Natasha Jones’s Lucy and Joe Gregory’s Jekyll/Hyde in rehearsal for 1812 Theatre Company’s Jekyll & Hyde The Musical
JULIE Lomas makes her directorial debut for the 1812 Theatre Group at the helm of the Helmsley company’s ambitious production of Jekyll & Hyde The Musical.
The resident troupe at Helmsley Arts Centre will be performing Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse’s thrilling pop score there from July 5 to 9 as part of the Meeting House Court venue’s 30th anniversary celebrations.
Julie, who has a wealth of experience directing at the The Grange Theatre, Walsall, is joined in the creative team by John Atkin, a musical director who needs no introduction to York audiences.
Julie Lomas: Directing 1812 Theatre Company for the first time
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s story, a devoted man of science, Dr Henry Jekyll, is driven to find a chemical breakthrough that can solve some of mankind’s most challenging medical dilemmas. Indeed, he is trying to discover cures for what now would be recognised as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Rebuffed by the powers that be, he decides to make himself the subject of his own experimental treatments, accidentally unleashing his inner demons along with the man the world would come to know as Mr Hyde.
Wildhorn’s soaring melodies offer wonderful opportunities for the performers to showcase their abilities. The two leading ladies each have their showstopping moments, but for the actor playing Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the role is a breath-taking tour de force.
Sarah Barker and Esme Schofield rehearsing a scene from Jekyll And Hyde The Musical
Enter Joe Gregory, a talented musician and experienced actor, who is a stalwart of 1812’s pantomimes and latterly has appeared in Martin Vander Weyer’s Helmsley’s Whole History, Alan Ayckbourn’s Absent Friends and David Tristram’s Going Green.
Joe will be playing opposite his wife, Amy Gregory, here cast as Jekyll’s fiancée, Emma Danvers. Amy is a “graduate” of the 1812 Youth Theatre, run by Natasha Jones, who will play Lucy, the other woman in Jekyll’s life.
Seven cast members are drawn from the youth theatre ranks, bringing their energy and skills to Julie’s production, which is sponsored by the Yorkshire Future Music Fund and Gillham Charitable Fund.
Amy Gregory’s Emma Carew in the rehearsal room
The full cast will be: Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde, Joe Gregory; Emma Carew, Amy Gregory; Lucy, Natasha Jones; Utterson, John Lister; Danvers, Richard Noakes; Simon Stride, Kristian Gregory; Mrs Poole, Joanne Lister; Aunt (Brothel Madam), Sarah Barker; New Girl, Esme Schofield; Nellie (Prostitute), Sara Todd; Winnie (Prostitute) Jeanette Hambidge; Lady Beaconsfield, Sue Smith; Lady Savage, Heather Linley, and Bishop of Basingstoke, Barry Whitaker.
Further roles will be: General Glossop, Stephen Lonsdale; Sir Archibald Proops, Graham Smith; Miss Henrietta Faversham, Rosie Hayman; Jekyll’s Father, Stephen Lonsdale; Miss Louisa Pembroke, Annabelle Bridgman; Ward Orderly/Bouncer, Tom Robson, plus Dancer and Prostitute, Abigail Elliot, Millicent Neighbour, Bella Cornford, Amelia Featherstone and Charlotte Mintoft.
1812 Theatre Company in Jekyll & Hyde The Musical, Helmsley Arts Centre, July 5 to 9, 7.30pm. Tickets: £15, under 18s, £7.50, from the arts centre or at helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Taking the chair: Barry Whitaker as the Bishop of Basingstoke
Are You A Robot? playwright Tim Crouch. Picture: Lisa Barnard
YORK company Thunk-It Theatre will host a free summer youth theatre project at Pocklington Arts Centre to create a performance of Tim Crouch’s Are You A Robot?
Run by industry professionals from August 7 to 11, the sessions for 11 to 18-year-old theatre enthusiasts will climax with a last-day performance for family and friends.
Thunk-It Theatre’s Becky Lennon and Jules Risingham have held youth theatre sessions in the Pocklington area for two years. Now the summer school activities will form part of the Wonder Fools’ international participatory arts project Positive Stories for Negative Times.
Funded by the I AM Fund, Thunk-It Theatre will provide five days of free youth theatre for youngsters with a flair for dramatics, who want to gain confidence and love to perform.
In Crouch’s play, two groups of children meet. They look the same; they imagine similar things; they make almost the same noises; they dance in almost the same way, but one group is a digital version of the other.
Thunk-It Theatre’s summer project poster
“They are the face we see reflected back to us online,” says Tim. “They’re exciting and demanding and hard to live up to. The two groups try to work each other out and decide if they can exist together.
“This is a joyful collision between real and fake, perfect and imperfect, human and robot. It’s an investigation into – and a celebration of – humanness.”
Thunk-It directors Becky and Jules say: “We’ve been blown away with the talent, drive and enthusiasm of the young people we’ve worked with in and around Pocklington. There’s a huge importance for rural arts provisions and the impact that this can have on individual young people is incredible.
“We cannot wait to get stuck in with another week of fabulous fun. Not only will young people develop performance skills, they also will learn confidence techniques, leadership skills, and have the opportunity to express themselves in a safe and supported space.”
For more information or to sign up, head to Thunk-It Theatre’s social media (Instagram, @thunkittheatre; Facebook, Thunk-It Theatre; Twitter, @ThunkItTheatre), or email hello@thunkittheatre.co.uk.
Lady Bunny: Vividly vulgar in The Greatest Ho On Earth at the SJT
FABULOUSLY filthy American drag queen Lady Bunny brings her comic debauchery to Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre on July 23.
The “good-time Sally of salacious song and story will tantalise, titillate and may even traumatise you” in her riotously risqué, vividly vulgar 7.30pm show, The Greatest Ho On Earth.
Accompanied by a retro groovy soundtrack, a Lady Bunny performance finds her shimmying between racy rapid-fire jokes, stinging social commentary, one-line zingers, self-deprecating snorts and her trademark potty-mouthed pop song parodies.
“My humour is outrageous, my look is over the top, and my politics are in your face. That’s just the way I am,” she says.
Born Jon Ingle on August 13 1962 in Wilmington, North Carolina, she performed originally as Bunny Hickory Dickory Dock.
At 60, this New York City drag icon, jet-set DJ, actor, comedian, recording artist, podcaster and event organiser is as famous for her bouffant style and naughty wit as for her ability to get a dancefloor jumping.
In “frosted lips, double false eyelashes and pounds of paint beneath a thunderhead of blonde wigs”, she is a familiar face from RuPaul’s Drag Race – RuPaul was once her roommate – and her MC duties at the LGBT prom in an episode of Sex And The City.
A Manhattan gal since the early 1980s, Lady Bunny co-founded and hosted Wigstock, the annual New York City Labor Day outdoor drag festival that ran for nearly 20 years.
She tours constantly, from Cincinnati to Los Angeles, Buenos Aires to Sydney, Marrakesh to Scarborough. She has shared the stage or screen with Joan Rivers, Bea Arthur, Chaka Khan, Grace Jones and Christina Aguilera.
After such one-woman shows as That Ain’t No Lady!, Trans-Jester, Pig In A Wig and Clowns Syndrome, here comes The Greatest Ho On Earth.
After her Scarborough performance, she will host an exclusive Meet & Greet with Lady Bunny in the SJT bar. Show tickets cost £25; post-show tickets, an additional £20, on 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com.
“Whatever happens, Lady Bunny’s here to show you a good time and you’ll be happy you came,” the show publicity promises.
Six facts about Lady Bunny
Lady Bunny: “Good-time Sally of salacious song and story”. Picture: Steven Menendez
Recorded two duets with RuPaul, Throw Ya Hands Up and Lick it Lollipop.
In New York City, she DJs the Disco Sundays tea dance at The Monster.
Performed original music and commentary in The Tyranny Of Consciousness (The Waning Of Justice), an installation by pioneering video artist Charles Atlas at the 2017 Venice Biennale.
New York City home décor guru Jonathan Adler designed a Lady Bunny pitcher. “My mug’s on a jug!” she says.
Photographed by Andy Warhol and fashion photographers Francesco Scavullo, Mario Testino, Ellen Von Unwerth and Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin.
Interviewed Scarlett Johansson, Marc Jacobs, Anohni (of Antony And The Johnsons) and Leigh Bowery for bygone gay fanzine Pansy Beat.
Heading for a beheading: Lou Henry as Catherine Howard in SIX! The Musical. Picture: Pamela Raith
LOU Henry will be giving SIX of the best at the Grand Opera House from Tuesday, returning to the York stage where she made her professional debut as Snow White in December 2019.
This time, the Grand Opera House is but one stop on a 15-month tour in the role of Catherine Howard in SIX The Musical, the all-female show for the millennial age that reactivates the lives of the six wives of Henry VIII in modern mode, with attitude.
Call it gig theatre, call it a pop concert, wherein the Queens tell their story in song in chronological order to decide who suffered most at Henry’s hands once he put a ring on that wedding finger.
Billed as “York’s own” when picked to play a black-wigged Snow White in Three Bears Productions’ Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, Knaresborough-raised Louise now performs as Lou Henry, playing wife number five in Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s musical since April 25.
Lou’s Catherine Howard was Queen Consort from 1540 to 1541, beheaded at the Tower of London on February 13 1542, still only in her 18th year. Henry had called her his “rose without a thorn”, but the history books ascribe to her a scandalous past and present, one that led to her being found guilty of adultery.
“And ever since I was a child, I’d make the boys go wild,” she brags in All You Wanna Do, but later adds: “With Henry, it isn’t easy, his temper’s short and his mates are sleazy.”
“I think she’s misunderstood,” says Lou. “By the time she sings her song, she undercuts everyone’s expectations because there’s a darker side to what she experiences, which is so sad and harrowing, though it’s also a really fun act as a role, not just a big belting moment in song, but there’s loads to act out.
“I have mums and lots of the female members of the audience coming up afterwards and saying, ‘I feel so sad at the end of the song because it’s such a terrible experience she goes through.”
Lou feels the pressure to “tell the story right”. “Already we’ve done more than 70 shows, so it feels more settled now. Catherine’s song is really long – seven minutes of singing; it’s ridiculous! – but she’s giving it everything,” she says.
SIX The Musical is playing to packed houses wherever it goes, whether York this week or Leeds Grand Theatre in early August, and the Grand Opera House has even added standing tickets for the first time, such has been the demand to see the “Spouse Girls musical” on its return to York only six months after its first run here.
“It absolutely is the show of the moment,” says Lou. “It feels very current and important in its subject matter, and the reason it sells so well is the message behind it as much as the pop concert format.
“That’s what attracts people in the first place and keeps them coming. Yes, it’s a pop concert but it turns the mirror round on the audience and says it’s not right that women keep being treated like this.”
Performing in such a show is an 80-minute adrenaline rush, but “we try to keep ourselves really calm before the start, as it can be very excitable in the auditorium, even though there’s a harpsichord playing as if it’s just a Tudor piece,” says Lou.
“But then we have the ‘SIX switch’, where we say we’ve got each other’s backs and what we want out of the show that night. Hit the Six switch, and we tell our story, undercutting historical expectations and people’s expectations of what’s coming.
“Because it’s so interactive, encouraging involvement, you’ll see people singing along or dancing – you can see they’re so invested in it – so I’ll take a deep breath and think, ‘I’ve still got a job to do here’!”
What has Lou learned after those 70-plus performances? “I was under the preconception that it was just a poppy concert but now I really have something to say [through Catherine Howard], and we’re making points in this really well-oiled machine, which is really special, while interacting with each other through the experience of touring, with little changes that keep it interesting for ourselves on stage.”
Joining Lou’s Katherine are Nicole Louise Lewis’s Catherine of Aragon, Laura Dawn Pyatt’s Anne Boleyn, Erin Caldwell’s Jane Seymour, Kenedy Small’s Anna of Cleves and Aoife Haakenson’s Catherine Parr, backed by the all-female band The Ladies in Waiting.
SIX! The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, June 27 to July 2; Tuesday to Thursday, 8pm sold out; Friday, 6pm, 8.30pm, sold out; Saturday, 4pm, 8pm, limited availability; Sunday, 2pm, sold out. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Also Leeds Grand Theatre, August 1 to 6, 8pm, Tuesday to Saturday, plus 5pm, Friday and Saturday; 2pm, Sunday. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.
Hitting it for Six: The cast on a 15-month tour
SIX The Musical: the back story
SIX follows the six wives of Henry VIII as they take to the mic to tell their own personal tales, remixing 500 years of historical heartbreak into an 80-minute celebration of 21st century girl power.
Since its early days as a student production in a 100-seat room at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s pop concert/musical has become a global phenomenon.
On the international stage, SIX has productions playing on Broadway at the Lena Horne Theatre, New York, and two concurrent North American tours, including a seven-week run in Las Vegas, with autumn runs announced for Canada and the Netherlands (featuring the UK tour cast from September 20).
SIX has played an Australian tour too. The South Korean production ran at the Shinhan Card Artium, Seoul, from March 17 to June 25, to be followed by July 1 and 2 performances at the Sejong Centre for the Performing Arts in Sejong.
On home turf, the London production continues its reign in the West End at the Vaudeville Theatre (its third royal residence), while the UK and Ireland tour continues to break box office records, booking through to 2024.
Winner of 26 major international awards, including the 2022 Tony Award for Best Original Score and Best Costume Design on Broadway; double Whatsonstage Award for Best West End Show for 2022 and 2023 and 2020 BBC Radio 2 Audience Award for Best Musical. Nominated for five Olivier awards, including Best New Musical.
More than 500 million streams and three billion views of Marlow and Moss’s songs on TikTok. Original studio album of SIX turned gold in 2021; Broadway album SIX – Live On Opening Night was nominated for a Grammy Award.
Vote Nature: York artist Jade Blood with her Community Notice Board installation for Bloom in the Artists Gallery behind York Art Gallery. Picture: Charlotte Graham
FLOWER power indoors and out, musicals with a twist, trees and romantic entanglements hark the arrival of Charles Hutchinson’s new summer of love.
Garden of delights: Bloom at York Art Gallery, on display until October 8
FLOWERS, plant life and gardens have fascinated and inspired generations of artists. Cultivated by York Art Gallery curator of fine art Becky Gee, the Bloom display brings together more than 100 botanical artworks from York Art Gallery’s collection, alongside key loans, to explore the importance of nature and green spaces for enjoyment, creativity and wellbeing and highlight the gallery’s relationship with the neighbouring Museum Gardens, set up by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in 1828. Look out for York artist Jade Blood’s installations too.
Banjo player Curt Eller: Bringing his band to the Arts Barge on July 1
Down by the river: The Arts Barge presents Dylan Earl, on Selby Tony, Foss Basin, York, tonight, 7pm; Curtis Eller’s American Circus, July 1, 7pm
ARKANSAS singer Dylan Earl returns to the Arts Barge for a headline gig after his Arts Barge Hoodang appearance last year. Likewise, Curtis Eller’s American Circus show heads back to the barge, this time with full band in tow for a night of banjo-driven rock’n’roll. Box office: eventbrite.co.uk.
SIX of the best: The Queens giving Harry the hurry up. Picture: Pamela Raith
Quick return of the week: SIX The Musical at Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Sunday; also Leeds Grand Theatre, August 1 to 6
WAS it only last October that Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s Spouse Girls musical/pop concert first wowed York? Its return has all but sold out again as the dancing queens with attitude tell their story in song in chronological order to decide who suffered most at Henry VIII’s hands once he put a ring on that wedding finger.
Of York interest, Knaresborough-raised Lou Henry returns to the stage where she made her professional debut in the 2019-2020 pantomime as Snow White. This time she plays the apparently not-so-squeaky-clean Catherine Howard, short-lived wife number five. Box office (probably for frustration only): atgtickets.com/york; Leeds, 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.
Mark Simmonds, Monica Frost, Emma Dickinson and Richard Bayton (at the wheel) in rehearsal for York Light Opera Company’s I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change
In pursuit of love: York Light Opera Company in I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
RIOTOUS, rude and relevant, Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts’ off-Broadway musical revue is directed by York Light’s Neil Wood in its 2018 updated revamp in a witty look at how we love, date and handle relationships.
Guiding love’s path through a series of comedic and poignant vignettes will be Richard Bayton, Emma Dickinson, Monica Frost, Emily Hardy, James Horsman, Sanna Jeppsson and Mark Simmonds. Shocks and surprises incoming, as love lives are reflected in art, up close and personal. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company cast members rehearsing Musicals In The Multiverse
Expect the unexpected: Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company in Musicals In The Multiverse, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Thursday and Friday, 7.30pm
IN a fundraiser for the JoRo, the Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company transports you into a multiverse full of musical theatre favourites with a twist. Guided by director Helen Spencer, enter a parallel universe where familiar songs have their traditional renditions turned on their heads in swaps of gender, major to minor keys, musical styles and eras. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Acoustic gig of the week: An Evening With Ocean Colour Scene’s Simon & Oscar, Harrogate Theatre, Thursday, 7.30pm
OCEAN Colour Scene vocalist Simon Fowler and drummer Oscar Harrison present an intimate acoustic performance of their big hits and anthems, from The Riverboat Song, The Circle and Traveller’s Tune to Hundred Mile High City and The Day We Caught The Train.
“Our acoustic shows are a real tonic: a great chance to look the audience in the eye and interact with them on a more personal basis than ever before,” says Fowler. Dexys Midnight Runners founder member Pete Williams supports. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk.
Murray Watts: His play Mr Darwin’s Tree will be performed at Stillington Mill
Science meets art: Mr Darwin’s Tree, At The Mill, Stillington, near York, July 1, 7.30pm
COMMISSIONED for Charles Darwin’s bicentenary and premiered at Westminster Abbey, Riding Lights luminary Murray Watts’s 75-minute play has since been staged in China, South Korea, and throughout the United States. Now Stillington Mill beckons.
Watts directs film, television and theatre actor Andrew Harrison – last seen at Stilllington in Fire From Heaven last summer – in a study of the relationship between the agnostic Darwin and his Christian wife Emma that explores science, faith, family, love and destiny. Box office: tickettailor.com/events/atthemill.
Saxophonist Snake Davis: Having a blast at Cop’ Carnival’s Jazz Night
Community event of the week: Cop’ Carnival Day, Copmanthorpe Recreation Centre, Barons Crescent, Copmanthorpe, York, July 1, 11.30am to 7pm
COP’ Carnival Day returns in its 53rd year for a day of dance troops, bands (including Miles And The Chain Gang), traditional games and attractions. Tickets are on sale at copmanthorpecarnival.org.uk and on the day.
The carnival week runs from June 27 to July 1, featuring a jazz night with saxophonist Snake Davis on Tuesday (7.45pm); a wine-tasting quiz on Wednesday (7.30pm, sold out) and a comedy night with Justin Moorhouse, Tal Davies, Roger Monkhouse and host Alex Boardman on Thursday (8pm). Copmanthorpe Methodist Church houses the carnival exhibition by 30 artists from today to July 1.
Jack Whitehall; Chance to Settle Down at York Barbican
Not many tickets left: Jack Whitehall: Settle Down, York Barbican, July 12, 6.30pm
SETTLE Down is comedian, actor, writer and presenter Jack Whitehall’s “most personal show to date”, driven by material aplenty focused on the big changes in his life.
“It’s about my struggle to settle down gracefully,” says Londoner Whitehall, 34. “I’ve got a long-term partner, a ridiculous dog and am now hurtling towards middle aged without a clue. It’s about a foppish man-child’s cack-handed attempt at adulting!” Note the early start time; no late night for this all-work-and-no-play Jack! Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Ballet Black dancers Sayaka Ichikawa and Mthuthuzeli November in Will Tuckett’s Then Or Now. Picture: Bill Cooper
CASSA Pancho’s Ballet Black return to York Theatre Royal on Friday with a double bill of original ballets in Pioneers.
Formed in 2001 to celebrate dancers of Black and Asian descent, the London company presents works by two of their best-known collaborators, the award-winning Will Tuckett ((Depouillement, 2009, Orpheus, 2011) and Mthuthuzeli November (Ingoma, 2019, The Waiting Game, 2021).
Tuckett’s 35-minute Then Or Now, created in 2020, blends classical ballet, music and the poetry of Adrienne Rich to ask the question: in times like these, where do we each belong?
The second piece, the world premiere of November’s 40-minute Nina: By Whatever Means, is inspired by the artistry and activism of American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist Nina Simone. November weaves a picture of Simone’s turbulent and influential life to create an emotional and empowering love letter to this legendary cultural icon.
Cassa Pancho, Ballet Black’s founder, chief executive officer and artistic director, says: “Every year, I describe how delighted I am to present new works and this, our 21st year, is no different. I am so pleased that we can bring Then Or Now back for a longer run. Originally created to premiere in 2020, this ballet was delayed by the pandemic, and only had a very short run across four theatres in 2021.
Rosanna Lindsey, left, and Sayaka Ichikawa in Mthuthuzeli November’s Nina: By Whatever Means. Picture: Bill Cooper
“One of the joys of having work created specifically for Ballet Black is getting to revisit it with the choreographer, and we’ve had fun having Will back in the studio to restage this beautiful ballet.”
As for November’s Simone work, Pancho says: “It’s thrilling to be able to bring Nina: By Whatever Means to life. It’s part of our growing collection of ballets that depict the Black experience through classical ballet, creating a new and relevant repertoire for audiences of all ages, backgrounds and cultures.
“It is the realisation of a dream Mthuthuzeli had to create a love letter to Nina Simone, and I cannot wait to share this programme with you all.”
Ballet Black: Pioneers, York Theatre Royal, June 23, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Age guidance: 7+. Caution: themes of racism and fleeting domestic violence in Nina: By Whatever Means.
Isabela Coracy in Ballet Black’s world premiere of Mthuthuzeli November’s Nina: By Whatever Means. Picture: Bill Cooper
York Shakespeare Project’s poster for this autumn’s production of Edward II
YORK Shakespeare Project is to hold auditions next month for its first foray into staging a play by one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries.
A diverse ensemble of 12 to 15 actors is sought for Christopher Marlowe’s intimate drama Edward II, to be staged by returning director Tom Straszewski at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York.
“We were delighted that Tom emerged from a strong field to be chosen as the director of the first non-Shakespeare play of YSP’s new project,” says chair Tony Froud.
“Strasz brings great knowledge and wide experience of directing Elizabethan and Jacobean drama and promises an innovative interpretation of Marlowe’s fascinating text.
“He previously directed The Merry Wives Of Windsor in 2012 and The Two Noble Kinsmen in 2018, now joining Paul Toy, Mark France and Ben Prusiner as three-time directors for YSP. We look forward to a memorable follow-up to Lucrece and Richard III, the first plays of phase two of YSP.”
In Marlowe’s historical tragedy, Edward II is finally king. Eager to bestow his gifts on those he loves, he calls back his exiled lover, Piers Gaveston. King, court and country are caught up in the heady atmosphere of their passions.
“This is a play about power and love – who has it, who gives it, who takes it, and who suffers for it,” says Tony. “For this production, we’ll begin by exploring the play through creative workshops, editing a script that reflects the people in the room.
Edward II director Tom Straszewski
“No characters will be cast until after this process: you will help decide this, alongside the director and rest of the ensemble.”
To audition, please complete this application form: https://forms.gle/DUGsmNVaLxkrJVZq5. To arrange your audition and/or if you have any questions, email Strasz at tom.straszewski@gmail.com, indicating your preferred day(s) and time.
Auditions will take place in York at a venue yet to be confirmed on Tuesday, July 4 and Wednesday, July 5 at 6.30pm onwards and Saturday, July 8, 2pm onwards. “You’ll be asked to work in a small group on a short scene from the play,” says Tony.
“You will have the opportunity to review the play extract in advance of auditioning and do not need to learn a speech. All we want to see is how you work together and approach the text with adaptability and inventiveness.”
Those cast for YSP’s amateur production must be available for five evening/weekend workshops in late-July, the production week from October 15 to 22 and the majority of the rehearsal period.
“There will be two or three rehearsals per week between August and October, though you are unlikely to be required for every one,” says Tony. “If you are likely to be away for more than two weeks during the rehearsal period but are keen to audition, we’ll see if we can make this happen.”
YSP is seeking recruits for a technical team for make-up, sound, lighting, captions and videography too. If you can help, please email Strasz at tom.straszewski@gmail.com.
Cinder Well’s Amelia Baker: Drawn to the West Coast of Ireland and the USA. Picture: Georgia Zeavin
CINDER Well, multi-instrumentalist Amelia Baker’s experimental American roots project, will play The Band Room, at Low Mill, Farndale, on the North York Moors, on September 23.
Nigel Burnham’s typically intriguing latest signing released her latest album, the mysterious Cadence, on April 21 on Washington DC’s independent label Free Dirt Records.
Cadence drifts between two far-flung seas: the hazy California coast where Baker grew up and the wind-torn swells of County Clare, western Ireland, that she has come to love. The title refers to the cycles of our turbulent lives, to the uncertain tides that push us forward and back.
Recorded not far from the Venice Beach Boardwalk in Los Angeles, the new songs search for a sense of grounding and a feeling of home.
Although California’s beaches are the backdrop, Irish influences emerge too, after Baker gained a Master’s Degree in Irish Traditional Music Performance from the University of Limerick, where she studied with masters of the tradition, including Siobhan Peoples and Martin Hayes, and settled in County Clare, her adopted new home.
The folklore of the old ways still looms in her mind, tinged with the growth that comes from a return to roots.
On Cadence, Baker expands Cinder Well’s sound to take in percussion, trance electric guitar and lush string parts, courtesy of Lankum’s Cormac MacDiarmada.
Traces remain of Cinder Well’s doom folk, but Cadence balances heavy lyrics with a more expansive sound that recalls Los Angeles’ mythical Laurel Canyon years.
“So much of my music has been made far from home,” says Baker on her website, cinderwellmusic.com. “There was something about recording in California that felt cathartic.”
Caught between two worlds, Cadence recaptures the rhythms of life after a time of deep isolation, seeking balance amid uncertainty, reclaiming creativity post-personal strife.
Cinder Well’s previous album, No Summer, one of the Guardian’s ten best folk albums of 2020, was a love letter to County Clare. However, as the pandemic cut her off from the United States, with a long stretch of intense quarantine, she knew it was time to return home.
Travelling back to her hometown on the central coast of California, she took the time and space to hone a creativity blunted by isolation. Natural imagery, always a key source of inspiration for Cinder Well’s songwriting, appears again in songs full of moonlit caves, edgy cliffs, dark purple sunsets, birds and shadows.
Plants growing out of cracks in rocks in the song Well On Fire symbolise resilience, and the cold Atlantic wind in Gone The Holding embodies the hardness of consequence.
The cover artwork for Cinder Well’s Cadence
“These songs have a feeling of being lost in the woods, but writing from that place,” Baker says. “They were written in a process of getting unstuck.”
While reconnecting with home and the sea, and resurrecting her childhood interest in surfing, Baker set about song-writing more deeply, determined to break through the creative block she felt.
She experimented with electric guitar and worked on new tunings inspired by English folk guitarist Nic Jones, adapting the music to her own voice using down-tuned instruments.
She pored over New Age classic The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path To Higher Creativity, American author Julia Cameron’s 1992 self-help book, leading her to write Overgrown, her first song in a decade in a major key.
A chance connection with Venice Beach recording engineer Harlan Steinberger’s Hen House Studios provided the perfect opportunity to record in Los Angeles, a place where Baker had always dreamed of making an album.
In another moment of serendipity, old high school friend Phillip Rogers joined Baker on drums and collaborated on arrangements. Bassist Neal Heppleston and violist Jake Falby contributed too, along with Cormac MacDiarmada.
Heavy yet hopeful, Cadencemoves beyond the minimalism of No Summer, being more expansive, brighter coloured, with higher peaks, perhaps a reflection of the world outside the studio.
“It’s so wild,” says Baker. “You’re in the quiet sanctuary of the studio behind thick wooden doors, then you walk outside and it’s the chaos of Venice Beach.”
Driving down the coast along the scenic Highway 1, Baker sang along to Joni Mitchell’s Court And Spark to warm up for the recording sessions, then settled into a calming space that allowed her to explore new directions.
The feeling of being suspended between two worlds is woven through Cadence. “I was continuously trying to reconcile having homes in two places,” says Baker. “I was trying to hold both of those parts of me.”
Splitting her time between the West Coasts of Ireland and California, she concludes: “The ocean is my homebase, no matter where I am.”
Cinder Well play Leeds Brudenell Social Club, September 19, 8pm; The Greystones, Sheffield, September 20, 8pm; The Band Room, Low Mill, Farndale, September 23, 7.30pm. Box office: Leeds, brudenellsocialclub.co.uk; Sheffield, mygreystones.co.uk; Low Mill, thebandroom.co.uk.
Did you know?
CINDER Well’s Amelia Baker teaches fiddle, guitar and songwriting lessons.
RIDING Lights Theatre Company is launching The Word Bank, a new writing fund in memory of co-founder and artistic director Paul Burbridge.
The fund was announced by Paul’s widow, Bernadette, at the conclusion to his two-hour service of service and thanksgiving, held on June 10 at St Michael-le-Belfrey, the church they attended regularly.
Further details can be found in Riding Lights’ June newsletter. “Paul believed that Riding Lights is called to make kingdom-centred theatre that is responsive, urgent, visionary, insightful and prophetic, and that in order to do that we need new plays,” Bernadette says.
“Paul was genuinely excited when a first draft dropped into his inbox. A skilful wordsmith himself, he became an excellent commissioner and dramaturg: a midwife of new work and encourager of writers.”
The Word Bank will support the commission and production of new writing, ensuring that it remains at the heart of Riding Lights’ work.
“When Paul died, he was – as ever – full of plans for Riding Lights. But underpinning plans, Paul always had a vision of theatre that was abundant and generous, because it was a response to the abundance and generosity of God,” says Bernadette.
“He was very amused, in the early days of the company, when a stern critic accused him of employing ‘unnecessary humour’. Years later, he described the work that Riding Lights makes as a precious outpouring, like Mary’s jar of perfume poured over Jesus’s feet: an apparently unnecessary, costly offering; an act of witness, and an expression of the abundance of the kingdom.”
The Word Bank will remain open for donations until the end of July 2024. For full details of how to make a regular or one-off donation, along with information on increasing the gift’s value through Gift Aid, go to: ridinglights.org/TheWordBank.
“As we invite you to give to The Word Bank in Paul’s memory, we hope that you will do so with that spirit of abundance, no matter how much or how little you can give…to nurture the creation and presentation of new work as Riding Lights moves into the future,” says Bernadette.
Introduced by the Reverend Iain Lothian, Paul’s memorial service was packed to the rafters for tributes by Riding Lights luminary Murray Watts and regular designer Sean Kavanagh, a reflection by Geoffrey Stevenson and contributions by daughters Erin Burbridge and Caitlin Harland and son Patrick Burbridge, plus playwright and co-writer Bridget Foreman.
Laura Cantrell: Leading off her summer tour in Leeds on Friday
NEW York country singer Laura Cantrell opens her 14-date British summer tour at Leeds Brudenell Social Club on Friday.
She will be promoting her first studio album in nine years, Just Like A Rose: The Anniversary Sessions, released on June 9 on the Propeller Sound Recordings label.
Nashville-born Laura, 55, is joined on the recordings by longtime friends Steve Earle, Buddy Miller, Rosie Flores and Paul Burch.
Featured too are musicians Mark Spencer(Son Volt, Lisa Loeb),Jeremy Chatzky (Ronnie Spector, Bruce Springsteen), Kenny Vaughan (Marty Stuart’s Fabulous Superlatives), Fats Kaplan (John Prine, Jack White), Dennis Crouch (Robert Plant, Diana Krall) and Jen Gunderman (Cheryl Crow, Jayhawks).
Cantrell’s co-writers include Mark Winchester(Randy Travis, Carlene Carter), Fred Wilhelm (Rascal Flats, Faith Hill) and Gary Burr (Patty Loveless, Ringo Starr). An unreleased Amy Rigby song and a new recording of When The Roses Bloom Again, adapted by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, are further highlights.
Originally, the album was intended to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Cantrell’s debut, Not The Tremblin’ Kind,in 2020, but recording was delayed by Covid restrictions. Eventually, the new collection was completed in studios in the New York City area and country capital Nashville.
“I thought I had figured it all out,” Laura muses, as she recalls her initial puzzlement in 2019 at how to acknowledge the approaching 20th anniversary of her first album. “I wanted to salute different aspects of my music life for the last two decades, to create more of a celebration than a traditional album.
“The idea of recording and releasing a series of singles in real time was intriguing, so I started a crowd-funding campaign and launched it on March 1 2020.”
Within days, the world was a very different place, however. Cantrell duly placed her plans on hold while the pandemic raged in her neighbourhood in Jackson Heights, New York, and throughout the world.
Slowly and fitfully, she pushed on as restrictions and delays changed the timeline and shape of her plans. “We moved so slowly I thought ‘this isn’t even happening’. But with the help of many great ‘music people’ the songs emerged,” says Laura.
The cover artwork for Laura Cantrell’s Just Like A Rose, her first studio album since 2014
“There was a risk working with different producers that the results would feel disjointed, but I love where the album landed. Having come through the gauntlet of the pandemic, I felt so much joy in the process, I hope people hear and feel that in the tracks themselves.”
The material spans Cantrell’s latest songwriting and songs she has been humming to herself since before she had had her own band or played her own shows. “It is interesting maturing into your musical worldview,” she says.
“You still have songs that hit you like you’re a teenager with your first crush, and others that reflect more experience and nuance, or frustration with tough realities, and then those you just love purely as music – there’s a bit of it all on this album.”
Since 2000, Cantrell has released the albums Not The Tremblin’ Kind, When The Roses Bloom Again (2002), Humming By The Flowered Vine (2005), Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs Of The Queen Of Country Music (2011), No Way There From Here (2014) and The BBC Sessions (2016).
She was a favourite of the late pioneering radio presenter John Peel, who called Not The Tremblin’ Kind “my favourite record of the last ten years, and possibly my life”. She recorded several Peel Sessions for the BBC from 2000 to 2004 and appeared on the first Peel Day programme on BBC Radio One commemorating the first anniversary of Peel’s death.
She presented a weekly country and old-time msuic radio show on WFMU, The Radio Thrift, and since August 2017 she has hosted Dark Horse Radio, SiriusXM’s weekly programme featuring the music of George Harrison on The Beatles Channel. Her show States Of Country streams on GimmeCountry.
Away from music, Cantrell held a day job as a vice-president in the equity research department of Bank of America until 2003 and later began working as a recruiter for AllianceBernstein.
Brudenell and Please Please You presents Laura Cantrell, supported by Doug Levitt, at Leeds Brudenell Social Club on Friday (23/6/2023) at 8pm. Box office: brudenellsocialclub.co.uk or seetickets.com.
Track listing for Just Like A Rose: The Anniversary Sessions
1.Push The Swing (Laura Cantrell/Mark Winchester)
2. Bide My Time (Mark Winchester/Laura Cantrell)
3. Brand New Eyes (Amy Rigby)
4. Just Like A Rose (Laura Cantrell/Mark Spencer)
5. When The Roses Bloom Again (Jeff Tweedy/Public Domain)
6. Secret Language (Laura Cantrell)
7. Unaccompanied (Laura Cantrell/Fred Wilhelm)
8. I’m Gonna Miss This Town (Laura Cantrell/Fred Wilhelm)
9. Good Morning Mr. Afternoon (Joe Flood)
10. Holding You In My Heart(Laura Cantrell/Gary Burr)
