LUNG Theatre

Last updated

LUNG is a national touring, Verbatim theatre company. [1] Founded in Barnsley, England, in 2012, LUNG is campaign-led and uses real life stories to shine a light on political issues in the UK. [2] All of LUNG's plays are published with Bloomsbury [3] The company is led by co-artistic directors Matt Woodhead and Helen Monks, [4] and producer Ellie Claughton. [5]

LUNG were associate artists at The Lowry Theatre for 5 years, [6] and have made work with Leeds Playhouse, [7] Battersea Arts Centre [8] and The National Theatre Studio. [9]

LUNG's productions are known for their audience engagement and community activism. [10] Their first production The 56 told the story of the Bradford City stadium fire, using the real words of the survivors. [11] The proceeds of the production went towards Bradford Burns Research Unit. [12] The play was adapted for BBC Radio 4. [13] LUNG's play E15 told the story of the London Housing Crisis through the eyes of the Focus E15 campaign. [14] Monks and Woodhead worked closely with the campaign for 2 years, and the play was written out of interviews they conducted during that time. [8] Their play Who Cares saw them work with young carers in Salford across 2 years, [15] and was performed at the House of Lords along with speeches from the real life young carers whose stories are in the play. [16] Out of the Who Cares play, LUNG launched the Who Cares Campaign, which continues to fight for better rights for young carers across the UK, led by Matt Woodhead as the campaign manager. [17] LUNG's play Trojan Horse retold the Birmingham Trojan Horse scandal. Adapted from over 200 hours' worth over interviews conducted by LUNG, [5] the play was the winner of the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award, 2018. [18] After 2 national tours, LUNG organised a guerrilla performance of show in a community hall in the grounds of Park View School, taking the accused teachers and governors back to the school they had been originally banned from. [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendi Peters</span> English actress

Wendi Louise Peters is an English actress. Peters began her acting career in theatre, with appearances in various productions including The Scarlet Pimpernel (1991), Guys and Dolls (1991), Into the Woods (1992), Bedroom Farce (1996) and Noises Off (1997). Then from 2003 to 2007, she portrayed Cilla Battersby-Brown in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street.

Patricia Ann Hodge, OBE is an English actress. She is known on-screen for playing Phyllida Erskine-Brown in Rumpole of the Bailey (1978–1992), Jemima Shore in Jemima Shore Investigates (1983), Penny in Miranda (2009–2015) and Mrs Pumphrey in All Creatures Great and Small (2021–present).

Paris is a rock musical written by Australian rock musician Jon English and David Mackay between 1987 and 1990, based on the myth of the Trojan War. A concept album was released in Australia in 1990 with the first stage production taking place in Sydney in 2003.

Thea Sharrock is an English theatre and film director. In 2001, when at age 24 she became artistic director of London's Southwark Playhouse, she was the youngest artistic director in British theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Ballet</span> English ballet company

Northern Ballet, formerly Northern Ballet Theatre, is a dance company based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, with a strong repertoire in theatrical dance productions where the emphasis is on story telling as well as classical ballet. The company tours widely across the United Kingdom.

Tess Berry-Hart is a British playwright and novelist writing for adults, young adults and children. Novels and theatre plays deal with themes such as the European migrant crisis, LGBT rights, mental illness, genetic engineering, and the sex-positive movement. Berry-Hart has also written fiction and verbatim theatre pieces for stage to support human rights campaigns and to raise funds for the refugee crisis.

Troy is a trilogy of radio plays, first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 from 28 November to 30 November 1998. The cast is led by Paul Scofield, who came out of retirement to take part. Troy was written by Andrew Rissik and produced by Jeremy Mortimer. The trilogy is a companion piece to King Priam, Rissik's earlier more optimistic take on the story in which Scofield took the title role.

Ann "Annie" Castledine, was a British theatre director, teacher and dramaturg.

The Manchester Theatre Awards were established in 2011 to replace the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards.The MEN awards, created in 1981 by Alan Hulme, the paper's theatre critic, had long been recognised as the most important theatrical prize-giving outside London and were an important part of the Greater Manchester theatrical calendar. When the Manchester Evening News withdrew its support, the critics already involved, led by Alan Hulme and his MEN successor Kevin Bourke, and with the support of the Greater Manchester theatres, set up a new organisation to carry on the awards. The first winners, for 2011, were announced on 14 March 2012.

The Trojan Horse scandal, also known as "Operation Trojan Horse" or the Trojan Horse affair, is a conspiracy theory that posits a plot to introduce an "Islamist" or "Salafist" ethos into several schools in Birmingham, England. The name, based on the Greek legend, comes from an anonymous letter sent to Birmingham City Council in late 2013, alleged to be from Birmingham "Islamists" detailing how to wrest control of a school, and speculating about expanding the scheme to other cities. The letter was leaked to the press in March 2014. Around a month later, Birmingham City Council revealed that following the letter release it had received hundreds of allegations of plots similar to those described in the letter, some claims dating back over 20 years.

Rokhsaneh Ghawam-Shahidi is an English actress. She is known for portraying the role of Leyla Harding in ITV soap Emmerdale.

Emily Fleeshman is an English actress. She is most widely known for her roles as Nikki in Still Open All Hours and Sally in Moving On.

David Fleeshman is a British actor, broadcaster, drama lecturer and theatre director with experience in film, radio, television, theatre and commercials.

Helen Monks is an English writer, actress and comedian. She is best known for her roles in Raised by Wolves, Upstart Crow, The Archers, Holby City, The Last Kingdom, Genius, and Inside No. 9.

Kevin Fegan is a playwright and poet.

The Lovely Bones is a 2018 play based on the 2002 novel of the same name by Alice Sebold, adapted for the stage by Bryony Lavery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Focus E15</span> London-based campaign for housing justice

Focus E15 is a campaign group formed in London in 2013 by a group of mothers threatened with eviction from their emergency accommodation in a hostel for young homeless people in Newham. The group squatted empty flats on the Carpenters Estate in Stratford in September 2014, drawing widespread attention in the mainstream media. Most of the young women were eventually rehoused within the borough, as they had requested. Having won their own battle, they have continued to protest both against the local housing policy of Newham Council and for housing rights more generally. They have done so by occupying various buildings and supporting different individual struggles.

Identical is a stage musical with music by George Stiles, lyrics by Anthony Drewe and a book by Stuart Paterson. It is based on the 1949 novel Lisa and Lottie by Erich Kästner.

<i>Pride and Prejudice*</i> (*sort of)

Pride and Prejudice* is a play by Isobel McArthur, with songs, based on Jane Austen's novel. The play is designed for a cast of five or six women, each playing a servant and several of the main characters. After an initial production in Scotland in 2018 and a tour in 2019–20, it opened in the West End in 2021 and toured again in 2022–23. The production won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play.

Danny Robins is an English comedy writer and performer, broadcaster and journalist.

References

  1. ↑ "And introducing... LUNG: the verbatim theatre company telling the stories that have been drowned out | WhatsOnStage". www.whatsonstage.com.
  2. ↑ "About Us". LUNG.
  3. ↑ . "LUNG Theatre: Bloomsbury Publishing (US)".
  4. ↑ "Matt Woodhead and Helen Monks on Trojan Horse". February 6, 2020.
  5. 1 2 correspondent, Sally Weale Education (July 23, 2018). "Play shines light on Trojan Horse 'Islamist plot' to run schools" – via www.theguardian.com.
  6. ↑ "Lowry associate artists LUNG return to Salford with award winning production Trojan Horse". September 27, 2019.
  7. ↑ "Trojan Horse". Leeds Playhouse.
  8. 1 2 "Helen Monks and Matt Woodhead on writing E15". Battersea Arts Centre: Blog. March 2, 2017.
  9. ↑ "The National Theatre's Drama Teacher Conference". January 30, 2019.
  10. ↑ "Lung theatre company: 'The fringe is a space where people believe in theatre's impact'". The Stage.
  11. ↑ "Lung Theatre recall the day 56 people died in the Bradford City fire in documentary play". York Press.
  12. ↑ "The 56 Play raises more cash for Bradford's Burns Research Unit". Bradford Telegraph and Argus.
  13. ↑ "BBC Radio 4 - Drama, The 56". BBC.
  14. ↑ "E15, review: Urgent, big-hearted response to the housing crisis". Evening Standard. March 20, 2017.
  15. ↑ ""Using theatre as a way of amplifying voices" - Salford play about young carers starts national tour". May 7, 2019.
  16. ↑ "I was an isolated young carer. Being involved in a play stopped me killing myself". the Guardian. August 20, 2019.
  17. ↑ "Carers as young as five aren't getting a break during pandemic". ITV News. 8 June 2020.
  18. ↑ "Trojan Horse wins Amnesty Freedom of Expression Award: The Skinny". www.theskinny.co.uk.
  19. ↑ Trojan Horse comes home to Alum Rock. YouTube . Archived from the original on 2021-12-08.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.