CURVE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
SAT 12 SEP 2020
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Welcome to your weekly newsletter from Curve. We hope you, your friends and family are all feeling well.
We are thrilled to share the exciting news that Disney Theatrical has chosen Curve as the opening venue for the tour of the brand new production of Beauty and the Beast in 2021. We all need some good news right now and this investment in our theatre and city gives us all something truly magical to look forward to. Further details about the show will be released soon.
For the moment though, we’re continuing to bring theatre to you at home. Last week we released our dress rehearsal archive recording of Hanif Kureishi‘s My Beautiful Laundrette, and it’s been great to see so many of you watching the show for the first time, or enjoying the performance again. The show joins our online library of Made at Curve archive recordings, including Memoirs of an Asian Football Casual, What the Butler Saw and The Importance of Being Earnest.
Don’t forget that we’ll also be bringing Wise Children‘s Romantics Anonymous to you live from Bristol Old Vic in a couple of weeks. The broadcast promises to be a truly special event (live actors in an actual theatre!); please book your tickets at the link provided in the section below.
For our younger audiences, there’s a new addition to our Bedtime Stories library this week – Sam Silver Undercover Pirate: Skeleton Island, by Jan Burchett and Sara Vogler. Read by local performer Katie Burchett, we hope you and your family will be both captivated and inspired by this wonderful adventure.
There’s also an opportunity to enjoy Indian classical dance and music with the final month of the Nartan Online 2020 Series, curated by our Associate Company Nupur Arts. It’s been a pleasure to support this programme alongside Arts Council England, and we hope you enjoying taking in the last few performances over the coming weekends.
We leave you on a colourful and uplifting note this week with the release of our digital community choir performance of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Our latest Curve-commissioned community project brings together over 60 singers, signers and musicians, with musical direction from The Color Purple’s Alex Parker and video editing by Ben Hewis, and we are hugely grateful for all of their wonderful contributions. The release also coincides with our 2021 rescheduled dates for The Wizard of Oz going on sale, and you can book your tickets here. We hope you enjoy the video, and will be able to join us in Oz next Christmas. We’ve been working hard on the production throughout lockdown and hopefully all of this extra preparation time will make it extra special!
Our thanks as ever to Leicester City Council, Arts Council England and to you – our audiences – for your continued support.
With all good wishes,
Chris & Nikolai
THE SHOW MUST GO ON-LINE
Disney's Beauty and the Beast to open at Curve
The most enchanted musical of all time opens at Curve in 2021!
Further information will be released soon, with tickets on sale this autumn.
Become a Member at the link below to be amongst the first to book.
Enjoy another spin of My Beautiful Laundrette
Last week we released the dress rehearsal archive recording of our 2019 Made at Curve production of Hanif Kureishi‘s My Beautiful Laundrette. Alongside the recording, we’ve released a digital discussion with Director Nikolai Foster, Writer Hanif Kureishi, Designer Grace Smart and the full cast, and you can watch the conversation here.
The recording is also presented with captions, and enhanced introductory notes by Talking Sense Audio Description Services for blind and partially sighted audience members.
A swashbuckling new bedtime adventure!
To help keep kids entertained and inspired, we’re pleased to share our latest bedtime story – Sam Silver Undercover Pirate: Skeleton Island, read by performer Katie Burchett.
Written by Jan Burchett and Sara Vogler, follow Sam Silver as he travels back three hundred years to join the pirate crew of the Sea Wolf on a hunt for buried treasure.
This Bedtime Story is no longer available.
Coming up this month in Nupur Arts' Nartan Online Series 2020
Alongside Arts Council England, we have been delighted to support the Nartan Online Series 2020 curated by our Associate Company Nupur Arts.
Over the last few months, the series has celebrated Indian classical dance and music, and the programming continues throughout September. Tune in to Nupur’s YouTube channel every Saturday and Sunday, where UK artists will be showcasing Bharatanatyam, Manipuri Dance, Carnatic, Hindustani and Sufi music!
Get cosy with a sweet night of live musical theatre at home
There’s now just under two weeks to go until Wise Children‘s Romantics Anonymous is broadcast to homes across the globe, LIVE from Bristol Old Vic!
This is not a fancy, edited pre-record of the show. This is the real thing. At 7.15pm on Wed 23 Sep, when you take your seat on your sofa for the special Midlands performance, the company will be on stage warming up, running lines and tuning instruments until 7.30pm. Showtime!
Complete with all the gorgeous possibilities for surprise that an old school night in the theatre would have, this is most definitely not a film. This is living breathing theatre, happening in the moment, shared with a live audience.
This production has now finished.
SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW
Watch our latest Curve CommissionedCommunity Project now
Earlier this year, faced with great uncertainty, we made the difficult decision to postpone our 2020 production of The Wizard of Oz to Christmas 2021. Throughout these challenging times we have remained committed to providing audiences with hope and positivity through online content; although the road to Oz is now much longer than we could have ever imagined, that’s no reason to stop us sharing the show’s central themes of friendship, camaraderie and joy.
Over the summer, we’ve worked with over 60 singers, signers and musicians to create a digital community choir performance of the iconic Somewhere Over the Rainbow, with musical direction from Alex Parker and video editing by Ben Hewis. As well as members of our Curve Youth and Community Company, Friends and Supporters, you’ll also see signers from Leicester Deaf Action Group, singers from our Associate company Kaine Choir, National Youth Music Theatre and more, as well as Rainbows Hospice‘s Bow the Bear and Oscar our theatre dog (and possible Toto contender!)
The song stands as one of the most iconic pieces of all time, its message of hope for better times all the more significant this year. The rainbow a powerful symbol of community and coming together to support one another.
A huge thank you to all those who have taken part in this video. We hope its joy and happiness reach from our home in Leicester to yours.