Exclusive UK Dates For The Snow Queen Announced

Hot on the heels of our Indian tour, Trestle’s production of The Snow Queen returns to the UK for 3 exclusive dates in London & St Albans at the end of the summer.

Don’t miss this stunning and unique adaptation by Anupama Chandrasekhar of a well loved story.

After a freak snowstorm on the southern tip of India, Kumar disappears. Gowri, his best friend, discovers that he has been captured by the formidable Snow Queen, and embarks on a journey across the length and breadth of the continent to save him.

From the burning heat of southern India, through lush backwaters, glitzy Bollywood and desolate bandit country, our brave heroine strives to bring the warmth of friendship to the icy north.

Will Kumar be trapped forever in the deathly cold of everlasting winter? Or can his closest friend find a way of melting the Snow Queen’s frozen heart?

Join us for a brand new version of Hans Christian Andersen’s magical tale, transported to a land rich in colour, music and unforgettable imagery.

‘Rosamunde Hutt’s production is acted with flair and humour and can hold an audience of schoolchildren rapt from start to finish’

**** 4 star review, Financial Times

Suitable for ages 6+ / Runtime 2 hrs (incl. interval)

Thurs 30th Aug, 4pm
Canada Water Culture Space, Canada Water Library,
21 Surrey Quays Rd, London SE16 7AR
Tickets £8 / Family £28
Book via the Albany Box Office: 020 8692 4446
Click here to book online @ canadawaterculturespace.org.uk

Download the flyer for Canada Water here

Sat 1st & Sun 2nd Sept, 2.30pm
Trestle Arts Base, Russet Drive, St Albans AL4 0JQ
Tickets £12 / conc £10 / Family £40
Box office: 01727 850950
Click here to book online @ www.allaboutstalbans.com

Download the Trestle flyer here

Trestle Welcomes The Olympic Torch In St Albans On Sunday 8th July

As part of it long journey around the UK the Olympic Torch arrives in St Albans on 8th July at approximately 4pm. Trestle is welcoming Olympic flame at the junction of Hatfield Road where it joins Charlotte Close AL4 0TS (nr Homebase).

To help celebrate this unique event we will be entertaining the crowds with life size flamingo, lion, giraffe, elephant and tiger puppets together with live music and our famous Trestle masks. The fun starts at 3.30pm and finishes at 4.10pm

It’s official: Trestle are going to India!

Trestle are delighted to confirm that we will be touring The Snow Queen, originally produced by the Unicorn, across India this Summer and the new casting is now complete! Our partners, The British Council in India have been working hard to secure some of the most prestigious festivals and venues for the production; the final tour schedule will be available soon.

We are overjoyed to welcome back Amaka Okafor as Gowri, the brave and intrepid heroine of the Snow Queen story. Pooja Ghai will again play Patti, the Grandmother of the piece whose warmth and belief in Gowri beat at the heart of the play. Asif Khan will return to the company to give his hilarious and touching portrayal of KiKi, the crow rickshaw driver of Mumbai. These three will be joined by Eric Nzaramba (also known as Ery) who developed the play in its early stages as part of the Unicorn Ensemble; he will become Bobby the Bollywood villain. Balvinder Sopal will play the Snow Queen, a tortured soul who presides over the northern lands of Indian with an icy grasp and Jaz Deol will play Kumar, the boy who is entranced by the Snow Queen and taken captive in her ice palace. Shalini Peiris completes the cast, playing Neelima, the glamorous Bollywood star, and Asha the bandit girl.


Photo of the original cast and production team meeting Indian producer Preeti Gonakor at the Alchemy Festival 2012, when the tour was a possibility; Now it is confirmed!

The actors are all ensemble players who will create the worlds of the production, as the story travels from the southernmost tip of India, the seaside town of Kanyakumari, up through Kerala, to Bombay and the Chambal Hills before reaching the Himalayan mountains in the North. Designer Sophia Lovell Smith is re creating the design of the piece, taking into account the varied spaces we will perform in when we reach India. Anupama Chandrasekhar, who is based in Chennai, will be welcoming the production into her home city to open the prestigious The Hindu Metroplus Theatre Festival on August 10th. The Snow Queen will then continue its tour through Bangalore, Mumbai, and Delhi.

Trestle’s Emily Gray will travel out to India the week before the actors arrive there to run workshops in each of the cities we will be performing in. She will work with all ages, encouraging schools and families to come and see this gorgeous production. The Snow Queen will not only celebrate a highly successful theatrical collaboration between Indian and UK artists, but will also introduce Indian audiences to the high quality theatre for young people for which both Unicorn and Trestle are renowned.

You can follow the all the action of the tour as it unfolds by following @TrestleTheatre searching #SnowQueenIndia on Twitter

A Special This is a That Workshop to help support the Bailey Sarwa Appeal

We hope you can join us on Sunday 3 June at 2.30pm for a magnificent, magical, physical, musical journey about a father and daughter who let their imagination run away with them. This is a That is a unique fusion of dance and theatre for children aged 4+ and their grownups.

In an apartment in Paris where nothing is quite as it seems, join Josette and her Papa as they dance with their ears, eat a piece of the moon, and meet a toy soldier called Jacqueline.

Inspired by the stories (les histoires) that French Absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco wrote for his young daughter (sa petite fille), international theatre collective Peut-être Theatre present an intriguing and innovative play (pièce) that will capture the imaginations of everyone (tout la monde). The show was developed with the help of many children through an innovative workshop programme. The children helped us to design the costumes and the set and contributed lots of very good ideas for how to tell our stories.

A special This is a That Workshop will take place at 1pm in the Studio, places are strictly limited to 20 and cost just £3 when booking a ticket for the show. Workshop places can only be booked directly through the Box Office on 01727 850950. All proceeds from the workshop will go to the Bailey Sarwa Appeal; you can find more information about Bailey at www.baileysarwa.co.uk

‘The stories are rendered with a childish joy and exuberance by Peut-ȇtre Theatre.’ - Slough Observer

Tickets are £10 / £8 / Family £32 (4 Tickets) and you can book them by calling the Box Office on 01727 850950 or online at www.allaboutstalbans.com.

We look forward to seeing you soon at Trestle Arts Base!

Cable theft leaves Trestle off the grid

At approximately 1pm on Monday afternoon, Trestle’s Internet and phone systems went down. After investigation we discovered that over 200 meters of cable had been stolen from across a number of local exchange boxes, the result of which is that Trestle Arts Base could be off the grid until Tuesday 8th May.

The team at Trestle has been working tirelessly to regain some connection and have a temporary divert in place so that we can still receive phone calls on the main Box Office number (01727 850950) but will be unable to connect to the internet, receive emails or take card payments until our service is reconnected… Oh the joys of the modern world!

With two fantastic shows, Kate Tempest and Paines Plough’s Wasted on Saturday 5 May, 7.30pm and Cube Theatre’s stunning new adaptation of Pinocchio on Sunday 6 May, 2.30pm coming up at the weekend we are obviously very concerned that people will have trouble purchasing tickets. If you call the main number we are able to reserve tickets for you and are more than happy to accept payment (cash/cheque only) on the day of the performance, alternatively you can still purchase tickets online via www.allaboutstalbans.com.

If you have tried to contact us via email or phone and received no response, please accept our apologies and please keep trying – If you leave us a message we will get back to you.

Thank you for your patience.

- All the Team at Trestle

Shows keep Trestle Arts Base Alive: New Professional Performance Programme funded by St Albans’ District Council

In Autumn 2011 a new programming partnership began, with St Albans City and District Council and Trestle Arts Base working together to bring the best of small scale, high quality, innovative performances from across the UK into Trestle Arts Base.

Lucy Godfrey from the Council works with us at Trestle to create a mix of art forms and voices within the programme. Running through all the shows is a passion for bringing in new audiences to professional touring work that is the best of its kind.

We began the new programme with the wonderful Just So Stories, brought to us by Red Table Theatre, which sold out at Christmas, bringing over 600 audience members to Trestle. Since then, all our work for children and their families has sold out. On the first Sunday of every month there is a children’s show and although we now recognize many of the children who come back and back for more, it’s always lovely to welcome new families to Trestle.

On the first Saturday evening of the month there are performances for young people and adults and so far we have enjoyed compelling dance theatre in The Falling Man by Smallpetitklein and brilliant physicality inThirsty by the Paper Birds. We are looking forward to welcoming a physical piece from Idle Motion, a fantastic new play, Wasted, from Paines Plough and hilarious dance comedy from the renowned New Art Club.

Soon it will best Albans’ Festival time and there’ll be a feast of new work at Trestle Arts Base, Trestle community performances at The Verulamium Museum and storytelling in the strangest of places…

India calling: will Trestle be touring the Unicorn’s stunning Snow Queen to India this Summer?

I had a delightful time, as Movement Director, collaborating with director Rosamunde Hutt on the Unicorn’s 2011 Christmas show, The Snow Queen, set in India. Trestle has developed an Indian influenced physical theatre language, following our Indian/UK collaboration in 2006-7. Rosamunde asked me to bring my experience of interpreting classical Indian movement into contemporary character work and physical storytelling to the Unicorn process.

Drawing on Indian dance (mudra hand gestures), martial arts (kalaripayattu), rasas and archetypal characters, we created a world for The Snow Queen in which a contemporary teenager could exist alongside a classical goddess and an ancient tree.

Indian based writer Anupama Chandrasekhar created a compelling version of the Hans Christian Anderson tale translated into an epic journey from the southern most tip of India up to the Himalayan Mountains. The British Council’s ‘Connections through Culture’ scheme made this commission possible. I first met Anupama in Chennai, her home city, in 2002, when I was researching young people’s theatre in India for the Unicorn (at the time I was Unicorn’s Associate Director). Anupama shared a spark of interest in writing for children and families and I was so pleased to work with her a decade later on her fabulous first script for young audiences.

Ten thousand people saw the production at the Unicorn Theatre, which was a resounding success, and there has been great interest in touring the show to India. The leading South Indian Hindu Metro Plus Theatre Festival has invited the production to Chennai and Coimbatore in August 2012. There is also the possibility of touring to Mumbai and Bangalore.

Trestle, with our experience of touring and international collaboration, has become the leading UK partner for the potential tour. We are planning, fundraising and negotiating along with the British Council in India & the UK and the creative team to make this adventure possible; taking the piece to the writer’s home would complete this cultural connection. The production really could encourage new writing for young audiences in India and inspire more touring of thrilling young people’s theatre internationally. Soon we will know if it is going ahead…..

Emily Gray