Our Vision Statement

alternativeTheatre exists to help people enrich their own lives

through the self-understanding coming out of our

alternative Theatre ¦ Shakespeare ¦ Literature work.

Our alternativeTheatre work . . .

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What is BeingAlternative all about?

For the full answer, please click here to download our one-pager.

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So what makes alternativeTheatre alternative?

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We choose to do what we feel we want to do,

not what we are required to do.

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We look to explore new ways of creating Theatre in everything we do:

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alternativeShakespeare - a body of work dedicated to making his legacy a living legacy

Stripped Back Theatre - the focus is on the actors and the words, not the scenery etc.

Workshop Theatre - all our work is new, starting/ending its life in workshops. 

Collaboration - everything we do comes out of devised working with others

Brum Beats - creating work that draws on and reflects our home town

Old 'n' New - turning the power of Classics into new, today-pieces

Intercutting Monologues - the power of individual voices as one

Chorus Theatre - dispensing with traditional characters and plot

Digitalisation - Taking OUR Theatre out of THE Theatre
 

in a moment, Frank Bramwell
About Us

AlternativeTheatre, as inamoment theatre, started up in 2003. Professionally produced,

to date, our Theatre has been seen in Birmingham, London, Edinburgh, Manchester,

Bath, Oldham, Bristol, and Buxton.

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In that time we have won a number of awards/nominations, including

Best New Writing, Best Play, Best Adaptation etc.

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In 2021 we became part of TheAlternativeSpace. TAS will launch our podcast series,

as well as publishing our work in the form of books, audiobooks, audio plays,

videos, downloads, blogs, etc.

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To check out TheAlternativeSpace website please click here.

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alternativeTheatre . . . is about presenting Theatre, in a way that touches people. It's also about actors and

audience, together discovering what makes us tick, and hopefully feel good:

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"Good Theatre, we believe, can only be delivered if we first listen, and listen very hard at that,

to the beat that is inherent in the writing; for it is this pulse that drives the rest of the work

- acting, direction, design, music, scenery, in fact, everything we do. It is the energy

that flows from this that the audience should feel, for touching the

hearts and minds of the audience is what it's all about."

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All our work to date starts with Theatre plays, and so

Theatre is very much the engine room for us.

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For more details, please click here.

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Underpinning all our work is our love of the work of William Shakespeare.

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Much of our work comes out of what we have learned through studying his plays and then

putting them into alternative contexts and new writing; this results in a startling

rejuvenation of his words, characters, and themes, and therefore helps us to

better understand ourselves in today's world.

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This work has continued to inform our own original works, and it has been

exciting to watch this process of growth continue down the centuries.

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It’s not been easy trying to get inside the mind of this most incredible genius of words,

yet the journey we started over 20 years ago has been exhilarating, to say the least. 

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Whilst there are many companies throughout the world regularly presenting

Shakespeare’s plays in unique ways, the approach we have taken revolves

around providing answers to this contention:

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Taking as a given truth Richard Eyre’s statement that Shakespeare gave us the

DNA of our Theatre, how then can it best be passed down the line to:

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a) give new and sustainable life to his own work.

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b) create fresh work inspired, influenced by, or

flows out from the tradition Shakespeare worked in. 

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c) help us better understand the issues and opportunities

that we have to engage with in today's world.

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This is what we set out to do, and since then we have written and performed 6 sequels to

Shakespeare's original plays and 6 plays that take us into the creativity of Shakespeare.

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We believe our approach of staying faithful to the original works, whilst putting them

in a very different setting, results in a startling rejuvenation of the text,

giving them a whole new life and meaning; reaction from the audience, 

our members, and the press give evidence to this.

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For a selection of Reviews and Audience Feedback quotes from

all our alternativeShakespeare productions, please click here.

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