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…
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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.