NORTH hit the road...

FINALLY! 

It's no longer a secret and we can stop teasing you with "announcements to come". It's official. The Man Who Thought the Moon Would Fall Out of the Sky is coming to a field near you! NORTH can now announce that we'll be touring to Latitude and Bestival this summer and hopefully the Edinburgh Fringe.

We're so excited that the legacy of NORTH, and the story of Ernest and She will be living on. 

Find us in Latitude's line-up with the likes of other amazing people we love...Dan Bye, Les Enfants Terrible, The Wrong Crowd.

And this year it's HMS Bestival so we best get our thinking caps on for some crackin' festival get up (it's the fancy dress festival to top them all!)

Latitude's Theatre Land...

Our home for the summer?

Now we need your support to make this all happen!

We are now trying to establish ourselves as an independent company. Our new aim is simple: to make world-class theatre from within the North East. Our ambitions are high, and we aren’t quite there yet, but that is where you come in! This summer we are hoping to undertake a small national tour of our show.

The Lake Stage, Latitude

We’ve received sponsorship from the wonderful McKenna’s at Northern Stage, Tim Bailey from Xsite architecture and Friends of the RSC as well as Northern Stage themselves, who have been tremendous with their in-kind support - ranging from good advice and cake to rehearsal space.

In conjunction with other fundraising efforts, we’ve arrived at £1880 as the figure to take these seven lovable rogues* on the road!

*DISCLAIMER: you may not find us roguish or lovable. That’s ok, we don’t hold it against you. Thank you for reading this far.

In a time of growing financial uncertainty in the Arts we feel that opportunities like the one presented to us are important for paving the way for more young theatre makers to create new work. We hope to build a network of emerging talent, both regionally and nationally. Being part of these renowned festivals is a chance to share our work with new audiences, theatre promoters and press. This is why the Festival tour is an important stepping stone towards a National tour in 2014. We hope this, in turn, will grow both our reputation and that of new work in the region. We want to encourage theatre makers, like ourselves, to believe that ambitious touring, even in the time of cuts, is achievable. Its like wor Gran’s always say: “Shy Bairns Get Nowt”

So every donation, big or small, really means a lot to us and that’s why as a little thank you, there’s some cracking gifts. Take a look at our We Fund page to find out how you can donate...and take a first peek at our trailer for the show.

Lets send some North East Vibes to these top festivals!

Love from the NOFFICE

North_NS

Find out more at www.northernstage.co.uk/north

Twitter: @North_NS

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/NORTH/431727386902902?fref=ts

One Evening

Hello! Reet, so, last week was our NORTH SOCIAL and I shall tell you all. Friday 12th April, Stage 3 was host to actors, directors, writers, photographers, musicians, theatre makers, project managers, entrepreneurs, producers, marketing-ers (is that a word? it is now...)and the words on everyones lips were "can we do this again?". Success!!

Stage 3 lookin' lush!

With music from Ali and George, an acoustic duo doing some amazing covers and original material. You can catch them on the first Tuesday of every month at Redhouse, Newcastle Quayside. It was a perfect starter to the night, relaxed and informal and a joy to listen to. Ali heads Alphabetti Spaghetti a theatre company based at the Dog and Parrot in Newcastle. Coming up very soon is "3 Shorts" 6th-14th June, 3 short plays written by 3 comedy writers in the North East. This lot have some funny bones, a building and some hot talent. They're a good giggle them Alphabetti Spaghetti's so I suggest you go see what they're up to. 

Ali and George makin' sweet music

We had the bangin' Bandicoot Theatre Company, top notch crew doing top notch stuff. They'll be appearing at this year's GIFT Festival in May, so don't miss them! I can't tell you too much about the installation, it's all top secret stuff, all I can say is that it's pure brilliance. 

Bandicoot's Chris and Jess hangin' oot with the camera

One sneaky Bandicoot preview...

We had some more music from the young talent of Slow Moving Targets. They played a mixture of originals and covers, but in my opinion they should get writing more original songs, three lads, sickeningly young to be that good...a little like the Arctic Monkeys. I think we should watch this space...

The lovely Slow Moving Targets

Aaaand films from Future Talents who were also photographing the event. An enterprise providing actors with the highest quality headshots, showreels, voicereels and website design and very reasonable prices. 

Dan from Future Talents (with the lovely shirt)

All these people gave up their time for free, for which we are hugely grateful and they made the night. So as you can see, it's still not grim up north, in fact, it never was. May this be the beginning of many more socials!

Megs was happy snappin' away as usual so peruse some of these beautiful people who came along on Friday night.

Look at all their lovely smiling faces! During the night we invited people to a table of postcards with a small post box, we asked them to write and suggest what they would like to see happen in Newcastle, what they'd like to make, and who they want to collaborate with. We can't wait to read them! 

Gan' on write us a postcard

It was also someone's birthday that night, our romantic lead of NORTH, Stan, Stan the Man turned 21 on the very same night. And we might have asked the lovely Slow Moving Targets to play their own version of Happy Birthday while we couldn't resist a tender moment of a slideshow of baby pictures, I think he was suitably embarrassed. Aaaaah to be 21 again....Happy Birthday Stan!

Cake. Cake. Cake. Mmmm. CAKE!

Spot the semi-naked Stanley...

So. A big fat smacker of a smooch to everyone who came, who drank, laughed, relaxed, listened and enjoyed. And thank you again for those wonderful people sharing their talent in the room, I urge you to meet them all. Now...for the next one! Don't miss it.

Love from the NOFFICE 

TMWTTMWFOOTS

What a silly title. That is, in fact, the shorthand for our show "The Man Who Thought the Moon Would Fall Out of the Sky" and a more twitter friendly way of hash-tagging  and although it's quite fun to pronounce, (I'll get a phonetic spelling to you soon, might as well put my phonetics degree to use!) its quite a hard one to get trending. Nevertheless we shall persevere. 

 It's all gone rather quiet hasn't it. But I'm sitting in bed in my Arran knitwear in April, with a cup of tea, mourning the loss of my daily fix of the lovely NORTH company and that glorious black box that housed so much sweat, laughs, dodged balls, polos, palms to heads and maybe the odd tear...of joy! And here's some of the fruits...you can see on our FLICKR via our Northern Stage website.

This sounds like an obituary to the best three months we had as a company. It was. But it was the beginning. NORTH are still working away, planning our NORTH NIGHT social at Northern Stage next week, Friday April 12th. We want to provide artists, photographers, actors, theatre makers, producers, creative juice filled people...you name it. We just want you. You to get in a room and talk. No networking. Just meeting each other, a chance to talk properly. We'll have a drink. We'll listen to some live music and enjoy some art and installation. We'll breathe some new life into Stage 3 of Northern Stage. It's a space crying out to be used more. And we intend to use it!

I'm dying to tell you our exciting news but we're still putting all the important things in place and I think every single one of us is avoiding jinxing it....but we are touring. We will be spending the summer in a field somewhere bringing Ernest and She to whoever wants to meet them. 

This blog shall keep on living. So stay with us! And come to NORTH NIGHT!

Because this is where it starts. And we'd like you to come on the adventure with us as we stand on our own two feet and prove to Northern Stage that what they set out to do will work. Now the small things shall begin...like a bank account, and a new name and our own identity, the second draft of The Man Who Thought the Moon Would Fall Out of the Sky, and our next show, and the one after that.

It's far from grim up here, this North, isn't it?

Love from the NOFFICE,

North_NS