13 Jul 2015

Trestle Masks come to Cambridge

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Places are still available for the Trestle Mask Workshop taking place on Sunday, 26 July 2015. This full day workshop runs from 11am to 5pm at The Box Cafe47 Norfolk Street Cambridge CB1 2LD and is being lead by Emily Gray, Artistic Director of Trestle Theatre Company.

The workshop explores the ways in which wearing masks can liberate parts of your character that don't normally come out to play, and free you up to be creative and to be yourself. Trestle theatre masks are playful and accessible, they transform performers and transfix audiences. With a mask on you have the freedom to discover the world through another’s eyes.
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In the workshop we explore techniques used to perform in full masks and half masks. Using exercises, games and improvisation the sessions covers physicality, focus and interaction with other masked performers as well as the audience.

No prior experience is needed and the workshop aims to develop confidence, play and physicality in performers.

The workshop will be limited to 16 people so that Emily can give good support and attention to every participant, and to allow everyone the opportunity to wear different types of mask.

Book your workshop place online

About the organisers
Emily Gray
Emily became Artistic Director of Trestle in 2004 and has developed the Company, introducing half masks and physical theatre to Trestle’s full mask work and embedding the Company into Trestle Arts Base in St Albans. Emily’s expertise in teaching mask theatre skills has grown to include running a Trestle MA in Drama Education and training performers and teachers across the world.

Previously, Emily was Artistic Director of TAG Theatre Company, a young people’s touring theatre based in Glasgow. From 1999 she was the Associate Director at Unicorn Theatre, the UK’s leading theatre for children and young people. In 1996 she was awarded the Channel 4 bursary for young directors at Nottingham Playhouse and Roundabout. Emily studied Theology at Cambridge University and trained in directing at The Central School of Speech and Drama and has since worked extensively in movement and devised storytelling 
theatre.

Stuart Reid
Stuart is an experienced improviser and organisation change consultant. He uses ideas from Gestalt and from improvisation to inform his practice as a consultant working with change. Stuart first encountered improv twenty years ago when he was involved in youth theatre, and has returned to improv in the past five years. He's trained as an improviser with Keith Johnstone, Patti Stiles, Dave Bourn, Steve Roe, Rob Poynton and The Maydays, and has performed on-stage as a member of the London-based improv group Just Add Lib. Stuart is based in Peterborough, UK and is building an improv community in the city.

22 Jun 2015

IO Fringe, Feat. The Live Music Project


As part of The International Organ Festival Fringe events Trestle's LMP is organising and hosting an event on 5th July outside the Clock Tower from 12.30- 3.30pm with Starseedz, Li-Li, Michael King, Neil Stanton & Emma McGrath performing.

A full programme can be picked up at St Albans Tourist Information Centre along with other participating venues and can be downloaded at www.enjoystalbans.com/iofringe
Further info at www.lemonrock.com/iofringe

IOFringe is provided by 1Life in partnership with St Albans City & District Council and managed by the St Albans Arts Team.

16 Jun 2015

Getting involved with this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival?

Anna-Helena McLean, Director of Moon Fool, ACT Ensemble Practice and former principal of the legendary Gardzienice Centre in Poland, is coming to the EdFringe's lead venue Summerhall Gallery with her solo cabaret TITANIA and a programme of WORKSHOPS running at Performing Arts Studio Scotland.

The show previews for only £10 on August 5th and runs Aug 7-30 at 6.25pm each night except Mondays.

Tickets are available here.
More information can be found on Facebook

The workshop programme offers a range of 3 day intensive, a 2 day and two one off taster sessions. There are still reduced rates available until the end of June for students so email admin@moonfool.com for an application form and with your enquiry.
Participant feedback:

"... You were guiding us to constantly, actively heightening our sensitivity to the space and to each other... as a performer it makes sense to imagine that [a character] LIVES YOU. Allowing all your faculties to be so OPEN and so sensitive that what comes out of you is not an act, but the allowance of a TRUE IMPULSE... When you feel "it", it really is the most SIMPLE thing"
Act E FlyerTitania E Flyer

15 May 2015

What would make your list of brilliant things?

If you were tasked with listing all the things that made you happy, what would you choose?

Following its smash hit, sell out runs at The Edinburgh Festival and Off Broadway Paines Plough's critically acclaimed performance Every Brilliant Thing comes to Trestle Arts Base on Thursday 28 May. Hailed by the New York Post as '...the funniest show about depression you've ever seen' and 'Heart-wrenching, hilarious…possibly one of the funniest plays you’ll ever see, full stop.' ★★★★ by The Guardian

Want to know more? Then check out the videos below.

- we hope you can join us!
Paines Plough and Pentabus Theatre Company production by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe
Tickets: £12 / £10 Concessions / £40 Family Ticket (x4)
Buy tickets online
or call the Box Office on 01727 850 950

1 Apr 2015

Are you happy?

Would more money help? A hug from a stranger? A new mobile phone or cheaper car insurance?

Promises of Happiness is a dance show for joy, for simple pleasures, for saying ‘no’ to people who want to tell us what should or should not make us happy; and to endless promises of happiness alluding to a world just out of reach.

Partly developed here at Trestle Arts Base in 2012, with the trailer created by St Albans Digital Arts Collective VIDEOfeet, we are delighted to be welcoming Promises of Happiness back with it's full scale smile agenda on Tuesday 14 April, 7.30pm.
“Beautifully observed and condensed into a deep, reflective and thought provoking experience”  -Audience member of the work-in-development sharing (Trestle Arts Base)
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Robert Clark is a UK based choreographer who has been creating and presenting work since 2006 both nationally and internationally. He is renowned for his humorous and emotionally charged, intricate and detailed, direct and engaging dance performances and has so far developed and shown two works with the support of Trestle Arts Base.

#PromisesOfHappiness  Commissioned by DanceEast and The Place. Funded by Arts Council England. Supported by Greenwich Dance, Trestle Arts Base and Dance4. Robert Clark is a Work Place Artist and Resident Artist at Greenwich Dance
Buy tickets online

11 Mar 2015

Learn to love your shelf this Mother's Day

MONSTRO Theatre Company Present

Bookstory

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Sunday 15 March, 2pm
Trestle Arts Base, Russet Drive, St Albans AL4 0JQ
Looking for a different sort of treat this Mother’s Day? What better way to spend the afternoon than with your nearest and dearest and Brian the Librarian…
In Brian’s library, the books are all in a muddle. The Romance is rubbing shoulders with the DIY manual and the Dictionary is sharing a shelf with the Whodunnit. To save their confused library (and its confused librarian) the books must work together – but how? Books can’t move…or can they?
To discover their real powers the books will first have to face their deadliest enemies…
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Bookstory is a tiny puppet musical with some very big ideas. Suitable for anyone over the age of 7, it uses songs, puppetry and dynamic performance to tell the story of the story in the digital age.

“Cheesy West End sell outs beware. – the ingenuity, economy and sheer joyfulness of what you put together filled my head with a tingle.” -  Will Stevens (on Thunder and Coal)
Tickets are £12 / £10 / Family £40 (Max 2 Adults) and you can book them by calling the Box Office on 01727 850950 or online at www.allaboutstalbans.com. Group discounts available please call 01727 850 950 for details.

20 Jan 2015

Trestle Artistic Director Emily Gray to Direct NEW Jodie Kidd musical ‘Yarico’

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We are delighted to announce that Emily Gray will be directing Yarico - The Musical, produced by John and Jodie Kidd and opening at The London Theatre Workshop this February.
Jodie Kidd Emily Gray Hillary ElkThe story of Yarico was first recorded by Richard Ligon in his book, True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados, published in 1657. On hearing her story, Ligon wrote: “And so poor Yarico for her love, lost her liberty.”
Bringing the story of Yarico to the stage has been a 10-year labour of love for producers John Kidd and his daughter Jodie, the model and UK TV presenter, who both have strong connections to Barbados, where they have a family home.
In a move to bring this forgotten story to a modern audience, John and Jodie have commissioned Yarico, which is based on the known facts of the original story.
For more information visit click here or visit www.facebook.com/yaricothemusical.