Patch of Blue to Bring WE LIVE BY THE SEA to Greenwich Theatre Next Month

A show described by a New York Times critic as "gloriously imaginative" has a two and a half week run next month at Greenwich Theatre, the place where it was first rehearsed and developed.

We Live By The Sea - at Greenwich from Friday, July 14, to Saturday, July 29 - won the prestigious Grahame F. Smith Peace Foundation award for promoting human rights as well as two top awards at the Adelaide Festival in Australia.

The play has been produced by Patch of Blue Theatre, described by Greenwich Theatre's artistic director James Haddrell as a "very young and very exciting company on an amazing trajectory."

We Live By The Sea tells the story of a young autistic girl and her fledgling relationship with a boy. "There is a great deal of discussion in theatre and television about male autism, but very little about female autism," said Patch of Blue writer and artistic director Alex Howarth. "The gender disparity is actually much less, it's just that girls are better at hiding it than boys. It is vital that girls on the spectrum are given a voice, which is what we wanted to do with this piece.

"We developed it through a devising process alongside the National Autistic Society, in particular with Robyn Steward, a woman on the spectrum on whose experiences a lot of the events of the play are based."

Alex and Patch of Blue were "absolutely blown away by the incredible response" to the play. "All you can do when creating your own work is make something that speaks to you," he said, "and we were proud of what we had created, but to be mentioned as one of the top pieces of theatre in 2016 in the New York Times was something none of us will ever get over.

"We had someone in Adelaide who saw the piece three times on three consecutive days! This sort of response has meant that more people have seen the show, almost 5,000 to date, than we could ever have imagined, and we are extremely grateful."

"All we can do," said Alex, "is tell stories that are important to us and stick to what we believe in. Our new piece for Edinburgh this year, When We Ran, is completely different to Sea, with a much bigger plot, more characters and, for the first time for us, original songs.

"We really hope that people enjoy it as much, but ultimately if we feel we've made the best work we can and we are proud of it and feel it is important, that's all we can do."

The human rights award came after the theatre group filled in a very simple form. "We never thought anything of it after that. We certainly never dreamed that we'd win," said Alex. "It's one of the things we are most proud of as human rights is at the centre of all our work - Granddad's right to make his own choices in Back To Blackbrick; Katy's right to be treated like everyone else in We Live By the Sea; and Martha and Jane's rights to live in the outside world in When We Ran."

Patch of Blue is now one of Greenwich Theatre's supported companies. "Our relationship started when James Haddrell saw Back to Blackbrick in Edinburgh and very kindly put out a very nice tweet about it!

"This led to a meeting where he offered to support us, which has been invaluable for our development. None of the incredible things that have happened to us in the last year - New York, Australia, China later this year - would have been possible without James and Greenwich, and it feels brilliant to be able to finally bring Sea back to where it all started."

James said: "Very often we have shows that preview with us and go on to bigger things, but we've kind of flipped the model this time. We financed an adviser from the National Autistic Society to work with the director and the company, so that there was absolute integrity in the way the story was told and we supported the process of taking a show from Edinburgh on to New York and Australia - a major challenge for a fledgling company. Finally we worked with Alex on his Arts Council application for this summer run, and we were immensely proud when the bid was successful. Now it feels as though we are bringing it home, which is just wonderful."

*We Live By The Sea - Greenwich Theatre from Friday, July 14, to Saturday, July 29. Performance times Tue-Sat 7.30pm. Matinee - Sat 22 July 2.30pm. Tickets £11 (£10 ticket plus £1 booking fee). Visit www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk or call 020 8858 4447.

Funded by RoyAl Greenwich, Greenwich Theatre is one of London's foremost Off-West End theatres, presenting a year round programme of drama, musicals and family theatre. It is one of the country's leading supporters of young and emerging theatre makers, currently supporting up to 20 young artists and companies in everything from production and tour management to script development and marketing.

Greenwich Theatre is also a significant developer and programmer of theatre for families and children, and lead producer on the annuAl Greenwich Children's Theatre Festival (part of the RoyAl Greenwich Festivals), and producer of one of the country's favourite traditional family pantomimes.

The launch of Greenwich Theatre On Tour has seen the theatre work with emerging companies to co-produce theatre at a range of national and international venues, with performances in London, Brighton, Edinburgh, Dublin, Adelaide, Madrid and New York. For more information, visit www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk.

To post a comment, you must register and login.