The Lowry new season Sept - Dec 08
The Australian Ballet and West Side Story light up a great new season at The Lowry
September – December 2008
From Calendar Girls and Le Grand Cirque to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet - The Lowry packs a dramatic punch for all tastes in its brilliantly varied Autumn/Winter season.
Following the success of Jimmy McGovern’s King Cotton in 2007, The Lowry finds drama on its own doorstep with Fireflies, a gripping tale of life on a Salford housing estate, written by Kevin Fegan and directed by Noreen Kershaw of hit Channel 4 series Shameless. International star Lorna Luft, Judy Garland’s daughter, stars as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz this Christmas. Youngsters will have the chance to create their own artwork in the Galleries as part of a new hands-on family exhibition, So You Want to be an Artist? The unconventional is embraced in the twilight world of a Nu-Burlesque weekend. It’s all part of another exciting new season….
The Australian Ballet, one of the world’s leading ballet companies, make their North West debut with Swan Lake. Leading choreographer Graeme Murphy’s transformation of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece has been thrilling audiences all over the world. Rambert return to their partner theatre with a powerful new programme including the world première of Eternal Light by Artistic Director Mark Baldwin.
The knives are out in dangerous vendettas as rival fractions clash to block the path of true love in West Side Story and the Shakespeare play that inspired it, Romeo and Juliet. West Side Story, with the brilliant music of Leonard Bernstein and unforgettable lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, has become one of the greatest musicals ever produced and the 50th anniversary version heading for The Lowry comes direct from London and sell-out successes in Paris, Tokyo and Bejing. Romeo and Juliet comes from the Royal Shakespeare Company with director Neil Bartlett and designer Kandis Cook, the driving force behind one of the Bard’s most loved plays.
The movie Calendar Girls became a British movie classic and now, adapted by Tim Firth, it’s hitting the boards in Salford with an all-star cast including Patricia Hodge, Gaynor Faye, Elaine C Smith, Brigit Forsyth, Lynda Bellingham, Julie Hills and Sian Phillips.
The masterful dramatic touch of Alan Bennett comes in Enjoy, a rarely performed dark comedy featuring TV favourites Alison Steadman and David Troughton.
The Lowry will be blowing up a storm for the kids with a blizzard finale in Slava’s Snowshow. Packed with wonder and comedy, it’s a breathtaking spectacle. Keeping up the pace of eye-popping entertainment is one of the most magical and spellbinding circus shows ever – Le Grand Cirque. A cast of 50 world-class artists will perform a heart pounding spectacle that has stunned and amazed more than 10 million people around the world.
The Lowry Galleries will snap into action celebrating the work of The Guardian newspaper’s photographers in A Long Exposure: 100 Years of Guardian Photography. Leading photographer Jem Southam also re-traces Lowry’s lesser-known footsteps along the Cumbrian coast.
Shows from the new brochure go on public sale via the box office (0870 787 5793) on Thu 3 July. Tickets can be purchased before this date by registering online with www.thelowry.com/mylowry
Posted on Friday, 27 June 2008 under Press Theatre Press