Trestle Arts Base 15Festival

Trestle Masks come to Cambridge

Places are still available for the Trestle Mask Workshop taking place on Sunday, 26 July 2015. This full day workshop runs from 11am to 5pm at The Box Cafe, 47 Norfolk Street Cambridge CB1 2LD and is being lead by Emily Gray, Artistic Director of Trestle Theatre Company.

The workshop explores the ways in which wearing masks can liberate parts of your character that don't normally come out to play, and free you up to be creative and to be yourself. Trestle theatre masks are playful and accessible, they transform performers and transfix audiences. With a mask on you have the freedom to discover the world through another’s eyes.

In the workshop we explore techniques used to perform in full masks and half masks. Using exercises, games and improvisation the sessions covers physicality, focus and interaction with other masked performers as well as the audience.

No prior experience is needed and the workshop aims to develop confidence, play and physicality in performers.

The workshop will be limited to 16 people so that Emily can give good support and attention to every participant, and to allow everyone the opportunity to wear different types of mask.

Book your workshop place online

About the organisers

Emily Gray
Emily became Artistic Director of Trestle in 2004 and has developed the Company, introducing half masks and physical theatre to Trestle’s full mask work and embedding the Company into Trestle Arts Base in St Albans. Emily’s expertise in teaching mask theatre skills has grown to include running a Trestle MA in Drama Education and training performers and teachers across the world.

Previously, Emily was Artistic Director of TAG Theatre Company, a young people’s touring theatre based in Glasgow. From 1999 she was the Associate Director at Unicorn Theatre, the UK’s leading theatre for children and young people. In 1996 she was awarded the Channel 4 bursary for young directors at Nottingham Playhouse and Roundabout. Emily studied Theology at Cambridge University and trained in directing at The Central School of Speech and Drama and has since worked extensively in movement and devised storytelling 

theatre.

Stuart Reid
Stuart is an experienced improviser and organisation change consultant. He uses ideas from Gestalt and from improvisation to inform his practice as a consultant working with change. Stuart first encountered improv twenty years ago when he was involved in youth theatre, and has returned to improv in the past five years. He's trained as an improviser with Keith Johnstone, Patti Stiles, Dave Bourn, Steve Roe, Rob Poynton and The Maydays, and has performed on-stage as a member of the London-based improv group Just Add Lib. Stuart is based in Peterborough, UK and is building an improv community in the city.

IO Fringe, Feat. The Live Music Project

As part of The International Organ Festival Fringe events Trestle's LMP is organising and hosting an event on 5th July outside the Clock Tower from 12.30- 3.30pm with Starseedz, Li-Li, Michael King, Neil Stanton & Emma McGrath performing.

A full programme can be picked up at St Albans Tourist Information Centre along with other participating venues and can be downloaded at www.enjoystalbans.com/iofringe

Further info at www.lemonrock.com/iofringe

IOFringe is provided by 1Life in partnership with St Albans City & District Council and managed by the St Albans Arts Team.

Getting involved with this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival?

Anna-Helena McLean, Director of Moon Fool, ACT Ensemble Practice and former principal of the legendary Gardzienice Centre in Poland, is coming to the EdFringe's lead venue Summerhall Gallery with her solo cabaret TITANIA and a programme of WORKSHOPS running at Performing Arts Studio Scotland.

The show previews for only £10 on August 5th and runs Aug 7-30 at 6.25pm each night except Mondays.

Tickets are available here.

More information can be found on Facebook

The workshop programme offers a range of 3 day intensive, a 2 day and two one off taster sessions. There are still reduced rates available until the end of June for students so email admin@moonfool.com for an application form and with your enquiry.

Participant feedback:

"... You were guiding us to constantly, actively heightening our sensitivity to the space and to each other... as a performer it makes sense to imagine that [a character] LIVES YOU. Allowing all your faculties to be so OPEN and so sensitive that what comes out of you is not an act, but the allowance of a TRUE IMPULSE... When you feel "it", it really is the most SIMPLE thing"

What would make your list of brilliant things?

If you were tasked with listing all the things that made you happy, what would you choose?

Following its smash hit, sell out runs at The Edinburgh Festival and Off Broadway Paines Plough's critically acclaimed performance Every Brilliant Thing comes to Trestle Arts Base on Thursday 28 May. Hailed by the New York Post as '...the funniest show about depression you've ever seen' and 'Heart-wrenching, hilarious…possibly one of the funniest plays you’ll ever see, full stop.' ★★★★ by The Guardian

Want to know more? Then check out the videos below.

- we hope you can join us!

A Paines Plough and Pentabus Theatre Company production by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe

Tickets: £12 / £10 Concessions / £40 Family Ticket (x4)

or call the Box Office on 01727 850 950

#EveryBrilliantThing

Are you happy?

Would more money help? A hug from a stranger? A new mobile phone or cheaper car insurance?

Promises of Happiness is a dance show for joy, for simple pleasures, for saying ‘no’ to people who want to tell us what should or should not make us happy; and to endless promises of happiness alluding to a world just out of reach.

Partly developed here at Trestle Arts Base in 2012, with the trailer created by St Albans Digital Arts Collective VIDEOfeet, we are delighted to be welcoming Promises of Happiness back with it's full scale smile agenda on Tuesday 14 April, 7.30pm.

“Beautifully observed and condensed into a deep, reflective and thought provoking experience”  -Audience member of the work-in-development sharing (Trestle Arts Base)

Robert Clark is a UK based choreographer who has been creating and presenting work since 2006 both nationally and internationally. He is renowned for his humorous and emotionally charged, intricate and detailed, direct and engaging dance performances and has so far developed and shown two works with the support of Trestle Arts Base.

#PromisesOfHappiness  Commissioned by DanceEast and The Place. Funded by Arts Council England. Supported by Greenwich Dance, Trestle Arts Base and Dance4. Robert Clark is a Work Place Artist and Resident Artist at Greenwich Dance

More Information about the show at Trestle Arts Base

Learn to love your shelf this Mother's Day

MONSTRO Theatre Company Present

Bookstory

Sunday 15 March, 2pm
Trestle Arts Base, Russet Drive, St Albans AL4 0JQ

Looking for a different sort of treat this Mother’s Day? What better way to spend the afternoon than with your nearest and dearest and Brian the Librarian…

In Brian’s library, the books are all in a muddle. The Romance is rubbing shoulders with the DIY manual and the Dictionary is sharing a shelf with the Whodunnit. To save their confused library (and its confused librarian) the books must work together – but how? Books can’t move…or can they?

To discover their real powers the books will first have to face their deadliest enemies…
_______________________________________________________________

Bookstory is a tiny puppet musical with some very big ideas. Suitable for anyone over the age of 7, it uses songs, puppetry and dynamic performance to tell the story of the story in the digital age.

“Cheesy West End sell outs beware. – the ingenuity, economy and sheer joyfulness of what you put together filled my head with a tingle.” -  Will Stevens (on Thunder and Coal)

Tickets are £12 / £10 / Family £40 (Max 2 Adults) and you can book them by calling the Box Office on 01727 850950 or online at www.allaboutstalbans.com. Group discounts available please call 01727 850 950 for details.

Trestle Artistic Director Emily Gray to Direct NEW Jodie Kidd musical ‘Yarico’

We are delighted to announce that Emily Gray will be directing Yarico - The Musical, produced by John and Jodie Kidd and opening at The London Theatre Workshop this February.

The story of Yarico was first recorded by Richard Ligon in his book, True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados, published in 1657. On hearing her story, Ligon wrote: “And so poor Yarico for her love, lost her liberty.”

Bringing the story of Yarico to the stage has been a 10-year labour of love for producers John Kidd and his daughter Jodie, the model and UK TV presenter, who both have strong connections to Barbados, where they have a family home.

In a move to bring this forgotten story to a modern audience, John and Jodie have commissioned Yarico, which is based on the known facts of the original story.

For more information visit click here or visit www.facebook.com/yaricothemusical.

Christmas Box Office & Opening Times

The Trestle office will be closed from 12pm on Christmas Eve and will reopen on Monday 5th January 2015.

We hope you all have a very lovely Christmas planned and hopefully we will see some of you on Sunday 28th December for Horse + Bamboo‘s delicious treat of a show, Hansel and Gretel. This dark, chewy and delicious at heart theatre performance promises to be a feast for the senses.

Tickets for Hansel and Gretel are available to buy throughout the festive period via All About St Albans.

Should you urgently need to speak with a member of staff regarding a ticket booking please contact 07814730074 from Boxing Day onwards.

Merry Christmas from Everyone at Trestle

We would like to thank you for your fantastic support over the lively year that has been 2014.

This year has held some exciting developments for the Company and we are delighted to have been the first recipient of the Creative Heart of Flame Award for most innovative Business in Hertfordshire. In 2014 The Deadlies, came into being in collaboration with York Theatre Royal. This Half Mask piece was part of the larger scale On Our Turf project, engaging with communities outside of York; we developed a workshop, performance and sharing process with six collaborating partners including schools, youth theatres and a disability group; the process led to a series of promenade performances and an event at The National Rural Touring Conference at York Theatre Royal.

The Company has introduced Trestle Masks Trestle Mask Module into the Trinity College Performing Arts Exam syllabus and been commissioned to create a set of masks for a Motion Capture based feature film. We have had fun developing our participation programme to include a highly relevant array of Primary school workshops, including Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes and Primary INSET and have enjoyed training teachers and performers from Gibraltar, Japan, Ireland, Jersey and the Netherlands.

As ever, we feel lucky to have been able to support some amazing performance development and professional training opportunities here at Trestle Arts Base, including hosting internationally renowned master of clown Philippe Gaulier for Small Nose Productions, who we also supported in the development of The Black Dog Project, Keely Mills’ solo show You Can’t be Surprised by a Selfie, which features full masks created in collaboration with our Mask Team and Thadows LOOM, a new work in progress from St Albans based digital arts collective VIDEOfeet, that brought together film, live performance, projection and sound design to create a truly immersive piece.

We are delighted to announce that our Artistic Director Emily Gray will be directing an exciting new musical, Yarico, at London Theatre Workshop in February 2015 and Trestle will be delivering a creative learning programme to accompany the show. Please visit our website to keep up to date with all our latest news.

The Live Music Project Christmas Break

The Live Music Project is taking a break for Christmas but will be back with another fantastic line up on Saturday 31st January 2015.  We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has supported the project through the year especially Denise Parsons – Promoter, Jack Hobbs from Jacket Studios for stage management and sound, Dorian Brooke on lighting,  Dani Medlin running the door and merchandise stall and all the other volunteers that have helped out along the way. We look forward to supporting local original music throughout 2015.

Performing in January will be Silverspace, The Maida Vales, Navarro and The Portraits. Please keep checking the website for further details.

Horse + Bamboo Returns to Trestle this Christmas

Trestle is delighted that Horse + Bamboo Theatre will be returning to Trestle Arts Base this Christmas for the third consecutive year with another enchanting production; a beautiful rendition of the well known fairytale Hansel and Gretel. The show will include masks, puppets, music and story-telling which is at the heart of Horse + Bamboo’s theatre.

“I adore Horse and Bamboo. Simply, they make beautiful, stunning and utterly engaging theatre. I cannot speak too highly about the quality and originality of their shows. A must see company” – Nick Park, Aardman Animations and creator of Wallace and Gromit.

There will be two performances on Sunday 28 December at 2pm and 4.30pm.  Early booking is advised after tickets quickly sold out for the last family show.

For details about the show and to book tickets click here

Trestle Wins Award for Most Innovative Business

Trestle is thrilled to have won the Creative Hertfordshire Flame Awardfor Most Innovative Business on Saturday evening and would like to express its thanks to those who have recognised Trestle’s achievements. Although Trestle’s work is for a charitable cause it’s wonderful to be recognised as a thriving business both in the community and nationally.  These new awards are a celebration of Hertfordshire’s creative talent and of arts and culture countywide and Trestle are proud to have been the very first winner of the award.  Trestle would like to also congratulate all the other winners and the nominees who represent the excellent array of creative talent in Herts.

The Flame Award follows another proud achievement by Trestle Mask Maker, Joseph Arm, who was a Young Business Person of the Year Finalist at the St Albans Chamber of Commerce Community Business Awards recently.  Joseph’s artistic talent and creation of a new set of half masks for Trestle has played an integral part in the growth and development of the business.

Marvellous Masks returns in September

Join us on Mondays, 4.30-6.00pm, for lots of madcap mask fun at Trestle Arts Base.

Using Trestle full masks and half masks you will build skills and confidence in mask performance, create wonderful characters, devise scenes and have an opportunity to take part in a mask performance at the end of term. The sessions are led by Trestle’s professional theatre practitioners and there will also be the opportunity to work towards new Trinity Exams in Mask Theatre.

Cost:  £6.00 per session.

For everyone ages 10-16 years.

Dates:
Monday 15 Sept – Monday 20 Oct  (6 weeks)
Half Term Break
Monday 3 Nov  – Monday 8 Dec (6 weeks)

You can pay weekly, for half a term or for the full term: £6 / £36 / £72

To reserve your place or find out more,  please call 01727 850950 or email takingpart@trestle.org.uk

In partnership with Beaumont School, St Albans & Trinity College London.

The Deadlies: Trestle’s Yorkshire Adventure

It all began back in March with a box of half masks and the idea of the seven deadly sins and culminated in mid-July with a celebration at York Theatre Royal. We worked with 125 young people and 26 adults, delivered 21 workshops and 6 performances for over 300 audience members. We travelled thousands of miles across Yorkshire and brought 128 half masks into the County.

Through March, Emily Gray spent three weeks up at York Theatre Royal with a brilliant Trestle team:  performer, workshop leaders Audrie Woodhouse and John Cockerill experimented with the masks and ideas of trading your home for an adventure.  Dramaturg Hannah Davies drew the story together, composer Ben Glasstone created moments of music and producer Alex Wright asked pertinent questions at important points!

We worked with two groups from St Olave’s School andAmpleforth College, students from University of York and aYork Theatre Royal youth group. We shared mask skills and showed the groups a short mask performance; they then created further material for our story and had fun developing the characters of the sins and finding a relevance to their lives.  Quotes from the young people on what The Deadlies is about included: ‘Human issues that you have to deal with’ , ‘You can overcome anything’.

In May we refined the process and visited four Yorkshire towns which are part of the On Our Turf project (funded by Arts Council Strategic Touring), which engages with communities outside of York; we were welcomed into Selby High School, Woldgate College in Pocklington, The Old Boot Shop in Easingwold and Helmsley Arts Centre youth theatre. The groups created delightful interpretations of the masks and the story and shared their work with friends and family. Each group were given two mask sets to continue developing their mask work.

‘Working with Trestle Theatre Company was a fantastic experience for our students who responded wonderfully to Emily’s direction.  The invaluable experience of working alongside professional performers, learning how to use the masks and sharing the devising process was challenging but thoroughly enjoyable. The resulting performance was a huge success and the feedback we got from our audience and members of staff in school made me very proud to have been involved.’   – Sally Lewis, Selby High School

In July, back at York Theatre Royal during lunch time at the wonderful New Directions Festival, the teenagers from Selby High School improvised their way around the café and foyer as playful masked Deadlies and the disabled adults from the Old Boot Shop entertained audiences out in the courtyard.  We found that participants can improvise effectively in half mask, given the time and confidence to develop the necessary skills and that audiences relate to and enjoy the characters of the Deadly Sins.

Thank you to York Theatre Royal, who set us a challenge, gave us support, let us experiment and discover a successful model of delivery. Thank you to all those who helped us to raise funds via The Big Give to see this project begin to take flight. We have a Yorkshire version of The Deadlies and now we need to create interpretations that can travel through other counties….please get in touch if you would like to discuss a version for your locality.

The Deadlies is Trestle’s latest invention; a performance and participation project, offering a new way of involving local people in professional performance through Trestle Half Masks. The story follows Archie, played by a professional actor, as he encounters the Seven Deadly Sins, brought to life by participants in half mask. Trestle, supported by York Theatre Royal, has been working with groups in Yorkshire, integrating them into the telling of the story with elements of improvisation and audience interaction. Together we have created performance events that spill beyond the conventional theatre space.

Thadows Loom

Presented by VIDEOfeet in association with Obra Theatre Co & supported by Trestle Theatre Co

Friday 20 June, 8pm

“As if on the event horizon of a black hole, he falls out of time, his life forgotten”

Thadows Loom is a brand new offering from St Albans based digital arts collective VIDEOfeet, spearheaded by Artistic Director Matt Smith. Using a startling combination of film, live performance, projection and intense sound design, VIDEOfeet bring you a truly immersive experience exploring the nature of reality and time in our digitally accelerated age.

Featuring international artist and performer Olivero Papi (Song of the Goat, Obra Theatre Company, Awake Projects) with movement direction by Obra co-founder Kate Hannah Perry and dramaturgy provided by Emily Gray of Trestle Theatre Company, Thadows Loom will take you on a mind bending journey through a disintegration of space and time as experienced through one man’s eyes.

For just one night at Trestle Arts Base this unique work in progress is presented as the first third of a full length multimedia performance.

Audience responses from LOOM (2011)

‘I was totally absorbed in the performance…transported to another world’

‘I am still left with the feeling of being punched in the eyeballs with visual ideas.’

‘Amazing and intriguing. Hard to fathom how the visuals were created and the impact was very sensory and absorbing. Impressive.’

Box Office: 01727 850 950 | www.trestle.org.uk | All Tickets £5

Trestle Arts Base, Russet Drive, St Albans AL4 0JQ

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About VIDEOfeet Digital Arts:

VIDEOfeet are an digital arts collective, formed in 2008 when Matt Smith, Alex Hyland and Jim Christian decided to take their skills and passion for making award winning short films (as Lamfrag) into different directions.

VIDEOfeet’s first exploration into live performance came in 2011 with the Research & Development project ‘LOOM’; a dizzying exploration into the effects of combining performance, projection, light and sound,  resulting in a truly immersive experience for the audience that attended the scratch performance.  Thadows Loom is the next stage of this journey and brings together the knowledge gained during the LOOM R&D with newly developed techniques to represent the apogee of their practice so far.  Both LOOM and Thadows Loom are funded by the Arts Council England GftA Programme with LOOM also being nominated for the 2011 Escalator East scheme.

The Rite of Spring/Romeo and Juliet; featuring Trestle Half Masks

Concert Theatre in association with Trestle Masks.

Thursday 8 May, 7.30pm. 

This exciting production brings together Stravinsky’s score with Shakespeare’s play: The Rite of Spring / Romeo and Juliet uses Trestle’s expressive character half masks and piano four hands to create a music-oriented physical theatre retelling of Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy.

Conceived by award-winning pianist An-Ting Chang and her innovative theatre company Concert Theatre, the production features concert pianists from the Royal Academy of Music, actors and director trained at the Lecoq School and mask specialists from Trestle Theatre who have designed and created the half masks especially for the show.

‘this contemporary slice of theatre might ignite your passion for alternative Shakespeare‘ –  london.lecool.com

Tickets: £13 Full Price / £11 Concs / £8 Under 16s /Group discount available.

To book tickets call the Box Office on 01727 850 950 or visit 

10% off a combined show and workshop booking

WorkshopThere is also a workshop available for schools/colleges to accompany the show which uses Commedia dell’arte and the language of half mask to bring the characters and text of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to life. This can support programmes of study across the curriculum such as Drama, Theatre Studies, English, Music, Performing Arts & PSHEE.  For further details or to book a workshop, please contact: takingpart@trestle.org.uk / 01727 850950

About Concert Theatre:

Concert Theatre is a combination form in which classical music and drama are performed live together. Music becomes not just an atmospheric underscore but another language expressed by the musicians, a voice and character in its own right, spoken alongside the actors on the same stage. The two distinct works are presented side by side to create deeper resonance and complexity of interpretation in each and a rich complete performance. For more info, tour dates and venues visit: www.concerttheatre.org.uk

Philippe Gaulier Clown Workshop

We’re thrilled that this Autumn Small Nose Productions are bringing Philippe Gaulier, French master clown, to Trestle for a week long workshop.  Philippe Gaulier is the founder of École Philippe Gaulier,  the internationally renowned clown school near Paris.

This workshop will focus on clown. Small Nose are aiming to put together a group with varied experience, so if you have never done clown before or if you are looking to refill your clown boots this will be a great workshop for you.

The workshop will take place in the week 29th Sep– 3rd October 2014 at Trestle Arts Base. Philippe will teach for around five hours. The cost of the workshop is £350.00  and we will need a deposit to hold your place.

If you are interested, please download the form and follow the booking instructions. **  JUST A FEW PLACE LEFT **

BOOKING FORM FOR PHILIPPE GAULIER WORKSHOP

www.smallnose.net

 

Hopelessly Devoted by Kate Tempest

A Paines Plough and Birmingham Repertory Theatre production

Hopelessly Devoted by Kate Tempest 

Thursday 6 March, 7.30pm
Trestle Arts Base, Russet Drive, St Albans AL4 0JQ

Join us at Trestle Arts Base on Thursday 6 March, 7.30pm for Kate Tempest’s incendiary new play. Following her smash-hit début Wasted that was performed here in 2012, Hopelessly Devoted combines lyrical fireworks with exhilarating live music.

 “STARTLINGLY BEAUTIFUL” ★★★★ The Times

A parent knows devotion. A football fan, an athlete, a scientist, a priest. They feel it. No matter how hopeless it seems. Chess is in prison. Facing a lengthy sentence, her cell mate, Serena, becomes her soul mate. But when Serena is given parole, Chess faces total isolation. Hope comes in the form of a music producer looking for a reason to love music again. She finds a powerful voice in Chess. But to harness her talent, Chess must first face her past.
“OUTSTANDING” ★★★★★ The Public Reviews

Tempest has been described as “one of the most exciting young writers working in Britain today.” (The Huffington Post). Earlier in 2013, 26-year old Kate became the first person under 40 to win the Ted Hughes Award for innovation in poetry, winning the accolade for her work Brand New Ancients – an hour story set to an orchestral backing.

 

The show contains some strong language and so may not be suitable for under 14s. Running Time: approx 1 hour 20 minutes.

Tickets are £12 / £10 / ‘Bring Your Friends’ £40 (4 Tickets) and you can book them by calling the Box Office on 01727 850950 or online at www.trestle.org.uk

Discounts available for large parties, Schools and Colleges please call 01727 850 950 for details.

#KTHopelesslyDevoted