Kandinsky To Premiere TRAP STREET At New Diorama
By: Stephi Wild Feb. 07, 2018
It's 1961 and the concrete's just been poured for a brand new housing estate. It's beautiful, not because of the clean lines, indoor toilets and wide windows, but because the idea behind it is beautiful. This is the future, and it's for everyone.
Acclaimed theatre-makers Kandinsky, whose combination of extensive research and distinctive theatricality is developing them an exciting reputation as a company to watch, will return to New Diorama next month for the world premiere of their brand new show Trap Street.
It's 2018 and the last tower of the estate is about to come down. The dream that saw it built has long since died and now the estate has to follow suit to make way for new buildings, based on new ideas. This is the future, whether you like it or not.
A 'trap street' is a street on a map that doesn't really exist, put in by map-makers to expose anyone plagiarising their work. Trap Street is set in a building similarly stuck between existence and non-existence: a high-rise tower, the last of the huge mid-20th century estates, sat waiting to be demolished. Andrea grew up here, though after she bought her flat in the late eighties she's barely been back - but now they're knocking it all down, part of London's ever-changing face, and she's come to reclaim what's hers. Trap Street charts 50 years of changing attitudes to social housing and space in London, to ask what home means in 2018.
The show is directed and co-written by James Yeatman (also an associate director for legendary theatre company Complicité), and devised by the company, based on original material by Yeatman and co-writer Lauren Mooney. It's been made in conjunction with representatives of several London housing associations and charities, and with long-term social housing tenants from the Nightingale Estate in Hackney and Thamesmead in southeast London.
The company includes acclaimed performers Amelda Brown (Blue Heart, Orange Tree; Adler and Gibb, Royal Court) and Danusia Samal (B, Royal Court; Two Noble Kinsmen, RSC), as well as live music from Zac Gvirtzman.
Kandinsky's previous productions include Still Ill - a drama developed with doctors and patients, examining the surprisingly common, little-understood Functional Neurological Disorder - and Dog Show, a tragicomic look at people and their pets through the lens of a community gripped in terror by a serial dog murderer.
TICKETS: £15.00; £12.00 Concessions
www.newdiorama.com/whats-on/trap-street
Kandinsky is a multi-award winning theatre company with a national and international reputation for exciting, inventive new work. They are an associate company of New Diorama Theatre.
Previous productions have twice won the Sunday Times Playwriting Award and been shortlisted for the Carol Tambor Award. Most recently, Dog Show won the Peter Brook Festival Award 2015 and the OffWestEnd Award for Best Ensemble.
Kandinsky are writer Al Smith, Complicite Associate director James Yeatman and producer-director Lauren Mooney.
New Diorama Theatre is a pioneering venue in the heart of London dedicated to providing a home for theatre ensembles, both emerging and established, from across the UK. Since opening in 2010, New Diorama has welcomed well over 120,000 audience members and has developed productions that have toured both nationally and internationally. Having received two prestigious Peter Brook Awards for their programme, New Diorama were also the recipients of the 2013/14 Les Enfants Terribles Prize and Artistic and Executive Director David Byrne was awarded the OffWestEnd Award for Best Artistic Director in 2014.
Supported by a strong community programme New Diorama were Mayor of Camden's Official Charity in 2012/13 and are proud of their work with Access, being the only non-government funded studio theatres to offer access performances throughout their whole season.
New Diorama Theatre was also the recipient of the prestigious Peter Brook 'Empty Space' Award in 2016 as a "vital creative hub for established and emerging theatre companies" and was named Best Fringe Theatre at the 2016 Stage Awards.
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