| Stroud Arts Festival 2013 |
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YOUNG FILM MAKERS SHOWCASE 2013 If you are very quick, there may still be time to enter your movie. Please deliver your film to SVA as soon as possible and email info@stroudartsfestival.org to let us know its there for collection. The films will be screened on Wednesday 22nd. May 2013 at SVA, John Street, Stroud as part of the 2013 Site Festival. For more information and how to submit your film, go to the YOUNG FILM MAKERS SHOWCASE web page. You can view some of the films screened at the 2012 Showcase online at STROUD COMMUNITY TV website. Films exhibited in the 2013 Showcase will be included on the SCTV web site after the event. |
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| May 2013 |
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Stroud Art's Festival is again putting on a number of exciting events during the SITE Festival 2013 throughout May. |
We are delighted to bring back the wonderful OperaUpClose in their innovative new version of Donizetti's Elixir of Love. Another returning company is Abyss (although last year they were the Attention Seekers). Inventive playwright Peter Oswald brings his troupe of accomplished performers to the stage in Lansdown Hall in his darkly comic Lucifer Saved. And we have a new venue for some Spoken Word events – Black Book Café in Nelson St. www.blackbookcafe.com. |
STROUD WRITERS CAFE Wednesday May 1st, 6-9pm (7pm start) at Black Book Cafe, The Silver Rooms, Nelson Street, Stroud. Free. Kicking off the festival, a speakeasy for all writers in the area. On International Workers' Day let us share the solidarity of the word and raise a May-pole of radical grassroots poetry & song. Share your words, your ideas & ink-stained dreams. Whether published or unpublished, a newbie or an old hand, Stroud Writers' Republik needs you! Onwards! Cakes & hot drinks available. BYO. Stroud Writer's Cafe meets every 1st Wednesday of the month. |
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EARTHNIGHT Saturday May 4th, 7.30pm at Black Book Cafe, The Silver Rooms, Nelson Street, Stroud. Free. An "eco-evening" of music, poetry and storytelling on green themes, hosted by poet Peter Adams. With MC and Storyteller Anthony Nanson. |
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ALEXANDER THE GREAT. GOD OR DEMON? Story Telling by Jamila Gavin for children and adults.. Thursday May 9th. 7pm at Black Book Cafe, The Silver Rooms, Nelson Street, Stroud. Who was Alexander? Myth or man? God or devil? He claimed to be Zeus' son and even in his own lifetime wild legends sprang up about him. Above all, Alexander was a hero – brave, wily, handsome and inspiring. As she takes you on this extraordinary journey, Jamila Gavin skilfully interweaves accounts of Alexander's battle campaigns with legends from each newly conquered country. From Greece and Egypt to Persia and India, the stories of the great mythical heroes Achilles, Gilgamesh, and many others echo Alexander's own charmed life. About the Author Jamila Gavin was born in India, in the foothills of the Himalayas. She is one of Britain's most acclaimed children's authors, in 2000 winning the Whitbread Award for her novel Coram Boy, staged at the National Theatre in 2005/6. See Jamila's website at www.jamilagavin.co.uk |
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Donizetti's L'ELISIR D'AMORE - OperaUpClose Saturday May 11th 7:30pm @ The Cotswold Playhouse Olivier Award-winning OperaUpClose present Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love) in a new English version by Thomas Eccleshare Adina is the hottest star in Hollywood – and Nemorino adores her. When an ambitious army officer makes a very public proposal to Adina, Nemorino is in despair, until Dulcamara, the smooth-talking stylist, comes to his rescue with a remedy which he promises will win Adina once and for all. Donizetti's warm-hearted opera fizzes with wit, great tunes and a keen-eyed dissection of the way love can confound even the cleverest of us. Director Valentina Ceschi sets The Elixir of Love at a glamourous 1950s garden party at the height of Hollywood's Golden Age, with a new English libretto by Verity Bargate Award-winner Thomas Eccleshare. "OperaUpClose is leading an artistic revolution" SUNDAY TIMES. See more press reviews here. Find out more at OperaUpClose's web site |
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TALES OF THE TOTEM Family Stories and Food. Sunday May 12th 2-4pm at Star Anise Cafe, Gloucester Street, Stroud Come dressed like a chief, squaw or brave, grizzly bear or howling wolf and join in with the fun and games to unravel the secrets of the totem pole. Roll up your sleeves to make a delicious delicacy then wash it down with a breezy beverage, under the masterful culinary eye of Star Anise's chef de creativity Nick Allan. Be enchanted and entranced by cosmic myths of how the land and the light came to be, be-wildered and be-wondered by tricksy tales of wily coyotes and crafty crows. From the plains to the forest, the desert to the ice, listen to stories of the ancestors from the dawn of time. Tales of wit and wisdom spilling over with whimsical animals and brave warriors, tribal conflict and peace, thunderbirds and corn maidens and the Great Mystery. Ancient stories told and dramatized in a contemporary way with Michael Loader and Stuart Packer |
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NASRUDDIN - TALES OF THE HOLY FOOL Friday May 17th 7.30pm Black Book Cafe,
The Silver Rooms, Nelson Street, Stroud. For over 1,000 years from Turkey to Morocco, from Iran to Afghanistan, he has been known as Nasreddin, Nasr ud-Din, Nastradhin, as Efendi, Hodja and Mulla… the truth is that a fool can be wise. The Sufis use him to pass on their teachings, as a pure and simple fool whose foolishness gives us something to laugh at, and through the jokes and riddles we see his folly and become wise. Stories such as "Of any two options always choose the third" and "Fishy Morality" are told and retold endlessly in teahouses and caravanserais, in homes, on trains and buses, the radio and tv's, 'Morocco's Got Talent' because of their humour, timeless nature and wide appeal. The gift of the cosmic joker allows us to hear the profound in the profane and the profane in the sanctimonious. "If you want special illumination, look upon a human face: see deeply, within laughter, the essence of ultimate truth..." Rumi Listen to a belly full of playful, poignant, intimate and an interactive re-telling of tales and tit-bits of riddle and poetry (with a side order of music) from the dynamic duo of drollery (alias storytelling-teaching-fools) Michael Loader and Stu Packer |
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YOUNG FILM MAKERS SHOWCASE 2013 Wednesday 22nd. May 6:30pm at SVA, John Street, Stroud. This annual event showcases the talents of young filmmakers from the Stroud area. For more information go to the YOUNG FILM MAKERS SHOWCASE web page. You can view some of the films screened at the 2012 Showcase online at STROUD COMMUNITY TV website. Films exhibited in the 2013 Showcase will be included on the SCTV web site after the event. |
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HIGH-RISE EYES by Eley Furrell Friday May 24th Black Book Cafe, The Silver Rooms, Nelson Street, Stroud. Free Eley Furrell will be presenting a one-man poem of epic proportion, entitled 'High-Rise Eyes'. This event is a work-shop of a new piece and you, as audience, will be required to work at listening for inconsistencies, tedious repetitions, hesitations and deviations. It will be a light-hearted evening and as you will be expected to give feed-back it will be free to all. Do come along to witness the birthing of something potentially quite good. |
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The Abyss presents LUCIFER SAVED by Peter Oswald Friday May 31st 7.30 pm. at Lansdown Hall, Lansdown, Stroud On his country estate, Lord Brook is trapped in his own shadowy past, caring for his furious repressed daughter and the war-crippled ex-Chaplain of his regiment. To relieve himself of his mental agony, and the estranged lunatic fog of denial and depression, he invites a Circus to set up on his estate. With the arrival of the brightly coloured and lawless troop of performers, come revelations of the darkest possible nature. Full of extreme physical comedy and flights of poetic language. "Our most surprising and inventive playwright." Theatre Record. Peter Oswald was from 1998 to 2005 the resident writer of the Globe in London. THE ABYSS is a company of seven actors specially trained in performing 'modern verse drama'. More info at www.the-abyss.co.uk |
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ListenIn - the first Poetry Punch-Up presented by Eley Furrell Saturday June 1st at SVA, John Street, Stroud £5 Doors open 7.30pm This is Radio Three of the poetry world. You may have seen other slams, and great fun they are, but this is one for the poets. An evening of considered poetry, where tits, arses and the whole down-stairs mix-up are left at the door, leaving just six of the finest lyrical slam champions to knock about your ear-jobs words of delight. There may be blood, but only as metaphor. Come and vote for your round one champion. All this for a paltry fiver? That can't be right, surely!? |
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| Grants |
The Stroud Festival Board of Directors is distributing funds on behalf of the Margaret & Netlam Bigg Trust, a charity promoting the arts and culture in the Stroud District. The Directors are currently inviting applications for grants up to £500 from local groups and organisations. To find out more, visit the grants page. |