The Blue Elephant Theatre is a 50-seat fringe theatre situated in the borough of Southwark in London. It was established in 1999 by Antonio Ribeiro.[1]
Niamh de Valera and Jo Sadler-Lovett are co-Artistic Directors of Blue Elephant Theatre, jointly programming the theatre's seasons since 2013. The theatre has an eclectic programme, promoting cross-art-form work and all forms of theatre from physical and dance theatre to new writing and classics. Its aim is to nurture new and emerging artists across the performing arts. These have included Mamoru Iriguchi (Evening Standard Best Design Award-Winner 2009), Levantes Dance Theatre (Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award-Winner 2009]),[2] George Mann (The Stage Best Solo Performer Award-Winner 2009), Paul Morris (Adopt A Playwright Award-Winner 2009).[3] and Carlos Pons Guerra (nominated for Emerging Artist Award, National Dance Awards 2015).[4]
Jasmine Cullingford preceded de Valera and Sadler-Lovett as artistic director of the theatre.[5] In 2009 Cullingford won the Best Venue Manager award from Fringe Report and in October 2013 the Blue Elephant won the inaugural Southwark Arts Forum Performing Arts Award for work that 'exemplifies the genre'.[6]
Mervyn Peake
The Blue Elephant has forged a reputation for staging little-known works by Mervyn Peake.[7] On Wednesday 4 June 2008 the theatre hosted a talk by Sebastian Peake, son of Mervyn Peake. A script by Mervyn Peake, The Cave, was given a rehearsed reading at the theatre by Flat Pack Productions on 21 June 2009. Following this the Blue Elephant staged the world premiere production of The Cave in October 2010,[8] directed by Aaron Paterson. As part of the Mervyn Peake centenary celebrations (2011) the theatre held a rehearsed reading of Peake's play, Noah's Ark (26 April), a rehearsed reading – a premiere – of his play, Mr Loftus, or A Horse of Air (27 April) and a reading of a selection of poems by Peake (28 April).[9] Following the success of these readings the theatre staged the Theatre Premiere of Noah's Ark which had previously been produced on BBC radio in the 1970s. This production was directed by Mhairi Grealis, who had also staged its rehearsed reading, and it was one of three productions shortlisted for offwestend.com's award for Best Production for Young People that year. On Friday 10 May 2013, the Blue Elephant presented a scratch work-in-progress theatre adaptation of Peake's novella Boy in Darkness, performed by Gareth Murphy.
Boy in Darkness
Following a successful scratch performance, and a work in progress one-hour showing co-directed by Aaron Patterson, Murphy worked upon adapting a further version of Peake's novella Boy in Darkness into a full stage performance, which ran from 11 March to 4 April 2015. The piece adapted and performed by Gareth Murphy, in which he played the Boy, goat, hyena and lamb, as well as a central storytelling character, was at this stage in its process directed by John Walton. It was well received, achieving four stars and being described as "a physical theatre gem" by The Stage,[10] while A Younger Theatre said "Physical eloquence and bold storytelling do justice to Peake's fantasy realm."[11] The production was set to tour the UK in 2016.
Children in Need Celebrity Choir
In 2014, BBC Children in Need approached the Blue Elephant, offering places for eleven young people from the theatre to join the celebrity choir formed by Gareth Malone to record a cover of Avicii's "Wake Me Up". The single was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, and went straight to number one in the UK singles chart when it was released on 9 November. The single achieved a combined chart sales tally of over 120,000 in the seven days following, as well as being the most physically purchased single that week.[12]
Mervyn Laurence Peake was an English writer, artist, poet, and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the Gormenghast books. The four works were part of what Peake conceived as a lengthy cycle, the completion of which was prevented by his death. They are sometimes compared to the work of his older contemporary J. R. R. Tolkien, but Peake's surreal fiction was influenced by his early love for Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson rather than Tolkien's studies of mythology and philology.
The Royal Exchange is a grade II listed building in Manchester, England. It is located in the city centre on the land bounded by St Ann's Square, Exchange Street, Market Street, Cross Street and Old Bank Street. The complex includes the Royal Exchange Theatre and the Royal Exchange Shopping Centre.
Jasmine Chanel Guy is an American actress, singer, dancer and director. She portrayed Dina in the 1988 film School Daze and as Whitley Gilbert-Wayne on the NBC The Cosby Show spin-off A Different World, which originally ran from 1987 to 1993. Guy won four consecutive NAACP Image Awards from 1990 through 1993 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on the show. She played Roxy Harvey on Dead Like Me and as Sheila "Grams" Bennet on The Vampire Diaries. More recently, she played the role of Gemma, Richard Webber’s friend and potential love interest on Grey's Anatomy.
The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in 1931 by Dame Ninette de Valois. It became the resident ballet company of the Royal Opera House in 1946, and has purpose-built facilities within these premises. It was granted a royal charter in 1956, becoming recognised as Britain's flagship ballet company.
Boy in Darkness is a novella by English writer Mervyn Peake. It was first published in 1956 by Eyre & Spottiswoode as part of the anthology Sometime, Never: Three Tales of Imagination. A "corrupt" version of Boy in Darkness was published both in an anthology, The Inner Landscape, and separately in 1976 with an introduction by Peake's widow, Maeve Gilmore. Referring to the corrupt text, she wrote that "although the Boy in Boy in Darkness is assuredly Titus Groan, [Peake] did not call him so by name"; however, adding the name Titus was one of the specific changes that Peake made between writing and publishing his novella. The correct text has recently become available again in an anthology entitled Boy in Darkness and Other Stories, with a foreword by Joanne Harris and a preface by Peake's son Sebastian, as well as Maeve Gilmore's uncorrected introduction from 1976.
Floyd Collins is a musical with music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, and book by Tina Landau. The story is based on the death of Floyd Collins near Cave City, Kentucky in the winter of 1925. The musical opened Off-Broadway on February 9, 1996, where it ran for 25 performances. There have been subsequent London productions as well as regional U.S. productions.
The Finborough Theatre is a fifty-seat theatre in the West Brompton area of London under artistic director Neil McPherson. The theatre presents new British writing, as well as UK and world premieres of new plays primarily from the English speaking world including North America, Canada, Ireland, and Scotland including work in the Scots language, alongside rarely seen rediscovered 19th and 20th century plays. The venue also presents new and rediscovered music theatre.
Gareth David Lloyd, known professionally as Gareth David-Lloyd, is a Welsh actor and writer best known for his role as Ianto Jones in the British science fiction series Torchwood.
Sir Peter Wright CBE is a British ballet teacher, choreographer, director and former professional dancer. He worked as a choreographer and as the artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, a classical ballet company based in Birmingham, England. On retiring from the company in 1995, he was bestowed the honorary title of director laureate of the company.
Danish Dance Theatre Danish Dance Theatre is the largest modern dance company in Denmark. The company was founded in 1981 by Randi Patterson, an English/Norwegian choreographer and innovator of modern dance. Patterson was succeeded by American Warren Spears, Dane Anette Abildgaard and British Tim Rushton. Swedish choreographer and filmmaker Pontus Lidberg is artistic director from April 2018. Danish Dance Company is based in Copenhagen.
Southwark Playhouse is a theatre in London, located between Borough and Elephant and Castle tube stations.
Neil Ieremia, ONZM, is one of New Zealand’s most accomplished choreographers, a creative entrepreneur and inspirational leader. He is the founder, artistic director and chief executive of internationally acclaimed contemporary dance company, Black Grace.
Stephen Henry is a British stage director, a theatre producer, and an educator.
Les Patineurs is a ballet choreographed by Frederick Ashton to music composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer and arranged by Constant Lambert. With scenery and costumes designed by William Chappell, it was first presented by the Vic-Wells Ballet at the Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, on 16 February 1937. It has been called "a paradigm of an Ashton ballet, perfectly crafted with a complex structure beneath the effervescent surface."
The Cave is a play written by English novelist and artist Mervyn Peake in the mid-1950s. The play is a three-act drama, which takes place in one cave over three time periods; from the Neolithic period, through medieval to modern day or "the very near future".
Aladdin is a stage musical based on Disney's 1992 animated feature film of the same name with a book by Chad Beguelin, music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman, Tim Rice and Beguelin. It resurrects three songs written by Menken and Ashman for the film but not used, and adds four songs written by Menken and Beguelin.
Gormenghast is an opera in three acts composed by Irmin Schmidt to an English-language libretto by Duncan Fallowell, based on Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy. It premiered at the Opernhaus Wuppertal on 15 November 1998.
PlayPenn is a new play development conference located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Paul Meshejian is the Founding Artistic Director of the organization, which works with playwrights to develop new plays in a collaborative workshop environment.
Alex Oates is an English playwright from the North East.
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