This year, Box of Tricks turns ten. To celebrate a decade of new play making, we’re bringing back three acclaimed productions and commissioning three brand new plays…
Last year witnessed our most successful season to date and 2016-17 promises to be even more electric. Following a celebrated national tour last year, Plastic Figurines by Ella Carmen Greenhill is transferring to the New Diorama Theatre in London for a four-week run this Autumn. After an acclaimed run at the Liverpool Playhouse Studio last year, Narvik by Lizzie Nunnery embarks on a national tour in Spring 2017. Finally, Chip Shop Chips heads nationwide in Spring 2018 following its completely sold-out Northern tour earlier this year.
This tenth anniversary year, we’re commissioning three playwrights to write brand new plays to be developed through our New Tricks programme: David Judge (whose debut play Skipping Rope, written on our PlayBox attachment, was a finalist for the Alfred Fagon Award 2015), Siân Owen (whose play This Land recently toured nationally with Pentabus) and Daniel Kanaber (whose play Shiver performed at Watford Playhouse). New plays will be developed with local partner venues The Lowry, the Unity Theatre in Liverpool and Oldham Coliseum.
This season, we’re also reigniting our PlayBox writer-on-attachment residencies supporting Manchester and North West writers. We’re currently identifying three early-career playwrights who will join the company on a bespoke nine-month attachment to write a new full-length piece. Watch this space!
Finally, we’re delighted to announce two new Associate Artists are joining the company: Lighting Designer Richard Owen and Composer Chris Hope. Richard is the former Head of Lighting at Royal Exchange Manchester and his recent lighting designs include Plastic Figurines and Narvik (Box of Tricks), Rolling Stone (Royal Exchange and West Yorkshire Playhouse), FlexN (Manchester International Festival) and Tree for Daniel Kitson (Old Vic, London). Chris is a long-term collaborator and musical wizard and has composed music for numerous Box of Tricks’ productions including Plastic Figurines, In Doggerland, Streetlights & Shadows, Frank Pig Says Hello.
After our wonderful 10th Birthday Party last month, we’re so excited to unveil our anniversary season. We’re looking forward to taking recent successes to new audiences and beginning whole new creative journeys with new New Tricks playwrights. As with any milestone, it’s a time to celebrate and we hope you’ll join the party this year as we embark upon our tenth anniversary season…
#TricksTurns10
