Royal Court Theatre Tackles the Big Idea

PRESS RELEASE

ROYAL COURT THEATRE TACKLES ‘THE BIG IDEA’

The Royal Court Theatre tackles ‘the big idea’ this summer, as part of Open Court – a six week festival (10 June – 20 July) of plays, ideas and events chosen and suggested by a group of over 140 writers in new Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone’s first summer at the helm.

The Big Idea will confront the burning issues of the day over three Friday nights in a series of plays, talks and late night events, curated by different playwrights, exploring the themes of Sex, Age and Death. There will also be PIIGS – a week of interviews and plays around the five countries in the European Union that have been hit hardest by European austerity, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain, a week exploring collaboration in the theatre and Kids Court, a week of activities for Primary School age children.

14 June Sex
6.30pm Forever by Judy Blume
8.30pm Friday Night Sex
9.30pm til late Cabaret: David Hoyle

21 June Age
7pm Do You Feel Too Old? & Eighty and Over
9.15pm til late Singalong in the Café Bar

25-29 June PIIGS
7.30pm Plays and readings from Portugal (25th) Ireland (26th)
Italy (27th), Greece (28th) and Spain (29th)
28 June 9.30pm til late Eurodisco

4-6 July Collaboration
7.30pm Half hour devised plays
5 July 9.30pm til late Live music and DJs

12 July Death
6.30pm Speed Deathing
8.30pm The Art of Dying
9.30pm til late Silk Street Jazz

19 July 9.30pm til late Live music and DJs

Friday 14 June
The Big Idea: Sex
Curated by Alecky Blythe, E.V Crowe and Michael Wynne

“I sort of think I don’t know anything about sex. And then I think like everyone else, I must know something. Whatever we do know comes from somewhere and it probably started as children, before we ‘had sex’ before we had school ‘Sex Ed’. Our real sex education is cultural.

“When I was at school there was a queue to read a book about sex – that book was ‘Forever’ by Judy Blume. Why was there a queue? Would our relationship to sex be the same if we’d never read it? What was in that book?

“Maybe a whole generation of women need to hear it again, and go back to where our ideas started. It’s going to tell us all something, men and women, but we won’t know until we hear it.”
E.V. Crowe, Playwright

Forever by Judy Blume
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, 6.30pm

Playwright E.V. Crowe invites an audience to relive a seminal teen lesson in sex education by listening to a live reading by a solo performer of Judy Blume’s iconic novel Forever.

Friday Night Sex
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, 8.30pm

Friday Night Sex – a steamy passion-fuelled session or a complicated and exhausting routine? Playwrights Alecky Blythe and Michael Wynne investigate what Friday Night Sex really means.

Tickets £8 for both events. (£5 per event)

Late Night:

David Hoyle Tries to Get His Leg Over
Royal Court Café Bar 9.30pm until late

Notorious ‘anti-drag queen’, performance artist, avant-garde cabaret artist, singer, actor and comedian, David Hoyle brings his unique act to the Royal Court Café Bar.
Free entry

Friday 21 June
The Big Idea: Age
Curated by DC Moore and Penelope Skinner

“I am interested in questions of age, in how we use it, how we fear it, how we judge others according to it, in how we present it artistically – and in who is allowed to do so.

“The Big Idea was initially inspired by the perception that in theatre, youth is worshipped over and above all things. That you ‘have’ to be young to get in. That older people will be ignored, unless they are already established. I think we have to take that perception seriously, because it seems to be a reflection of mainstream culture, and because our responsibility as artists is not just to reflect, but also to question.

“In the beginning of our lives, how old we are is crucial. Babies have certain needs according to their age, and we have learned to predict when they should be talking, walking, etc. Once they get to school it seems a robust and fair way to categorise what children are taught, and when.

“But once it ceases to define what we study, whether or not we can have sex or vote or go to prison, why do we continue to be judged according to our age? And while we sometimes hear of a past in which ‘age’ was revered, getting older now seems to be a point of fear for many of us. Maybe it used to be so remarkable, to live to an old age, that those who managed it were deemed wise. But now that becoming elderly is more commonplace, have we started to assume the opposite?”
Penelope Skinner, Playwright

Double Bill: Do You Feel Too Old? And Eighty and Over
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, 7pm

Playwrights Penelope Skinner and DC Moore placed an advert in the Evening Standard asking simply ‘Do You Feel Too Old? Tell Us Why’. A collage of responses will be presented in this one-off verbatim piece in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs.

The Young Writers Programme has grown up! The Royal Court put out a call to find writers aged 80 and over. Over four weeks, eight writers worked with Playwright Penelope Skinner and guest speakers at the Royal Court to write a short play about the world now from their perspective to be performed as staged readings.

Tickets £8 for both events. (£5 per event)

Late Night:
Duke of Kendal Singalong in the Café Bar
Royal Court Café Bar from 9.15pm

The Royal Court invites the regulars who sing around June Turvey’s piano every Sunday night at the Duke of Kendal pub in Connaught Street to the Royal Court Café Bar for one night only.
Free Entry

Friday 12 July
The Big Idea: Death
Curated by Vivienne Franzmann and Nick Payne

_”There is just one certainty in life. Yes, you’ve guessed it. We are all going to die.
We can delay, obstruct, toy with, retreat from, seek out, avert our eyes, divert our minds, but there are no givens but this, it is all going to end._

_”It is arguable that there has never been a worse time to die in the Western World. We, as individuals, are less equipped to deal with the reality of death than ever before; I have to be young, look young, think young. I am important. I can be fixed. I must exist.

By the time we face the reality of death, our minds have spent little time preparing for it.

“It is not the inevitably of death that is interesting, but what we do when death enters our lives, both as living people and dying people.”
Vivienne Franzmann, Playwright

Darian Leader
Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, 2pm

Psycho-analyst and author of The New Black and Mourning, Melancholia and Depression Darian Leader discusses death, mourning and human responses to loss.
Free (but ticketed)

Speed Deathing
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, 6.30pm

A high speed series of five minute lectures about beliefs and rituals around death from all the main religions of the world.

The Art of Dying
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, 8.30pm
A new play about death, dying and the deceased. A mix of fact and fiction. Written and performed by Nick Payne

Tickets £8 (or £5 per event)

Late Night:

Silk Street Jazz Band
Royal Court Café Bar from 9.30pm

In New Orleans, the brass band is an integral part of a funeral, traditionally playing slow spirituals and hymns on a procession to the church or crematorium, then upping the tempo with big band standards in a joyful and uplifting celebration of life.
Free Entry

Late Nights in the Café Bar

Eurodisco
Friday 28 June 9.30pm til late

During PIIGS – a week of events and plays around the five countries in the European Union that have been hit hardest by austerity (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain), The Big Idea lets its hair down and invites DJ Johnny Kalifornia’s ‘Voyage Voyage!’ – London’s finest global pop party – to the Royal Court Café Bar for Eurodisco.

For a one euro entrance fee expect Euro-high-campery, Latin melodrama and Scandipop in spades from resident DJs Bob Chicalors & Johnny Kalifornia, straight from their monthly club night at Vogue Fabrics.
Entry €1

Live Bands and DJs
Friday 5 & 19 July 9.30pm til late

Party in the Royal Court Café Bar with live music and DJs. Free entry and late night happy hour 10pm-11pm.

Throughout Open Court, the Royal Court’s Café Bar will be offering a new food and drinks menu, serving festival cocktails and quick and tasty bites til late

Balcony Bar
Mon – Sat 10am – 6pm
Tea, coffee and cake in our sunny bar over looking Sloane Square. Pimms and cocktails also available.

Court Canteen & Burger Bar
Open daily from 11am – late.
Drinks available from 11am.
Lunch available from 12noon – 3pm.
Happy hour from 10pm – 11pm nightly.
Pop up canteen in the underground Royal Court Bar. Burgers and fries, quick and tasty bites, cold beer and festival cocktails.

Tickets for The Big Idea available from the Box Office 0207 565 5000 www.royalcourttheatre.com

Notes to Editors:

For more information, please contact Anna Evans on 0207 565 5063 annaevans@royalcourttheatre.com

More details on The Big Idea:

The Big Idea: PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain)
Directed by Richard Twyman
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, SW1W 8AS
Tue 25 – Sat 29 June , 7.30pm, Tickets: £10
Age Guidance 14+
A week of events and plays around the five countries in the European Union that have been hit hardest by European austerity, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. Each evening will include short response plays and verbatim conversations reported, translated and put on stage within 24 hours of them happening. PIIGS will be filmed and live-streamed, available online on the Royal Court website.

PORTUGAL Tuesday 25 June
April De Angelis (London), Sandra Pinheiro (Lisbon), translated by Mark O’Thomas
ITALY Wednesday 26 June
Anders Lustgarten (London), Fausto Paravidino (Rome), translated by Gillian Hanna
IRELAND Thursday 27 June
Kieran Hurley (Glasgow), Deirdre Kinahan (Dublin)
GREECE Friday 28 June
Andreas Flourakis (Athens), Alexi Kaye Campbell (London) also translating.
SPAIN Saturday 29 June
Vanessa Montfort (Madrid), Alexandra Wood (London), translated by William Gregory

The Big Idea: Collaboration.
Thurs 4 – Sat 6 July 7.30pm. Tickets £10
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, SW1W 8AS
Age Guidance 14+
Playwrights E.V. Crowe, Vivienne Franzmann, Robin French, Joel Horwood, Janie Okoh and DC Moore will work with writer and director Anthony Neilson to explore collaboration through his unique devising style in the rehearsal room, each creating a thirty minute devised piece.

The Big Idea: Kids Court
Tue 16 – Sat 20 July 2013
A week of plays, workshops and special events curated by young playwrights aged 8-11, including Primetime, plays written by primary aged children, Upfront, where the Royal Court will be staffed by children aged 8-11 for one evening, Happy Hour workshops, VIP Hostage talks, In a Minute – plays created by a local school, Backstage Tours led by Primary School Playwrights and a Family Play in a Day created and performed the same day.
www.royalcourttheatre.com/kids

Open Court is supported by

Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas.
The company’s strength-delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately-is at the core of the Bloomberg Professional service, which provides real time financial information to more than 300,000 subscribers globally.

Through our philanthropy programme, we help charities and non-profit organisations around the world with education and literacy programmes, health and medical research, social work, arts and culture, public parks and the environment.

PIIGS is presented as part of International Playwrights: A Genesis Foundation Project.

The Genesis Foundation supports the Royal Court’s International Playwrights Programme.

To find and develop the next generation of professional playwrights, the Genesis Foundation funds workshops in diverse countries as well as residencies at the Royal Court. The Foundation’s involvement extends to productions and rehearsed readings which helps the Royal Court to provide a springboard for young writers to greater public and critical attention. For more information, please visit www.genesisfoundation.org.uk