High School Musical | 25th June 2008- 5th July 2008
High School Musical, Sheepcote Street, Brindleyplace, Birmingham B16 8AE
T 0121 643 5858
W www.crescent-theatre.co.uk
Disney Channel's smash hit musical comes to life on stage at the Crescent Theatre.
The captain of the East High basketball team and the key member of the academic club shock the student body by teaming up to audition for the upcoming school musical in a Disney Channel Original that's all about being yourself and following your dreams. Troy is best known as the player who keeps the East High basketball team on the scoreboard. Of course, life isn't always about athletics, though, and as Troy slam-dunks on the boards, beautiful and brainy Gabriella is raising the reputation of East High as the key member of the school's successful academic team.
Despite their outgoing natures, no one would ever peg Troy and Gabriella as theatre types. When word gets out that this popular pair has secretly chosen to reach for the stars and try their luck on the stage, the students of East High are about to learn an important lesson in teamwork while gearing up for a musical performance that will have their audience dancing in the aisles.
July at the Crescent | 28th June 2008- 26th July 2008
July at the Crescent, Sheepcote Street, Birmingham B16 8AE
T 0121 643 5858
W www.crescent-theatre.co.uk
FourPlay New Director Showcase The Street Cleaner by Jefferson Collins 100 by Neil Monaghan, Diene Petterie and Christopher Heimann The Bald Prima Donna by Eugene Ionesco Birmingham Theatre School, The Elephant Man by Bernard Pomerance In association with the Crescent Theatre Company, Birmingham Theatre School present Stage2 present Lord of the Flies by William Golding adapted for the stage by Nigel Williams
Discover some of the Crescent’s fresh new directing talent – four new directors, four short or one-act plays. The four plays are presented in two pairings:
28 June, 1 & 3 July at 7.45pm plus a matinee on 5 July at 2.45pm
Two friends reunite after six years apart, but have they changed irreparably? As they journey through their pasts, will they find a common future? Or has time and ambition intervened to make their differences unsurpassable.
Imagine that you must choose one single memory from your life and capture it with a magical camera… That choosing this memory is your only way of passing through to eternity and that all other memories will be erased forever.
The Lesson by Eugene Ionesco
30 June, 2, 4 & 5 July at 7.45pm
A professor awaits a fresh pupil's arrival, brushing off the maid's warnings of the dark things that may come of yet another lesson... But as the pupil's limitations become evident, the professor's frustration grows and the day's lesson takes its foreshadowed, perilous turn. This potent ‘Comic Drama’ has the power to frighten and delight as only Absurdist plays can.
The Smiths are a traditional family from London, who have invited another family, the Martins, over for a visit. Their married guests, Mr and Mrs Martin, are certain that they have met somewhere before. The two families engage in meaningless banter, telling stories and relating nonsensical poems as the play explores the futility as well as the lack of meaningful communication in modern society.
Birmingham Theatre School, Coram Boy adapted by Helen Edmundson, based on the novel by Jamila Gavin, directed by John-Paul Cherrington.
Evenings 16 – 19 July at 7.30pm Matinees 18 + 19 July at 2.00pm
A heartbreaking tale of orphans, angels, murder and music; dramatised from the Whitbread award-winning novel. In 18th-century Gloucestershire, Otis Gardner preys on unmarried mothers, promising to take their babies (and their money) to Thomas Coram's hospital for foundling children. Instead, he buries the babies and pockets the loot...
16 – 18 July at 7.45pm, 19 July at 2.00pm
The true story of John Merrick, treated first as a sideshow act because of his deformed body and later exploited more subtly by Victorian society. He is befriended by a young doctor who provides him with a home in the London Hospital where Merrick is shrewdly used for fund-raising. He is introduced to high society and is trapped by Victorian values incongruous to his reality. Even those who love him can’t help him.
Five Kinds of Silence by Shelagh Stephenson
9 – 11 July at 7.45pm
A highly-acclaimed stage version of the 1996 radio play is the story of a family in which control has become the driving force. Billy, himself abused as a child, has sexually abused his two daughters since their early teens. Now the adult daughters, with the connivance of their mother, attempt to free themselves and kill him.
The play contains themes which some may find offensive. This is the first production in a new venture between the Birmingham Theatre School and the Crescent Theatre Company.
23 - 26 July at 7.30pm
Abandoned on an island, a group of children turn from civilized to barbaric. Knowledge, manners and culture are systematically peeled away. For more information log on to http://www.stage2.org.uk