Manchester Project, Monkeywood Theatre
When: 12th – 27th January 2018
Where: HOME, 2 Tony Wilson Place, Manchester M15 4FN
£: Ticket prices vary, depending on the event. Discounts are available
What is it?
This year’s PUSH festival takes place from Friday 12th to Saturday 27th January at Manchester’s HOME, showcasing creative talent from the north west, with performances, screenings, exhibitions and workshops.
PUSH 2018 will launch on Friday with the opening of artist Jez Dolan’s Anders Als Die Andern, and a free performance by the Manchester International Roots Orchestra.
This year, PUSH will include the premieres of four new works commissioned by HOME. First up is The Manchester Project, a series of short plays celebrating the diversity of the areas and suburbs which make up the city of Manchester and the surrounding areas, presented by Monkeywood Theatre.
This will be followed by True Stories, a journey through the most unbelievable, hilarious, unsettling and captivating personal stories of five different artists, presented by Truth Be Told; Only Speak When Spoken To, tackling social and political themes using the human body as a story-telling device, presented by Meraki Collective; and See Me After, an explosion of dance, spoken word, and sound devised by a collection of young artists and performers drawn from across the city, presented by Yandass Ndlovu and Anna Berentzen.
20 Minutes of Action, Nwando Ebizier
Other festival highlights will include Propel, a day of scratch performances in a specially built Pop-up Studio Space in HOME’s Theatre 1 space; and Playbox, a day of readings and conversations presented by the award-winning Box of Tricks Theatre Company.
There’ll be two shows by YESYESNONO, the Edinburgh Festival Total Theatre Award winner 5 Encounters on a Site Called Craigslist, about how people interact with each other in today’s technologised world, and [Insert Slogan Here], a show about fictions we tell ourselves and others.
A screening of new documentary film The Acting Class, about the lack of working class representation on stage and screen will feature contributions from Christopher Eccleston, Julie Hesmondhalgh, and Maxine Peake. A rehearsed reading of Pan Lid, Manchester playwright David Judge’s new play about carers and caring, will be presented by Talawa Theatre Company; and 20 Minutes of Action, a visceral performance-installation asking what ’20 Minutes of Action’ means when experienced by a survivor of trauma, will be presented by Nwando Ebizie.
The festival also offers workshops and discussions for creative professionals, including two workshop weekenders run in partnership with Random Acts North. The events programme provides ideal networking opportunities for everyone – artists, performers, marketers, producers, technicians – involved in the arts in the north west.
More info: homemcr.org/event/push-2018