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Presented by Sea-change Theatre

THE TEMPEST        

By William Shakespeare
Adapted by Sue Frumin
Directed by Ray Malone

“Be not afeared; the isle is full of noises”

Caliban Scene Act 3 Scene 2

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​Sea-change Theatre who create bold new work whilst celebrating diversity and challenging hetero-norms and challenging tired gender roles.
 
In 2016 the company took their performance of The Tempest

to Skala Eressos Women’s Festival in Lesbos, Greece where

it’s promenade performance was a resounding success.

In 2017 Sea-change took their teasing, gender-bending feast

to The Rose Playhouse on Bankside in June and to L-Fest

in Loughborough on the wettest weekend in July.

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Photographer: Ray Malone

tempestday.jpg
The Tempest at Skala Erresos

Sea-change Theatre’s first production was an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest, part of the Skala Eressos Women’s Festival in September 2016 in Lesvos, Greece. In doing so the company brought together a professional team of theatre-makers and local people, to celebrate both Greek and Shakespearean culture on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. 

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Sue Frumin's decision to accentuate the character of Sycorax, a ‘blue-eyed hag’ from Algiers, allowed exploration of our current discordant attitudes to freedom of movement, whilst the central story of a woman exiled from her own country speaks specifically to the plight of refugees, many of whom are held in camps on the same island, having washed up on the shores of Lesvos and many other Greek islands in the very recent past. 

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Designer Lu Firth created striking costumes which referenced the refugee crisis & Brexit with the costume details of the EU & the St. George flagwhile Miranda’s skirt hung heavy with safety pins to symbolise solidarity with the refugees. Ray Malone joined Sea-change as Theatrical Director in June 2016, and brought her satirical style to the production. Her addition of baroque-burlesque dance routines, physical comedy, songs and sea-shanties, were devised to make the Shakespearean text easily accessible to an international audience. Underscoring the comedy, the production cast subtle comment on a range of contemporary European political crises. 

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Despite the ever-present danger of scorpions, live-flames, open water, angry fishermen, barking dogs and motor-cyclists, the play met with instant success, with large audiences of over 150 per night responding enthusiastically to the dramatic opening display, set on a real sailing ship, and the ensuing promenade performance past the iconic statues of Sappho, to the harbour at dusk. The show was characterised by an informal, festive atmosphere, with audience members and local children joining in singing, dancing and music making throughout.​

Photographer: Ray Malone

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“I remember Raising the Wreck as a ground-breaking drama bringing lesbian lives to the fore. It’s fitting that it should be reintroduced to a new audience forty years after it was first produced.” Bernardine Evaristo- writer, author, original cast member, and the first black woman to win The Booker Prize

Raising the Wreck
 

Coming soon...

By

Sue Frumin

How it all began..

 

In 1985, Gay Sweatshop commissioned Sue Frumin to write Raising the Wreck. The play is set in a sunken galleon where four long dead women seafarers tell a modern woman about their experience. The performers were all female, and for the first time in the companies history the play had a multi-racial cast.here four long dead women seafarers tell a modern woman about their experience. The performers were all female, and for the first time in the companies history the play had a multi-racial cast.

In 2017, extracts of this popular play were performed at The Arcola Theatre with The Arcola Queer Collective, and in 2023 the full play was resurrected by Paul Green for Bijou Stories (https://bijouhistory.com/2023/08/03/raising-the-wreck/) and a rehearsed reading was produced by Susan Croft for Unfinished Histories (www.unfinishedhistories.com) at Newington Green Meeting House.
'In the heart of a sunken pirate ship, where four fierce female pirates, long since dead, recount their stories to a woman who has fallen into a timeslip from 1980s London, where she is one of the women running a pirate radio station. Originally commissioned from Sue Frumin in 1985 by Gay Sweatshop's women's company for the first time in the company’s history the play had a multi-racial cast. Moving, funny and insightful, the piece is based on the true stories of legendary women pirates including Grace O'Malley, Mary Read and Ching Pan Twu.''
Cast and Crew: "Directed by Runa Augdal with Charly Faye, Blair Heinz, Catherine Mieses, Cicely Halkes-Wellstead, Elise Xiaqi and Emma Louise-Price.

Audience members said: ‘'The actresses were so good… Not only did they create such compelling characters but they had a great chemistry and a fast banter. The play was sparking with jokes and the ensemble got the timing exactly right for the audience to laugh.'’

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The original 1985 Gay Sweatshop cast and crew:

Writer: Sue Frumin

Director: Paddi Taylor
Cast: Bernadine Evaristo, Hazel Maycock, Sara Ridd, Denise Thompson, Marjolein de Vries
Designer: Kate Owen

designed by HKC

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