Supported Projects
Below is a list of a few of the recent shows commissioned or co-commissioned by Norwich Arts Centre.
Spring and Other Things by Chloe Yates
In this semi-autobiographical show filled to the brim with comedy, queerness, and climate anxiety, Chloe takes us through her journey from rock bottom in an adolescent psychiatric unit to falling head over heels in love with life again.
Supported by Norwich Arts Centre
Young Norwich Creative Awards
Young Norwich Creative Awards is a programme of awards for creatives aged 16–25 in Norwich.
Supported by Norwich Arts Centre, Young Norfolk Arts, National Centre for Writing, Norwich University of the Arts, Norwich Freeman’s Charity, The Garage, The Forum, Adnams, Creative UEA & Norwich Theatre
Young Norwich Creative Awards website
Phoenix, Dodo, Butterfly
Phoenix, Dodo, Butterfly is a unique show blends searing drama and insightful debate, through sharing three vividly imagined versions of our future, and inviting you to explore and discuss the climate crisis in close-up.
Written by leading dramatist of the climate crisis Steve Waters (The Contingency Plan, Song of the Reeds) and directed by theatre-maker and activist Kay Michael (Extinction Rebellion, Culture Declares Emergency, Letters to the Earth). Each show will be accompanied by opportunities for responses by audiences and key figures in climate emergency thinking including visionary eco-philosopher Prof Rupert Read, whose book: This Civilisation is Finished inspired Steve to write this drama.
Phoenix, Dodo, Butterfly website
Mama Afrika
Anna Mudeka returns to the stage as Mama Afrika sharing her interpretation of the life of Dr Miriam Makeba in a powerful one-woman, multi-faceted show.
A remarkable story full of hope and determination featuring best loved songs including Mbube, Pata Pata and Soweto Blues.
Supported by Norwich Arts Centre
Anna Mudeka website
The Starling Hotline by Jess Morgan
The Starling Hotline is a ‘storytelling show with music’ about climate, community, and citizen science in a pre-internet age.
Supported by Norwich Arts Centre
Jess Morgan website
The Great Estate: 100 years of Mile Cross
2023 will see The Mile Cross Estate celebrate its 100th year and people are organising to make sure it’s a year to remember.
Community theatre company The Common Lot are working with local people and schools to find and tell stories about the area’s proud history as the one of the oldest purpose-built social housing estates in the country.
Supported by Norwich Arts Centre
The Common Lot website
Human Library UK
The Human Library held their first UK in-person Human Library Book Café at Norwich Arts Centre, and we continue to be a partner venue.
At the Human Library volunteers become human books and can be ‘borrowed’ to share their personal experience. It is an opportunity to ‘un-judge someone’, ask any question, be curious, see beyond labels and meet the Human.
UK Human Library Facebook.
Lucy & Friends
Lucy McCormick’s most ambitious medium-concept catastrophic show yet; an ensemble cabaret tent spectacular… Unfortunately, she has no friends, no money, and no tent.
Still, there’s pole dancing, variety acts, strip routines and some quick reworking of social policy. In a despairing world, lonely Lucy creates community, connection, and conversation the only way she knows how.
Presented by Soho Theatre, John Mackay and United Agents. Commissioned by The Yard Theatre. Supported by Cambridge Junction, Colchester Arts Centre and Norwich Arts Centre.
Lucy McCormick website
KlangHaus: Darkroom and KlangHaus: InHaus
In 2023, KlangHaus are taking two performances supported by Norwich Arts Centre to Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
KlangHaus: Darkroom was developed alongside climate scientists from UEA’s Tyndall Centre and The Barn Aberdeenshire, this is an intense, profoundly emotional, affecting climate chaos wake-up call. Acclaimed at COP26, this is sound and senses virtual reality for the ears.
KlangHaus: InHaus continues to chew-on the rulebook of gig-going. The audience sit or stand in/around the band, the musicians literally a heartbeat away, as all hell breaks loose in an enhanced domestic setting.
KlangHaus website
A Welcome Feast: Food for a Fine City
For Refugee Week 2023.
A Welcome Feast: Food for a Fine City is an evening of international feasting and storytelling. Food is a universal experience and a way into understanding and appreciating different cultures. Local international cooks prepare delicious dishes from a variety of countries.
The stories are told by people from around the world who have found their home in Norwich.
This event is brought to you by; The Common Lot, Norwich Arts Centre, True Stories Live,
English +, The Workers’ Education Association, City of Sanctuary and Norfolk Libraries and Information Service
First Word at First Light Festival
Curated by award-winning poet Luke Wright, the First Word programme at First Light Festival brings the best in spoken word poetry, theatre, comedy, and storytelling to Suffolk’s sunrise coast.
First Word is supported by Norwich Arts Centre
First Light Festival website
How’s Your Father
How’s Your Father was a free show about dads. The project was a unique collaboration between popular local theatre company The Common Lot, the UEA School of Social Work, the Norwich voluntary organisation Menscraft, and Dads Matter, a service for fathers provided by Norfolk County Council.
The show presented four stories about men’s lives as fathers, what happens when they come up against different challenges, and what they discover about being a dad.
The Common Lot website
Evita Too
Multi-award-winners and double-hyphen-users Sh!t Theatre are back with the project they’ve always dreamed of making.
A performance-art mega musical about the life of the first ever female president… whose name is… um…
“Surreal, clever and hilarious” – Daily Telegraph
Supported by Old Diorama Arts Centre, Norwich Arts Centre and the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library
Sh!t Theatre website
DIRT
Set in a workshed surrounded by the harsh Fenland landscape, a group of seasonal workers share their griefs and aspirations as their hands painstakingly plough through the dirt.
FenCity Player Joseph Connolly co-writes with Director Toby Clarke following their triumphant debut show, MUCK (Norwich Arts Centre, Park Theatre).
FenCity Players website
MUCK
MUCK is the creation of FenCity Players, a new London/East of England theatre company committed to making socially significant work. It is directed by Olivier Award nominated Toby Clarke (Warheads), commissioned by Norwich Arts Centre and produced by LJ Hope Productions.
FenCity Players website
Mother Country
Mother Country was born from a collaboration between descents of enslaved African people and of European enslavers. Acclaimed director, Sonia Williams is from Barbados, writer Mags Chalcraft-Islam’s ancestors owned plantations in the West Indies.
Read more about Mother Country HERE.
The Remains of Logan Dankworth
The third of Luke Wright’s trilogy of political verse plays looks at trust and privilege in the age of Brexit.
Co-commissioned with National Centre for Writing, Colchester Arts Centre and Freedom Festival.
Luke Wright website
Stop Trying to be Fantastic
Writer, performer and director Molly Naylor’s latest spoken word show and accompanying poetry collection.
Co-commissioned with Inn Crowd.
NAC also co-commissioned Molly’s previous show LIGHTS! PLANETS! PEOPLE!
‘A show that reminds that change is possible, failure is human… – LYNN GARDNER
Molly Naylor website
Kure Kure, Faraway
Anna Mudeka’s one-woman production Kure Kure, Faraway is an epic tale addressing themes of identity, migration, assimilation and empowerment framed in the legends of her Shona ancestors and her own highly personal story of settling in the UK. Told through music, dance and traditional ululation.
Anna Mudeka website
Anglia Square: A Love Story
Anglia Square: A Love Story was a year-long funded multi-partner, participatory research, music and theatre project designed to respond to contemporary and historical changes to an iconic area of Norwich at a time of radical redevelopment.
Anglia Square: A Love Story website
[UNIT]
[UNIT] is a collective of artists working to create immersive audio/visual music and video performances and installations.
Their recent show [Reach The Moon] was a site specific work celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1st manned moon landing, part of Norwich Science Festival.
[UNIT] website
CAMP!
CAMP! by Norfolk-based writer James McDermott is a cabaret play which makes a song and dance about the media’s silence on the state-sanctioned anti-gay purges in Chechnya.
James also hosts an accompanying series of workshops around the theme of representing minorities in drama.
Co-commission with Norwich Theatre Royal.
James McDermott Twitter
DollyWould
Sh!t Theatre, Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit, make award winning theatre, often with a political theme.
DollyWould, their tribute to the country singer and the cloned sheep, was ‘one of the stand out shows of this year’s Fringe’(2017) -The Observer.
Supported by NAC.
Sh!t Theatre website
KlangHaus
KlangHaus is a partnership between musicians/sound artists The Neutrinos and visual artist Sal Pittman. The show blends a wide spectrum of moving image, light, live music, sound design and staging to accentuate and enhance the inherent qualities and attributes of iconic buildings to create an intimate and exciting journey.
The show had great success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2014, winning the ThreeWeeks Editors’ Award, and went on to play multiple sell-out runs at London’s Southbank Centre.
‘A revolutionary new way of staging live music’ – The Guardian
KlangHaus website
