National Theatre of Scotland’s award-winning Five Minute Theatre returns
Published by Anne Marie Hughes on Fri 29 Jun 12 @ 16:09
Following a barnstorming opening instalment of the year in May, and having received a Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland Award in June, the National Theatre of Scotland's Five Minute Theatre returns on Saturday 14 July 2012.
From all over Scotland, from Ghana and the USA, from first-time amateurs to seasoned professionals, over 60 theatre-makers have submitted bite-sized pieces exploring the theme of Youth. Each production will be performed in front of a live audience - either filmed and recorded in advance or broadcast live on the day. All performances will be streamed between 1pm and 7pm on Saturday 14 July at www.fiveminutetheatre.com.
Glasgow-based performances include:
- Tam Dean Burn's performance of Julia Donaldson's The Gruffalo Child's song, with musical accompaniment, in Glasgow's Children's Wood, as part of the North Kelvin Meadow Campaign
- a five minute monologue by playwright Douglas Maxwell, set to original music composed by Claire McKenzie and performed by a 15-piece band
- a mini operetta sung by two 'dental receptionists'
- a nostalgic song about a sick child's relationship with her drip, performed live at the Old Hairdressers Bar in Glasgow
- an outdoor performance featuring dance, music and visual art, performed by members of Glasgow's Depot Arts Co.
- a bald man's lament on his 'prematurely thinning hatch'
- the Odyssean journey of a teenage refugee in America, performed by a group from Pepperdine University, Malibu, California
- performances from two members of the Citizens Theatre Young Co.
- explorations of youth unemployment, knife crime and the embarrassments of the teenage diary…
Marianne Maxwell, Five Minute Theatre producer, explained
the choice of Youth as the theme for this event:
'The month of July in Scotland just seems packed with theatre
created by young people, whether that's at the National Theatre of
Scotland's Exchange Festival, the National Festival of
Youth Theatre, or all the summer schools and festivals across the
country. We wanted to celebrate all that creativity and talent, and
at the same time ask what Youth means to people at different stages
of life, throwing the question open to anyone who wanted to answer
it, no matter what their age. We'll have five minute theatre
pieces on the topic of Youth from participants aged 11 - 70 years
old, featuring casts sized 1 - 60.'
Hailed as 'an astonishing technical triumph' by Robert Dawson Scott, Scotland critic for The Times, Five Minute Theatre received the Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland award for Best Technical Presentation in June this year. Since its launch in June 2011, Five Minute Theatre has inspired 265 performances, gathering an online audience of 59,000 from 51 countries around the world. On Saturday 14 July, audiences will be able to see the first African submission to Five Minute Theatre, from Ghana in West Africa, as well as a performance from Hoboken, New Jersey, against the backdrop of the Hudson River and the Manhattan skyline.
In addition to the online coverage during July's event, Five Minute Theatre will also create a pop-up live performance hub in a vacant shop in Glenrothes' Kingdom Shopping Centre. With the National Festival of Youth Theatre running simultaneously in the neighbouring Rothes Halls, up to ten youth theatre groups are expected to perform at the hub. Between live performances, audience members will also be able to watch the Five Minute Theatre online broadcast on large plasma screens installed in the transformed shop unit.
Five Minute Theatre - 'Youth': Saturday 14 July, 2012
Participants hail from: Ghana in West Africa, Hoboken in New Jersey, and all over Scotland, including Aberdeen, Dundee, Bo'ness, Edinburgh, Musselburgh, Leith, Stirling, Glasgow, East Kilbride, Ayr, Irvine and Cumbernauld.
Participants include: youth theatre groups, schools, first-time performers, a pub theatre group, a deaf theatre group, a disabilities theatre group, established theatre-makers Tam Dean Burn, Douglas Maxwell, Joe Douglas, Gareth Nicholls and Vivien Grahame…
Performance spaces will include:
a beach, a campsite, a phonebox, a village pub, a water fountain, a
childhood bedroom and a football pitch…
Performance styles will include:
horror, musical, dance, operetta, physical theatre, flashmob, video
projection, comedy, poetry, monologue and audience
participation…
Within the theme of Youth, pieces will explore: the quest for eternal youth, youth and social media, public perceptions of youth, grey hair, where babies come from, baldness, similarities between generations, youth unemployment, nostalgia for youth, protective parents, illness, the embarrassment of the teenage diary
You can follow Five Minute Theatre between 1pm and 7pm online at www.fiveminutetheatre.com, where you can comment on performances or share your own thoughts on the theme of Youth.
You can join the audience at the pop-up live performance hub at Glenrothes' Kingdom Shopping Centre, in the old Poundsworth Store between 1pm and 6pm.
Follow Five Minute Theatre on Twitter: @NTSonline #fiveminutetheatre
