Contact Theatre has announced its next season of work which will take the theatre company across the region playing in various theatres and venues.
‘Contact In The City’ will perform at alternative venues whilst its home on Oxford Road undergoes a major £6.65m regeneration project, adding new performance spaces, a recording studio, café/bar and artists offices, due to open in 2019.
The new season, running from January to June 2019, includes work from the Contact Young Company, a collaboration with the National Theatre, and will bring performances to venues including The Lowry, YES Manchester, Royal Exchange Theatre and other secret yet-to-be-revealed locations.
The annual festival of arts Queer Contact will return as a compact weekender in February, which includes a performance of Mother’s Ruin (Friday 8 February) at Waterside Arts, the famous Manchester Vogue Ball (Saturday 9 February) at Manchester Academy 2, and a series of workshops and spoken word from international artists.
Regular collaborator, poet and writer Inua Ellams will bring the National Theatre production of Barber Shop Chronicles to the Royal Exchange Theatre (Thursday 7 – Saturday 23 March) which explores the role of barbershops in cities around the world; and a group of young activist-performers from Brazil bring their show When It Breaks It Burns (Wednesday 8 – Thursday 9 May) about protest and education cuts to a secret location.
Other performances include two shows from the Contact Young Theatre company working with Battersea Arts Centre (Friday 3 – Saturday 4 May), followed by a collaboration with local spoken word heroes for a frank and cutting social and political commentary with Young Identity (Wednesday 12 – Saturday 15 June).
Matt Fenton, Artistic Director at Contact, said: “In Spring 2019 Contact builds on the ambition of our In The City programme, continuing a journey across the city that has included the Palace Theatre, Science & Industry Museum, Upper Campfield Market and a working sari shop on the Curry Mile. Our new programme explores global politics, decolonisation and protest in collaboration with international artists and radical young voices from our city. It reaffirms Contact’s commitment to local social action and global solidarity in these challenging times.”
Contact In the City – Part Three – 2019, are on sale now by phone on 0161 274 0600 or online at www.contactmcr.com.
Thumbnail image of Matt Fenton: credit to Joel Chester Fildes