmingham Royal Ballet are seeing out the year performing The Nutcracker at the O2, which sounds like a pretty big deal to me.

There’s loads of other stuff too, obviously. If you’ve got any other good suggestions then bung them in the comments.

The crocodile from Birmingham Rep’s 2007 production of Peter Pan can be hired by schools, youth theatres or amateur dramatic societies for as little as £30 per week.

Apparently it can be operated by as few as three people. Three! That’s a tenner each for a WEEK!

You’ll have to get in quick, I’m thinking of ditching the Christmas tree this year and installing this bad boy in my house over the festive period instead.

In other news, Birmingham Rep have a fancy, new website. It was designed and built by Made Media, where I work.

After that is something extra interesting. They’ll be setting themselves up at their old home, The Old Rep Theatre, and the same cast will perform two plays whose runs overlap. The first (and longer running) show is Oscar Wilde’s The Importance Of Being Earnest (9 Sept – 22 Oct) which is joined by a new production of Tom Stoppard’s Wilde-referencing play Travesties (17 Sept – 22 Oct).

There’s a bunch of other stuff happening around these two plays too:

As well as our usual post show discussions with the cast, there will also be readings of plays by Mark Ravenhill, W.S. Gilbert, Neil Bartlett and Carl Miller; pre-show talks from experts on the Dada movement, the life of Oscar Wilde and Lenin in theatre and literature; two curtain raiser events inspired by the shows and a youth theatre performance of an Anthony Horowitz play by The Young REP.

First up, Theatricalia is the work of the ever-impressive Matthew Somerville. It’s ‘a database of past and future theatre productions’ which makes it no less than IMDB for theatre.

Already it contains archives of plays and performers from the RSC, Bristol University Archive, the Royal National Theatre and Birmingham Rep (1913-1971). You can search by play, person or place and edit entries yourself to help the archive grow.

The potential for Theatricalia is a little mind-boggling.

Black Routes is a new UK wide touring network for African and Caribbean music, with Punch Records as one of the founding partners and chair.

Punch’s Ammo Talwar wrote an article in the Birmingham Post explaining the context for the project, particularly how it fits in with what’s happening in Birmingham at the moment.

Friday, 05/06/09, 19:00

Ten high-backed chairs, some seating elderly people and some seating younger people, spanned the back of the stage area at The Door, the studio theatre at Birmingham Rep. Above this seating arrangement was a large screen, showing slow panoramics of the Birmingham skyline. In front of them, a gently-lit bed with a man lying down, a wheeled trolley next to him and a fan pointed at him.

A short film entitled “Hats” began. The first shot panned out to show a woman, with coarse patchy hair and a massive grin cackling as she tried on the most extravagant yellow hat with massive straw brim. She looked into the camera and said, “Yes. This is me.”

At this point, I have to admit to no longer being able to see very well due to the large amounts of tears gushing down my face – so if my descriptions fall short somehow, I apologise.

Rosetta Life is a charity dedicated to working with people who have life-threatening illnesses.  “The Magical Glow of the Co Op” was a rehearsed reading as part of the Rosetta Live celebrations that featured the work of two hospices; Birmingham St Mary’s Hospice in Selly Park and St Giles Hospice Whittington, near Lichfield. Working together, more than 30 hospice users generated a performance script that looked at the choices people face when dying and the difficulties they face when making these choices.  In the 10 chairs sat 3 professional actors (the fourth was lying on the bed), 6 hospice users and one care professional.  Throughout the reading hospice users took to the stage to perform alongside the professional actors which really added weight and poignancy (as well as some unexpected laughs) to the evening.

The performance finished with an aftershow discussion called ‘The Big Conversation – Let’s Talk About Living’.  The audience were invited to ask questions of the panel of hospice users who had taken part in the perfomance, health care practitioners and the actors who were still in character.  Until then, I had kept my eyes focused on the stage, hoping to hide anonymously at the edge of a row.  However once the lights went up, I really looked at the audience – at those people who had chosen to spend a night in the company of such a taboo subject.   The audience consisted of every economic/social/cultural background you can imagine, all sat in one small venue watching their loved ones perform, or the words of their lost loved one performed by their peers.  And there were no dry eyes.  Not one.

I feel excited that Birmingham East and North PCT were brave enough not only to fund this project, but also to enable Birmingham to become the first UK city that is making steps to talk openly about how it’s citizens positively approach life as it draws to a close, as well as how they want to be remembered. Created in Birmingham has always highlighted exciting and relevant creative ventures linked to the city, and I can’t think of a more perfect project to write about in my first post proper.  Actors, hospice users, venue and funders are all citizens of Birmingham, breaking new and important (if at times uncomfortable) ground.  This was a performance that anyone touched by illness should see, not just the friends and families of those performing.

“The Magical Glow of the Co-op” was just one small part of the Rosetta Live celebration running throughout June. It culminates in a film premiere at The Electric Cinema on 29th June commencing at 6.00pm.  To book, please contact bookings@rosettalive.org – I know I’m going to be there.