Tickets for this year’s Gateshead International Festival of Theatre (GIFT) are now live and we’ve added even more brilliant performances and artists to the line-up, including Jamal Gerald, Oliver Zahn, and Sophie Woolley.
Coming to a living room near you, this year’s tenth edition of GIFT, from Friday 1- Sunday 3 May, is a digital re-envisaging of the festival, with a thought-provoking programme that’s jam-packed with contemporary theatre, performance, and interactive events.
(L-R: Idol by Jamal Gerald. Credit JMA Photography. Augmented, by Sophie Woolle. Credit Helen Murray).
Artists and audiences will share creative online experiences, dazzling immersive performances and lively debates. Book now to save your virtual seats!
New performances and events, just announced
Catch the vivid UK premiere of The North Sea: A (radio) play in three pints, which unravels a couple’s love affair, from first clumsy pub encounter to a magical and surprising meeting decades later. This collaboration between Norwegian writer Nick Hegreberg and a stellar team of creatives from North East England, is performed by local actors Brian Lonsdale and Karen Traynor, directed by Northern Stage Associate Director Mark Calvert, with sound design by Nick John Williams. For the full-pub-feel experience, download each ‘pint’ of the play over the three days of the festival (Friday 1- Sunday 3 May).
In a brand new, moving and funny solo show by writer and performer Sophie Woolley, Augmented, Sophie shares her personal story about the joy and conflict of becoming ‘hearing’ again after 22 years of progressive deafness. After going deaf in her 20s, Sophie, aged 39, was activated as a real-life ‘cyborg’, welcomed back into the hearing world and found herself even able to stream music directly to her brain. Exploring the impact of her ‘activation’ on her sense of self and closest relationships, the subtitled piece considers the transformative power of technology and whether Sophie’s experience can be a blueprint for the future of humanity? (Saturday 2 May, 4-5.10pm).
We are thrilled also to be welcoming Oliver Zahn back to GIFT, with a new ‘desktop’ work created for online audiences. Oliver Zahn (*1989) is a German theatre maker whose performance essays circle around ideas of nationalism, memory, history and corporeality. Based on extensive research made up of work in the field, in the archive and on stage, the result is situated on the intersection of performance art and contemporary dance. (Sunday 3 May, 9pm)
If instagram interventions are your thing, join Leeds-based artist Jamal Gerald on his instagram account @jamiboii for extracts and music from his solo performance Idol - a daring and unapologetic examination of religion, pop culture and Black representation. Who would you rather pray to- Beyoncé or white Jesus? Find out Jamal’s answer, get your incense lit and hands cleansed. A late night event including musical performances by musicians Pariss Elektra and Azizi Cole (Sunday 3 May, 10pm).
Don’t miss our full festival line-up here and join in with all the festival chat @GIFTfest.
Counting down the days until GIFTOFF….
Team GIFT