Live Theatre, formerly Live Theatre Company, is a new writing theatre and company based in

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

, England. As well as producing and presenting new plays many of which go on to tour nationally and internationally, it seeks out and nurtures creative talent and runs a large education programme for young people.

History

Originally founded in

Tyneside Tyneside is a built-up area across the banks of the River Tyne in northern England. Residents of the area are commonly referred to as Geordies. The whole area is surrounded by the North East Green Belt. The population of Tyneside as published i ...

in 1973 by

Val McLane Val McLane (born Valerie Bradford25 February 1943 in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland) is an English actress, scriptwriter, director and teacher. Her younger brother is actor and musician Jimmy Nail. McLane founded the Live Theatre Company ...

, Geoff Gillham and Dave Clark, The company originally toured its work regionally to non-traditional theatre settings, such as community halls and

working men's club Working men's clubs are British private social clubs first created in the 19th century in industrial areas, particularly the North of England, Midlands, Scotland and South Wales Valleys, to provide recreation and education for working class me ...

s. The company was creating plays and stories that were relevant to the North East community and sought to break down barriers by presenting this work to ordinary working-class people within their own communities. The company has been based in

Newcastle Quayside The Quayside is an area along the banks (quay) of the River Tyne in Newcastle upon Tyne (the north bank) and Gateshead (south bank) in Tyne and Wear, North East England, United Kingdom. History The area was once an industrial area and busy com ...

since 1982, expanding over the years to occupy the current premises which combine converted

warehouse A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities ...

s and

Almshouse An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) was charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the medieval era. They were often targeted at the poor of a locality, at those from certain ...

s to create a building which houses a theatre auditorium, café bar, rehearsal spaces and administrative offices. Live Theatre also took over the lease of a new warehouse building on Broad Chare, immediately adjacent to the previous theatre. In 2007 Live Theatre underwent a further capital development. It now has a cabaret style theatre, a studio theatre, renovated rehearsal rooms, a series of dedicated writer's rooms as well as a café, bar and gastro pub, The Broad Chare, all in a restored and refurbished complex of five Grade II listed buildings.

Productions

Live Theatre develops new writing talent in the region. The company has enjoyed significant relationships with many writers such as

CP Taylor Cecil Philip Taylor (6 November 1929 – 9 December 1981) usually credited as C. P. Taylor, was a Scottish playwright. He wrote almost 80 plays during his 16 years as a professional playwright, including several for radio and television. He also ...

Tom Hadaway Tom Hadaway (18 March 1923 – 3 March 2005) was a writer for stage and television, born in North Shields in North East England. Early life Hadaway was born on Howdon Road, North Shields on 18 March 1923. After leaving school, aged 14, he work ...

Alan Plater Alan Frederick Plater (15 April 1935 – 25 June 2010) was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s. Career Plater was born in Jarrow, County Durham, although his family ...

and, more recently,

Peter Flannery Peter Flannery (born 12 October 1951) is an English playwright and screenwriter. He was born in Jarrow, County Durham and educated at the University of Manchester. He is best known for his work while a resident playwright at the Royal Shake ...

, Michael Chaplin,

Peter Straughan Peter Straughan (born 1968) is a British playwright, screenwriter and author, based in the north-east of England. He was writer-in-residence at Newcastle's Live Theatre Company. Whilst there, Live staged his plays, ''Bones'' and ''Noir''. Both o ...

Julia Darling Julia Rose Darling (21 August 1956 – 13 April 2005) was an English novelist, poet and dramatist. Early life and education Darling was born in 1956 in 8 College Street, Winchester—the house Jane Austen died in. Her parents were John Ramsay D ...

, Lee Hall, Sean O'Brien and Karen Laws. Many plays have been commissioned and produced over the years which are now known nationally and internationally, such as ''Close The Coalhouse Door'', ''

Cooking with Elvis ''Cooking with Elvis'' is a dark comedy by playwright Lee Hall which was performed in 1999 in Edinburgh. The farce was adapted from a play written for the award-winning BBC Radio ''God's Country'' series and premiered in 1999 in Edinburgh. It wa ...

'', '' Operation Elvis'' and ''

And a Nightingale Sang ''And a Nightingale Sang'' is a play by British playwright C.P. Taylor (1977) and commissioned by Newcastle upon Tyne's Live Theatre Company. The play was made into a TV program in 1989 by Jack Rosenthal for Tyne Tees Television. Described as a ...

''. In 2013 Live Theatre celebrated 40 years of creating plays on Tyneside with a programme that included a new national tour of Lee Hall's ''The Pitmen Painters'' by Bill Kenwright Limited, and sell out runs at Live Theatre of ''Tyne'' by Michael Chaplin, ''Wet House'' by new talent Paddy Campbell and a revival of Lee Hall's ''

''. ''Wet House'' successfully transferred to the

Soho Theatre The Soho Theatre is a theatre and registered charity in the Soho district of the City of Westminster, in London, England. It produces and presents new works of theatre, together with comedy and cabaret, across three performance spaces. The the ...

in 2014. Between January and June 2014 Live Theatre presented a series screenplays in development by writer Lee Hall, which includes scrips in development about English cricketer

Harold Larwood Harold Larwood, MBE (14 November 1904 – 22 July 1995) was a professional cricketer for Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club and the England cricket team between 1924 and 1938. A right-arm fast bowler who combined unusual speed with grea ...

, a film adaptation of

Down and out in paris and london ''Down and Out in Paris and London'' is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. Its target audience was the middle- and upper-cl ...

based on the book by

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...

, ''Rocket Man'' about the life of pop star

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...

and ''Victoria and Abdul'' based on the life of

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

and her manservant and ''For The End of Time'' based on the life and works of French composer

Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist who was one of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century. His m ...

. All were read as script-in-hand readings in Live Theatre's main theatre. ''Incognito'' by

Nick Payne Nick Payne (born 1984) is a British playwright and screenwriter. Early life and education Payne studied at the University of York and subsequently at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He is also a graduate of the Royal Court Young Write ...

was a co-production between Live Theatre, nabokov, HighTide Festival Theatre and in association with The North Wall, Oxford in spring 2014, which previewed at Live Theatre in April 2014, before going to HighTide Festival and The North Wall. It returned to Live Theatre in May 2014 and then had a sell-out run at The Bush Theatre, London. Live Theatre's 2013 show ''Captain Amazing'' written by Bruntwood Prize winning author Alistair McDowall, directed by Clive Judd and starring Mark Weinman returned to Live Theatre in May 2014 and was performed at Northern Stage's Kings Hall Edinburgh venue for a week as part of the

Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

. In November 2014 Live Theatre premiered ''Flying into Daylight'', a new play by

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

-award-winning screenwriter Ron Hutchinson. Drawn from a true story, the play features live

Tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...

music created and performed by Tango musician Julian Rowlands and dance choreographed by Amir Giles.

Awards

In 2017 Live Theatre productions ''Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour'', written by Lee Hall and co-produced with National Theatre of Scotland, was nominated for two Olivier Awards, winning the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, whilst all the all female cast of Melissa Allan, Caroline Deyga, Kirsty Findlay, Karen Fishwick, Kirsty Maclaren, Frances Mayli McCann, Joanne McGuiness and Dawn Sievewright were jointly nominated for the Olivier Award of Best Actress in a Supporting role. The show then went on to complete a West End run at the

Duke of York's Theatre The Duke of York's Theatre is a West End theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster, London. It was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte, who retained ownership of the theatre until her death in 1935. Designed by th ...

, London. ''The Red Lion'' by Patrick Marber, starring Stephen Tompkinson, had successful runs at Live Theatre and on a West End transfer, and was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre.

Live Tales

The theatre also hosts a free creative writing programme for KS2 and KS3 students called Live Tales in studios behind the theatre in Newcastle and at The Fire Station, Sunderland.

Live Youth Theatre

Live Theatre runs the largest free youth theatre group in the North East of England, which runs weekly sessions for young people of mixed ability ages 11–25. Live Youth Theatre was founded in 1998 by Live Theatre's current Senior Creative Associate Children and Young People, Paul James at the request of then Artistic Director Max Roberts, and has notable alumni including

Laura Norton Laura Norton (born 19 June 1983) is an English actress, known for her role as Kerry Wyatt on the ITV soap opera ''Emmerdale''. Norton has also appeared in numerous television series working for ITV and the BBC, and has significant theatre cr ...

, Dean Bone, and Natalie Jamieson

Staff

The current

Artistic Director An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the ...

of Live Theatre is Jack McNamara. Max Roberts, Artistic Director until 2018, is currently Emeritus Artistic Director, and also lectures at the

University of Sunderland , mottoeng = Sweetly absorbing knowledge , established = 1901 - Sunderland Technical College1969 - Sunderland Polytechnic1992 - University of Sunderland (gained university status) , staff = , chancellor = Emeli ...

. Chief Executive of Live Theatre is Jacqui Kell.

References

{{Coord, 54.9700, -1.6049, display=title Theatres in Newcastle upon Tyne 1973 establishments in England Producing theatres in England