PUBLIC booking is now open for audiences to secure their ticket to be one of the lucky few to experience the National Theatre of Scotland’s 24-hour live, online Five Minute Theatre extravaganza, at one of its designated ‘Hubs’.
Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), Aberdeen’s The Lemon Tree and Edinburgh’s Adam House Theatre will play host to live recordings of Five Minute Theatre pieces.
Of the 235 theatre pieces that will be broadcast online across the 24hours, 14 will be recorded and streamed live at the CCA, eight from The Lemon Tree and seven from Adam House Theatre.
Simultaneously throughout the day, National Theatre of Scotland will be mobilising eight ’roving’ camera crews across Scotland.
These crews will record and live stream Five Minute Theatre pieces, in situ.
There will be three roving film crews throughout Glasgow, and one crew in each of Edinburgh, Perth, Ayr, Haddington and Livingstone.
Marianne Maxwell, audience development manager, National Theatre of Scotland commented: “People from all over the world have taken the challenge to help celebrate the National Theatre of Scotland’s first five dramatic years by writing, devising, directing, performing and producing hundreds of pieces of theatre, all five minutes long.
“Joining those hundreds of productions from around the world, live performances will be taking place at the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen, Adam House Theatre in Edinburgh and the CCA in Glasgow. Book your tickets for the hubs now, to avoid disappointment.”
All live, on the day recordings will be streamed on www.fiveminutetheatre.com and will accompany over 100 pre-recorded pieces that have been received from all over the world.
For more detail, check the audience information page online. The full 24-hour running order is available here on www.fiveminutetheatre.com
On Monday 18th April, 2011, the National Theatre of Scotland announced that 235 five minute theatre pieces had been selected to take part in an extraordinary 24-hour online broadcast of live theatre, taking place on Tuesday 21st June 2011, from 5pm until 5pm the following day.
National Theatre of Scotland’s Five Minute Theatre project will feature over 1,500 performers in eleven countries. Of the 235 successful entries, 202 will be performed in Scotland, 13 across the rest of the UK, four in Europe and 16 across the rest of the world.
Those selected include poets, primary school pupils and film-makers; families, community groups and teenagers; visual artists, carers, professional theatre-makers and expectant mothers based in areas from Paisley, Paraguay and Govan to Milan, Orkney and New York; Brighton, Brussels and Dalkeith to London, Shanghai and Edinburgh; Mumbai, Livingston and Beijing.
Five to 65 year-olds will take part in five-minute-long theatre pieces located indoors and out, in farmyards, forests, gardens and parks to bedrooms, tree-houses, kitchens, park benches, roof tops, public libraries, trains, cafes, offices, art galleries, shop windows and a cave.
Professional or amateur, young or old, absolutely anyone has been encouraged to take part by writing, devising, directing, performing and producing a piece of theatre, five minutes-long. There are no set skills or qualifications required other than a good idea, dramatic flair, and some bravery!
A cross-section of selected Five Minute Theatre pieces features the following:
Beurgerfest 2011: Representing the culmination of an exchange project between Regensburg, Germany and Aberdeen, twenty young performers from both cities will come together in Regensburg city centre to stage street theatre pieces inspired by Philip Pullman’s novella, Clockwork. The exchange project is run by Aberdeen Performing Arts, Visible Fictions and Aberdeen City Council.
COMMERCIAL BREAK: “Well, if you guys are going to be broadcasting all day, I think you’re almost definitely going to need at least one commercial break!” From his London home, David Lees will be re-creating Scottish TV adverts, including There’s a Moose Loose aboot this Hoose and Tennents’ Caledonia advert which he says, “always makes me cry”.
The Last Supper: At a farm in deepest Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland, twenty six year old performance poet Michael Pedersen is basing the premise of his Five Minute Theatre piece The Last Supper, on a conversation that occurs between a cow and a young lad completing his paper-round.
MY BLACK DOG: In a monologue delivered from a park bench, stand up comic, David Innes, will recount personal experiences of dealing with the highs and lows caused by depression.
Other pieces include a worker performing in an office at five minutes to 5pm while he waits for his computer to shut down; librarians in a public library arguing over the purpose of literature; a seven year-old writer/director leading fellow primary school pupils in a piece called THE PLANET OF TERROR; two teenage boys who find themselves on a rooftop in the middle of the night, musing on their place in the universe and students staging a surreal comedy in which a group of squirrels attempt to land on the moon in a rocket made from a tree.
Further information, full running order and updates can be found at www.fiveminutetheatre.com
National Theatre of Scotland has been working in partnership with STV to enable eight of the successful Five Minute Theatre projects to be performed and filmed at STV’s studio at Pacific Quay, Glasgow. The 24-hour online event will be streamed live on the website especially created by the National Theatre of Scotland for the project: www.fiveminutetheatre.com and STV’s own website: www.stv.tv/fiveminutetheatre on Tuesday 21st June. Individual entries will be hosted online by both STV on a specially designed micro-site and www.fiveminutetheatre.com after the event.
Robert Dawson Scott, web editor at STV, said: “Five Minute Theatre is a truly innovative and ambitious initiative and I am delighted that STV will make it available to our significant digital audience on stv.tv.
“In addition to news, sport, entertainment and television, this will support and increase our coverage of the performing arts in Scotland. With 24 hours of original theatre written and performed by all kinds of people from Scotland and beyond, I think we can expect something unique and very entertaining.”
BOOKING INFORMATION
Glasgow
Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), 351 Sauchiehall Street
Phone booking: 0141 352 4900
In person at the CCA Box Office
Aberdeen
The Lemon Tree, 5 West North Street, Aberdeen AB24 5AT
Online booking: www.boxofficeaberdeen.com
Phone booking: 01224 641122
In person at Aberdeen Box Office at the Music Hall, His Majesty’s Theatre and The Lemon Tree
Edinburgh
Adam House Theatre, 3 Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1HR
Online booking: www.hubtickets.co.uk,
Phone booking: 0131 473 2000
In person at The Hub (10am – 5pm Mon – Sat) and at Adam House on the day
FOR FURTHER PRESS INFO/IMAGES/INTERVIEWS/FOOTAGE
Wendy Grannon, press manager (maternity leave)
Tel: +44 (0) 141 227 9016 E: wendy.grannon@nationaltheatrescotland.com
Andrew Neilson, press officer
Tel: +44 (0) 141 227 9497 E: andrew.neilson@nationaltheatrescotland.com
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The National Theatre of Scotland is supported by the Scottish Government. Since its launch in February 2006, the National Theatre of Scotland has been involved in creating over 137 productions in 125 different locations. With no building of its own, the company takes theatre all over Scotland and beyond, working with existing and new venues and companies to create and tour theatre of the highest quality. It takes place in the great buildings of Scotland, but also in site-specific locations, airports and tower blocks, community halls and drill halls, ferries and forests. The company has performed to almost 600,000 people, across three continents.
2. The latest Five Minute Theatre news can be followed on Twitter: twitter.com/NTSonline and Facebook: facebook.com National Theatre of Scotland where participants can ask questions, share ideas and tips and connect with other theatre-makers.
3. Envirodigital is consultant producer for Five Minute Theatre http://envirodigital.com. Envirodigital is a lighthouse brand, guiding the creative and digital industries in a sustainable direction through the use of digital tools and technologies. Edinburgh-based Envirodigital helps organisations create economically and ecologically sustainable digital developments. Envirodigital helped to establish the new National Theatre Wales’ digital and environmental policies, and is helping to ensure many Scottish organisations’ and events’ environmental sustainability through providing webcasting production and consultancy. http://envirodigital.com
4. STV reaches over four million viewers each month, STV brings viewers first class programming, including Emmerdale and Coronation Street, crime drama Taggart, live guests and features on The Hour, entertainment hits The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, strong home-grown productions and comprehensive news. STV’s digital channels attract over two million unique users per month and incorporates website stv.tv, home to news, sport and entertainment; STV Player, where you can catch up with your favourite STV programmes; and STV Local, a network of hyper-local websites which is being rolled out across Scotland. Last year, STV announced a distribution deal with YouTube, making STV content available to a global audience.
MEDIA RELEASE posted by the National Theatre of Scotland. You too can post media releases (aka press releases) on allmediascotland.com. For more information, email here.
Contact: Andrew Neilson
Phone: 07912540139
Email: andrew.neilson@nationaltheatrescotland.com
Website: http://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com
