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Eight new shows on sale at Theatre Royal Plymouth
24th August 2022
Theatre Royal Plymouth have eight more exciting productions for 2022 going on general sale TODAY!
All of these shows will be taking place in the Drum, and from dance to a story of hoarding, to an evening with local legends, there is something for everyone to enjoy.
Explore their new productions today to be among the first to book for the best prices and availability!
Tickets are on sale now on the TRP website
A Dead Body in Taos, The Drum 18 – 22 October 2022 (14+)
The body of a 70-year-old woman is found in the New Mexico desert near the town of Taos, a place of pilgrimage for those seeking to embrace alternative forms of living. She is Kath Horvath. On her body the police find a message for her daughter, to whom she has not spoken for many years. The message reads, ‘Sam. Do not grieve. I am not here’.
A Dead Body in Taos tells Sam’s story as she travels to New Mexico to bury her estranged mother. Gradually Sam uncovers her mother’s traumatic past, her attempts to break away from her stifling American small-town upbringing, her protest days in the 60s, her experiments with alternative lifestyles and her lifelong, fruitless quest for freedom which eventually left her with nothing (and, as it turns out, everything) to live for.
And this leads Sam to discover a shocking secret behind the mysterious message her mother left. For in Taos, Kath Horvath has secretly exercised the ultimate right as a consumer – the right to defy death. In the most remarkable way possible.
And it leaves her daughter with a terrible decision to make.
Set against the backdrop of modern America, A Dead Body in Taos is part mystery, part sci-fi epic and part love story, that leaves the audience wondering whether, in the 21st Century, freedom is something we should run to or escape from.
A Dead Body in Taos is co-commissioned by Fuel, Theatre Royal Plymouth and Warwick Arts Centre with support from Bristol Old Vic. The work is supported by Arts Council England and produced by Fuel.
EKO, The Drum 26 – 29 October 2022
EKO is the third composition in an ongoing body of work staged in darkness. The series started with the 2017 installation SOL, and the 2019 installation SUB.
EKO is performed live in the splendid void of total darkness. Erasing the audience’s perceptual boundaries, the absolute absence of light is interrupted for only fractions of seconds with bursts of micro-animated geometric forms emanating from a hidden in the dark LED wall display. Returning again to darkness, abundant retinal afterimage impressions unravel within each viewer’s eyes, slowly fading and fusing with the surrounding darkness until the eventual next eruption of light.
EKO starts in ~15minutes of complete darkness, with no light events, amidst an abstract surround sound-scape, best imagined as a form of vortex / maelstrom, enveloping the audience. After this initial blackout period the work’s sound-scape attunes to the fragile nature of the ghostly retinal afterimages. The piece’s ambient electronic soundscape delicately diffuses through the space with occasional infra bass density.
Breathless, The Drum 31 October – 02 November 2022 (12+)
What happens when the things we covet hide us from ourselves? Opening up to new experiences in her late-thirties, Sophie is exploring long repressed sides of herself.
When a secret she’s keeping from those she loves, and even from herself, threatens to unravel it all, she has to make a choice. Who or what will she decide to give up?
Breathless is a funny, honest and stylish exploration of the knife-edge of hoarding, from the joy to the addiction and suffocating shame. From Laura Horton, Plymouth Laureate of Words, own experience of clothes hoarding.
Superstition Mountain, The Drum 03 – 05 November 2022 (12+)
The three Gunwallow brothers from St Day are in a bit of bother. Slim’s scrapyard business has gone pear-shaped, while Dwayne owes money to some very dodgy friends and youngest brother Mark is entangled in a doomed romance. All three are on the edge of meltdown, and to cap it all, Daddy’s corpse is lying upstairs waiting to be buried – if they could afford the funeral. There’s only one hope left, they must find the legendary Lost Dutchman’s gold mine on Superstition Mountain.
What will become of three proper Cornish boys in the wilds of Arizona? Will their private Gold Rush lead to fortune or failure? And will they live to tell the tale…?
Part epic adventure, part family saga, at the heart of Carl Grose’s black comedy are the emotional ties and trials of three brothers, rubbing along together through thick and thin.
Quizzy Rascals, The Drum 08 - 09 November 2022
Join us for a quiz night like no other!
Once a month the Barbican Legends host a pub quiz in the Fisherman’s Arms on Lambhay St but in November the quiz is moving to TRP! QUIZZY RASCALS is a riotous night of storytelling, performance and quiz that celebrates the Barbican in Plymouth and the wonderful people that call it home.
Theatre Royal Plymouth have been collaborating with Plymouth Community Homes and the Barbican Legends since 2020 and are proud to present this co-created new interactive show.
We’ll be sharing stories, questions and pints with some of the biggest legends in Plymouth so book a ticket, think of a quiz-team name and join us in the Drum.
Destiny, The Drum 11 – 12 November 2022 (14+)
“They’re sayin I brought it on myself.
Oh yeah, they’ve heard about me. Basically it must’ve been my fault cause I’m me, Destiny”
Destiny dreams big. She dreams glamour. She’s gonna be an MTV Base backing dancer, you watch. If J-Lo can make it outta the Bronx then Destiny can make it off the Hill Rise estate in Chippenham. She’s fearless, ferocious and up for the fight (she’s had to be). Born below the breadline, she’s desperate to see beyond the neighbourhood and find hope in hopelessness.
This monologue follows the story of a teenage girl growing up on a rural Wiltshire council estate. After a big night out takes a turn for the worst, Destiny’s life spirals out of control as she desperately tries to learn how to love and be loved.
DESTINY is a recipient of The Pleasance’s 2021 National Partnerships Award with Bristol Old Vic FERMENT and was shortlisted for Theatre West’s Write On Women Award.
It has been developed with support from Tobacco Factory Theatres, Bristol Old Vic FERMENT, Pound Arts, Strike a Light, The Pleasance, Tim Crouch, Wiltshire Creative, Natural Theatre, Paper Arts, Theatre Bristol, Hawkwood College, Arts Council England and Gane Trust.
Florence is a writer, performer and facilitator from Chippenham in Wiltshire. She writes for both stage and screen about / with working class communities in the Southwest in the hope to make the arts more accessible to everyone regardless of background and geographical location.
She is the Writer in Residence at Pentabus Theatre, an Open Session Writer at the Bristol Old Vic and an associate artist at Strike a Light, as part of the Let Artists Be Artists programme.
Orphan Planet, The Drum 14 – 15 November 2022 (14+)
“Did anyone ever ask you… when you were a child? ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’. See, I never had an answer. Did anyone here ever want to be an Astronaut?”
Danny is thinking about Space.
Danny is thinking about Messages.
Danny is thinking about Death.
In 2014 Danny was given a box from across time.
Now it’s time to see what is inside.
Orphan planet is an autobiographical Theatre piece combining real stories, once lost/now found family footage and space exploration. All to try and answer the question of how to live with grief.
What would you want to be remembered by?
Four Seasons, The Drum 17 – 19 November 2022
James Wilton Dance, one of Europe’s most in demand dance companies, presents The Four Seasons. Using Max Richter’s recomposed version of Vivaldi’s seminal work The Four Seasons James Wilton Dance has created a work of immense physicality, driving energy and sweeping beauty. The work features the companies signature blend of capoeira, acrobatics, martial arts and classical dance, alongside stunning stage and costume designs.
This abstract, yet honestly human choreography relates each of the four seasons of the musical composition to the four stages of the universe, creating a kaleidoscopic visual feast for audiences that is not to be missed. James Wilton Dance was founded in 2010. The company has won awards at the Bern, Hannover and MASDANZA International Choreography competitions and the Sadler’s Wells Global Dance Contest. The company’s first full evening work Last Man Standing (2014) was performed 78 times and won an award at the Bern Tanzprize in Switzerland. Subsequent productions LEVIATHAN (2016) and The Storm (2018) toured even more extensively, achieving close to 200 performances between them, including sold out runs at Edinburgh Fringe
Festival, performances in Germany, Gibraltar, Austria, Peru, Spain, Poland and Sweden. LEVIATHAN was nominated for best dance production at the Manchester Theatre Awards.
James Wilton has created works for Scottish Dance Theatre, Konzert Theater Bern, Theater Münster, Opera Graz, Ballet Hagen, Staddtstheater Braunschweig and dance company Giessen and has choreographed a work for 50 professional dancers for performances at Millennium and Wembley Stadiums (reaching over 110,000 people in the process).
