This week's news from the Coliseum...

Last week we completed our run of The Hound of the Baskervilles at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield. I am delighted with the show and was so pleased to see so many of our regular audience members making the journey ‘over the tops’ in the coaches we provided. This week The Hound of the Baskervilles is playing in Bury St. Edmunds for the second leg of its ten week run.

Meanwhile all our staff our gearing up for the return of our new writing festival Wordsmith. Wordsmith12 will run from the 4 – 12 May and during that time we will present a series of performances, masterclasses and rehearsed readings at both University Campus Oldham and Oldham Central Library.

One of the highlights of this year’s Wordsmith will be a performance of True by Emma Rydal, which won the Audience Award for Best Play at last year’s 24:7 Theatre Festival - Manchester’s annual festival of new theatre making which has become a well-respected fixture on Greater Manchester’s theatre calendar. We are delighted to be teaming up with 24:7 on this to give this new play further life and exposure, and I would recommend it to anybody.

We will also be hosting a series of rehearsed readings of some new scripts during Wordsmith. This means that the writer of the piece, along with a director and a team of actors, will spend a day rehearsing the script, then perform to an audience in the evening. Theatre is a collaborative process, and rehearsed readings are a brilliant way for writers to garner invaluable feedback from other people working in the industry and, most importantly, the audience.

For any budding playwrights we are delighted that the brilliant Amanda Whittington, writer of among others Be My Baby, Ladies Day and Satin ‘n’ Steel, will be hosting a masterclass designed to help you hone your skills and develop your writing. After that, Amanda will be In Conversation with me, where I will be interviewing her about how she became a playwright and her subsequent career.

Wordsmith is a really important part of what we at the Coliseum do. It gives important exposure to new pieces of work and gives audiences the opportunity to see plays at various stages of development. New plays are the lifeblood of the theatre and Wordsmith is an excellent way of focusing the Coliseum’s energy on the various aspects of new writing.

There is lots more happening during Wordsmith12. For more information or to book tickets please contact our Box Office on 0161 624 2829. To discover more about new writing at the Coliseum please call Nicola Place on 0161 785 7007.

See you out and about.

Kevin Shaw
Artisitc Director