Birmingham Rep to bring theatre into Erdington homes.
Birmingham Repertory Theatre has today announced plans to bring theatre into the homes of Erdington residents on Saturday 18 October with its new initiative, Home Theatre Birmingham.
This exciting initiative will see performers and playwrights creating unique shows for Erdington residents to be performed in their own home to an audience of their choosing.
A total of 12 Erdington homes will be chosen to enjoy a tailor-made performance, which will be based on the owner’s own stories and experiences, in their own home with friends, family and neighbours making up the audience. All performances will happen in homes across Erdington on Saturday 18th October.
Home Theatre Birmingham will be created by writers, directors and theatre makers from The REP’s Foundry professional development programme which supports emerging artists across the West Midlands.
Tessa Walker, Associate Director at Birmingham Repertory Theatre says: “I am delighted that Home Theatre launches The Rep’s relationship with Erdington, it is the perfect project with which to begin our three year collaboration with the area. I am very excited to see the unique, bespoke performances that will emerge from the relationships between the hosts and our artists on the Foundry and fascinated to see the range of settings, stories and audiences that these performances will reach.”
Home Theatre initially began in 2013 as a project by Theatre Royal Stratford East, which saw 30 one-person shows staged in 30 homes across London. Performances took place in a wide variety of homes, with hosts ranging from ages nineteen to seventy.
Home Theatre Birmingham is being run in partnership with the Festival Internacional de Cenas em Casa (International Festival of Home Theatre) and came about following director Kerry Michael’s trip to Brazil in 2013, where Theatre Royal Stratford East has been invited to grow relationships in preparation for the Rio Games in 2016.
Birmingham Repertory Theatre is the Arts Champion for Erdington – a Birmingham City Council scheme which teams the city’s leading arts organisations with different wards across Birmingham to provide arts activities for the residents.
Erdington residents who are interested in applying to become Home Theatre Hosts should email hometheatre@birmingham-rep.co.uk or call 0121 245 2045 before the deadline on Monday 29 September. Successful applicants will have the opportunity to meet with the performer or playwright on Saturday 11th October, in order to share their personal stories that will form the starting point for the performance.