alternativeTheatre
the home of inamoment theatre
theatre with a beat!
Theatre ¦ Shakespeare
UNDOING ¦ UNLEARNING ¦ UNBEING
COLLABORATIONS
Our Collaborative work is about . . . discovering what makes us tick as people and artists.
understanding how we can best take part in the Global community we live in
getting insights and knowledge about today through exploring the past
creating Theatre that is about developing a community and the people in it
exploring how mental & emotional health issues affect each one of us
working with Schools and Colleges to educate students
delivering workshops to understand and create devised Theatre.
Understanding how we can best take part in
the enormous Global community we live in.
Actors Being Collaborative
This is our new and exciting way forward for participatory Theatre.
It is our belief the current system of approaching Fringe Theatre
has long needed an alternative approach such as this.
Non-Shakespeare Projects
The Other Side
St.Paul's Church, April 2017
Birmingham & Midland Institute, May 2017
if only the dead could speak . . .
What if, despite everything, there was an Afterlife . . .What if, somehow, the
Dead could speak . . . What on earth would they say to us ... ?
Orpheus in Blue
St.Paul's Church, July 2016.
The classic Greek legend, retold for the 21st Century; a tale that speaks directly to us of the time we live in, asking ourselves what are we prepared to lose, and ultimately, what is it that we are all so desperate to regain. At any cost.
Sometimes, old Myths become today’s Myths . . . and that’s when they explode. A spell-binding journey through the underworld of Music, told through the eyes of a modern day Orpheus and his Eurydice.
The Nativity 2015
St.Paul's Church, Jewellery Quarter, December 2015
A re-telling of the Nativity, based on the Mystery Plays of the 15th Century, that incorporates the contemporary stories of a Jewellery Quarter Big Issue seller and the regulars of a Pub in Great Hampton Street, Birmingham. This hard-hitting piece of social drama was performed by a company of 11, half of which had links with the Jewellery Quarter. The cast were a mixture of first-time, amateur, and professional actors.
Parklife - the play
Old Joint Stock Theatre, July 2013
One fine morning, in the centre of Birmingham. Everywhere’s people, milling about, getting about their business, enjoying the sun, totally switched off, chilled. Or maybe not.
"Five Strangers make a drama"
by Ben Macnair for remotegoat
'Inamoment' theatre has produced a number of acclaimed and ground-breaking shows over the past few years. In 'Parklife' we meet four strangers, who tell us something about their lives, their hopes for the future, and their current frustrations. A Big Issue seller links the stories, with a few of his own tales. In Pigeon Park, under the shadows of Birmingham Cathedral all of these tales unfold.
In all these five monologues contained a lot of dramas in small lives, at the ending and beginning of something new. Told in real time, throughout an action packed theatre, and devised by the actors themselves, with help from Frank Bramwell, this was a fine show, that packed some laughs, and a lot of pathos, into its far too short running time.
You can identify with the five characters in different moments of the play. And it certainly is the kind of story that goes through the minds of many who seek a few minutes of quiet on the lawn of St Phillips Cathedral at lunchtime.
It's a lively performance by a small theatre company.
Kicking Off
Old Joint Stock Theatre, November 2012.
it's now and it's here - what happened in Birmingham in 2011. A look at how the Riots affected each and everyone of us, in some shape or form - and what might happen if they were to happen again.
Shakespeare Projects
In a sense, all our alternativeShakespeare projects are writing collaborations, for further details please click here.
Detailed below are the Shakespeare projects that have also resulted from collaborations with Actors and Writers.
Romeo & Juliet: The Confessions
Birmingham Fest, July 2021.
Buxton Fringe Festival, July 2021
*** Winner of the Birmingham Fest Best Adaptation Award for 2021 ***
Ever fundamentally wondered why, considered what might also have happened, or thought . . . what really did take place in Verona?
This is the story of Romeo & Juliet, the play written by William Shakespeare - but not as told by him.
These are the confessions of The Friar, The Nurse, & Juliet Capulet
- as told by themselves.
Their stories, after 400 years, can now be finally told.
2021 Birmingham Fest
"Vicky Holding’s Juliet, adorned in her post-mortem, lavish, cream-silken wedding gown, addresses her post-suicide, bier-laid, black-laced corpse. Six candles flicker beside her. Holding’s Juliet addresses her black-laced, candle-lit corpse with furious disbelief and articulacy way beyond her years – but that’s playwright, Frank Bramwell’s, teenage rage, pre-Social Media Shakespeare inimitable style."
"Bramwell's reimagined characters Shakespeare, rattle and stroll through a Scrabble-fest of re-purposed quotations and contemporaneous-imagined prose."
"Alex Nikitas’ character keeps us guessing as to whether his equivocating, rehearsed submissions to the prince are weasel-word faux blame-shifting or truly meant."
"And as for Nurse (Gerry Johnson) no self-denial sophistry here. Her near manic monologues find ambiguous solace lullaby-lamenting a rag-doll substitute for her long-dead baby, Susan. Johnson not so much tugs at the heartstrings as knits them up in barbed-wire despair."
"Director, Marcus Fernando leaves an indelible touch on this production doing what the best of directors do – not getting in the way of what is so good to begin with."
"This production screams for a Fringe run. It would certainly kick kilt in Edinburgh."
"Bramwell, ingeniously well versed and prose-soaked in both source text and wider references, plays fast and louche with his wordplay."
WIP-Collaborative Chorus Theatre
2021-A Year In Our Lives
Our document of how we went through 2021, individually and collectively, to capture what was going on in that eventful year.
WIP-Collaborative Shakespeare Projects
Juliet Capulet (alone)
Mercutio, Juliet & Tybalt
Horatio & Hamlet
Mad Tom
Lady Macbeth
The Untaming of the Shrew