BY FAR THE GREATEST TEAM to Play The Lowry in September

This September, Manchester's award winning Monkeywood Theatre, in association with The Lowry, are set to stage the world premiere of By Far The Greatest Team, four new Manchester stories by four outstanding writers exploring and celebrating what it means to be a football fan in Manchester.

By Far The Greatest Team will kick off at The Lowry, Salford Quays, from the 17-20 September.

Told in a game of two halves, the production tells four new stories about Manchester City, Manchester United, identity, community, and belonging and gets to the heart of why the beautiful game has such an impact on our lives, season after season.

Each new play will be rooted in the truth about people's lives and will challenge the usual stereotypes about football.

The imaginative new production will see the Quays Theatre at The Lowry, where Monkeywood Theatre are Associate Artists, transformed into a football stadium, recreating the atmosphere of a match day in the city.

The four new plays will be written by Manchester City fans Ian Kershaw (Murder in the Mist, Oldham Coliseum and Channel 4's Shameless) and Sarah McDonald Hughes (Flesh, Royal Exchange and Once in a House on Fire, The Lowry, Maine Road, BBC Radio 4) and Manchester United fans Andrew Sheridan (Award winning Winterlong, Royal Exchange and Soho Theatre) and Lindsay Williams (Dreamers, Oldham Coliseum, Eastenders and Emmerdale). The production will be directed by Monkeywood Theatre's Co-Artistic Director Martin Gibbons.

Martin Gibbons said about the new production

"I love football and I love theatre; I love the experience of watching football, the live, immediate, communal experience. Thousands of people holding their breath or celebrating a last minute goal...I want theatre to evoke that pure, emotional, in-the-moment response too.

Manchester is a football city, two clubs and thousands of fans, stories, histories. The BFTGT plays are four separate stories, but we have woven them together so that, I hope, the experience of watching them mirrors the experience of a massive football match - light and dark, tragedy and comedy, life and death. More than that, I hope that the audience feel that they are part of something, a community of people all going through this emotional, visceral experience together."

Alongside the production and with support from The Lowry, The National Football Museum, Manchester City Football Club and Manchester United Museum and Tour Centre, there will be an exciting programme of creative engagement activities in the city, including an art installation based on the themes of the play, opening at the National Football Museum in September.

Monkeywood Theatre is a Manchester theatre company making and touring innovative, accessible and high quality new plays. Monkeywood Theatre makes plays that are rooted in their Mancunian community and increasingly they work collaboratively with artists and audiences to make their work. A key focus of their work is in attracting, engaging and retaining audiences who do not usually attend theatre. The company are Associate Artists of The Lowry and four times Manchester Theatre Award nominees.

Casting will be announced in the coming weeks.

By Far The Greatest Team is supported with funding from Arts Council England through Grants for the Arts and in partnership with The Lowry and the National Football Museum.

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