My next project will be two new plays for children under the working title ‘Cloaked Tales.’ Having been successful in a Grants for The Arts Application from Arts Council England.
Cloaked Tales will be a collaboration between a Textile Artist (Sara Lowes), Performance Poet (Me), a Composer (Jonathan Lambert) and a Director (Roman Stefanski) to create two (that’s right two!!!) tour ready childrens poetry shows, one for 3-5 year olds and one for 7-12 year olds. The shows will be poetic adaptations of fairytales told using the textile creations of Sara Lowes. Over the coming weeks I shall reveal what the adapted fairytales will be but for now, to whet your appetites, there are some photos above from where it all started, a short performance of a retelling of Goldilocks “Granny Goldilocks” that I performed last year at Polka Theatre. In the photos I am sporting the fantastic ‘Story Cloak’ created by Sara Lowes (www.saralowesstudio.co.uk)
And here’s a little taster from Granny Goldilocks…
“An old granny sneaked
through the woods at night,
she was looking for food,
for a bed that was just right.
She found an old house
with a door, that was round,
she listened at the keyhole,
she didn’t hear a sound.
This Granny was a robber,
a sneak and a thief.
If you gave half a chance
she would steal your front teeth.”
Cloaked tales will be created through an R&D process involving local families at Medway libraries and artists developing ideas for textiles creations and poems. The shows will tour Half Moon Theatre and 8 Medway libraries from October 2015.
Cloaked Tales runs hot on the heels of several childrens’ theatre shows i’ve had touring over the last year including The Poetry Joe Show, Pop-Up Flashback for WordPepper Theatre (both currently touring) Robin’s Winter Adventure for Pied Piper, The Paint Peerers Tales for The V&A, The Last Pearly for Pinhole Theatre and The Hairdoo That got Away for PlayHouse.