Guest Blog: New Head of Theatre and Artistic Development Owen Calvert-Lyons Talks Ovalhouse's Spring Season

Planning a first season for a new venue is always an exciting and daunting prospect. I want to establish new ideas and introduce new artists. At the same time, I want to work with the great artists who are already here and to ensure that existing audiences still see this as 'their' venue.

I often picture the creation of a new programme as a journey - I start with a picture of where I want to get to, what I want this new version of the venue to look like. This is helped by the fact that Ovalhouse will be moving to a new building in 2019, so we have both a literal and a metaphorical journey to go on with our audiences.

In this new venue, we will have seven rehearsal rooms. The building will be filled with artists experimenting with ideas - like a giant theatre laboratory. So in my first season, I want to be sure that we are focussing upon experimentation.

I've programmed eight new productions, at various stages of their development, all of which are being tested in front of an audience for the first time through our FiRST BiTE programme, which enables audiences to be see works while they are still being created for just £5.

Amongst these are Seiriol Davies' Milky Peaks, the follow-up show to his smash-hit musical How to Win Against History; Jamie Wood's I Am A Tree - a surreal comedy about his pilgrimage across the Welsh Valleys dressed as a druid; Ambreen Razia's POT, the follow-up show to her runaway success Diary of a Hounslow Girl, now on its second tour of the UK; and The Believers Are But Brothers, a new one-man show about a young man imprisoned in the U.S. on terrorism charges.

I have always championed work for children and young people, and I believe that a radical and experimental theatre should have the same approach to its work for young audiences. This new programme begins in the February half-term, when we will present Moonshine's Entirely Necessary Adventure - a wonderful play with songs, politics and a gender-fluid magpie.

The second show in this series will be The Many Door of Frank Feelbad by experimental theatre company Bootworks, which explores the way in which children and adults deal with grief. Frank Feelbad will be the first in a series of BSL signed shows as part of a new commitment to Deaf and hard of hearing audiences.

Looking to the future sometimes needs building from the past. From 1968 to 1988 Ovalhouse was at the forefront of every radical theatre movement. Lesbian and Gay Theatre; Black Theatre; Feminist Theatre; Theatre as Protest; and Theatre & Disability movements all found a home at Ovalhouse.

This theatre has a proud tradition of radicalism, and often that came from taking a chance on an artist who had something to important to say. I want to continue to champion this ethos, so that Ovalhouse can continue to provide a platform for voices outside of the mainstream.

This season we present the first play from Urban Wolf, written by Tom Wainwright, which examines the aftermath of a death in police custody. We also present JOAN, performed by UK champion drag king Lucy Jane Parkinson aka Luis Cypher. The season ends with Eurohouse, a darkly comic play about the EU's founding ideals and what got lost along the way. So I hope that my first season builds upon the amazing history of this venue and brings audiences on a journey with us to explore what radicalism means in the 21st century.

Ovalhouse's Spring Season runs until 29 April

Photo credit: Ludovic Des Cognets

To post a comment, you must register and login.