Harriet Martineau Dreams of Dancing and a Talk by Joe Hardwick

The play Harriet Martineau Dreams of Dancing is running until December 3 at the Live Theatre in Quayside. Here is the summary of it from the Live Theatre website:

Tynemouth, 1844. Harriet Martineau, leading radical thinker, feminist and anti-slavery campaigner of her day, seeks refuge from the claustrophobic demands of London society, with her needlepoint and a telescope in an attic room on Front Street. But instead of escape, she finds an unequal world in need of her attention. This is a world of racial intolerance and gender imbalance, of eccentric scientific practices such as mesmerism and phrenology. A world where a negligent husband may die from a pig falling on his head in the street.

Following on from the critically acclaimed 2010 production of A Northern Odyssey ( The Guardian), Harriet Martineau Dreams of Dancing is the second in Olivier Award-winning writer, Shelagh Stephenson’s trilogy of witty and engaging plays at Live Theatre exploring the contemporary relevance of Tyneside’s political and cultural heritage. The play features music by acclaimed folk band, The Unthanks, re-arranged from songs on their Mount the Air album, and dance inspired by Northumberland traditions, choreographed by Lee Proud (Billy Elliot – the musical) both part of the creative team in A Northern Odyssey.

On Tuesday Northumbria University Senior Lecturer in History Joe Hardwick gave a talk after the performance. Listen to that below.
 

Play Remembers Oklahoma Bombing

From the Northumbria University news page.

Oklahoma City bombing project

An academic from Northumbria University, Newcastle, has written a new play to mark the 20th anniversary of the Oklahoma Bombing.

The play, written by Northumbria’s Director of Performing Arts, Steve Gilroy, will be performed by Oklahoma City University (OCU) students this month as part of its anniversary project to remember the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

OCU commissioned Steve, an award-winning playwright, due to his expertise in verbatim theatre – a form of documentary for the stage based on personal interviews and transcripts. Steve then worked with OCU students and staff to conduct more than 35 interviews with family members of victims, survivors, local officials and first responders.

Steve said: “Often, during the verbatim process, interviewers have to work quite hard to coax stories from people. For this project, however, there was an incredible honesty that I haven’t seen before in any other project that I have done.

“People talked openly about their experience of the bombing; however, they also shared all sorts of different stories that say a lot about peoples’ ability to recover. They find themselves 20 years later when they are no longer defined by what’s happened and are able to open new chapters in their lives.” 

“The overwhelming message that comes from everybody interviewed for this project is the regeneration of the city as the background, but I think in the end, it is going to be about these very powerful individual stories that, when woven together, are going to create a much bigger human story about recovery.” read on>>>