The Ashden Directory

directory database :: search results

timeline

directory database

features and interviews

Landing Stages ebook

blog

about

search again >>

Arcola Theatre

www.arcolatheatre.com
production@arcolatheatre.com
t : 020 7503 1645
London
England

Founded in 2000 by Artistic Director Mehmet Ergen and Executive Producer Leyla Nazli, Arcola Theatre has become well known for the variety of its programming, from new writing to classic drama, music and comedy.
Arcola Theatre is also known for Green Arcola, working to provide sustainability research and monitoring, project management and implementation as well as support to the Hackney community, theatre productions and other arts organisations. One of Green Arcola’s missions is to showcase advances in renewable energy technologies, bringing sustainable solutions for the future to new and unexpected audiences.

Productions and Projects

Moby Dick

2013

A new play by simple8 theatre company, adapted from Herman Melville’s novel.
Nantucket.1851.
Centre of a whaling industry that transformed blubber into the oils and candles that lit the world.
It’s there that a schoolmaster called Ishmael arrives to ship on a whale-boat. He enrolls under Ahab, Captain of the Pequod, a man bent on destroying the white whale that lost him his leg. Certain the destruction of his nemesis will slake his thirst, Ahab’s single-minded pursuit of Moby Dick consumes Ishmael, the crew and the Pequod itself.
"It's true. It's all true for Moby-Dick. He's a killer, he's a fury, he's an angel of hell. Why if the white whale could talk he'd talk like Ahab."
Moby Dick is listed on both Arcola Theatre's and simple8 theatre company's pages.
photo: Idil Sukan at Draw HQ
Editors' note: simple8's sustainability policy and statements on climate change are here.

Moby Dick

Climate Week: Play in a Day

2012

Climate Week Play in a Day brings together the finest British theatrical talent to put on five original fifteen minute performances in just 24 hours.
Climate Week (12-18 March 2012), Britain's biggest climate change campaign, will stage this one-off performance showcasing creative solutions to climate change.
Five teams will put their creativity, talent and stamina to the test by producing a performance against the clock. Each team comprises an award-winning writer and director, celebrity actors, and fresh talent from the country’s top drama schools.
Writers: Bola Agbaje, Nick Drake, Ella Hickson, Nick Payne, and Sarah Solemani
Directors: Tom Attenborough, Cathal Cleary, Tinuke Craig, Laura Farnworth, Lu Kemp
Drama Schools: Bristol Old Vic, Central School of Speech and Drama, Guildhall, LAMDA, and RADA

Climate Week: Play in a Day

Origin of the Species

2009

Arcola Theatre marked the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species with a revival of Bryony Lavery’s re-imagining of the theory of evolution, Origin of the Species.
Archaeologist Molly discovers a prehistoric skeleton on a dig in Africa, a skeleton that returns to life as 'Victoria' and takes up residence with Molly in Yorkshire.
Origin of the Species questions the theory of evolution. What if there are things the Victorian scientists didn’t know about early man and woman? What if the historians missed the most important parts of the story? What if evolution has been one giant leap backwards for womankind?
The play was first produced in 1984 at the Birmingham Repertory Company Studio, following development with Monstrous Regiment, a feminist theatre company devising and producing plays from 1975 to 1993.
About Origin of the Species:
Contemporary feminist theatres: to each her own by Lizabeth Goodman
Thatcher's theatre: British theatre and drama in the eighties by D. Keith Peacock ( editors' note: This article gives an incorrect date of first production, but concise description of the play.)

Origin of the Species

An Enemy of the People

2008

Arcola Theatre staged Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, in an adaptation by Rebecca Lenkiewicz and directed by Mehmet Ergen. Greg Hicks played Dr Stockmann.
reviews:
Independent
Guardian

An Enemy of the People

The Living Unknown Soldier

2008

Editors' note: The subject matter of this play, by simple8 theatre company, is not environmental, but the production was among the first at Arcola Theatre, London, to attempt to be as carbon neutral as possible.
France, 1918. A soldier is found wandering a station platform. With no knowledge of his identity, or the country he has been defending, he is saved from death but exiled from life.
What follows is a war story, a ghost story, an absurd comedy and a chilling tragedy in which the ensemble rise from a no-man’s land of mud to imagine and remember the life of the living unknown soldier.
video here.
The Living Unknown Soldier is listed on both Arcola Theatre's and simple8 theatre company's pages.

The Living Unknown Soldier

One, Nineteen

2007

One Nineteen was produced by Net Curtains Theatre Company and Arcola Theatre.
Nineteenth of January: climate chaos brings floods and devastation to Britain’s East Coast. Thousands of people clamber onto their roofs to escape the rising water. What appears out of the helicopters are not dinghies but camera lenses.
A mother's desperate search for her children hits the headlines. Will the media sensation help her find her family? Or will it disguise a far more pressing agenda?
One, Nineteen shows the ravenous news culture and how we respond to environmental catastrophe.
One, Nineteen is written by The Archers writer Tim Stimpson, directed by A.C. Wilson and produced by Claire Farrington / Net Curtains Theatre Company.

One, Nineteen

Arcola Theatre
www.arcolatheatre.com
production@arcolatheatre.com
t: 020 7503 1645

27 Arcola Street
London
E8 2DJ
England

page top	page top
home \| timeline \| directory database \| features and interviews \| download ebook \| blog \| about
© the ashden trust 2024