Upstairs at The Western Autumn 2014 Launch

With my favourite intimate theatre space closed for the summer I was excited to be invited to Upstairs at The Western for the launch of their Autumn 2014 season and the unveiling of the refurb of the theatre itself.
During the recent heat wave the Western elves have been busy putting in raked seating, lowering the stage and resiting the stage lights to enable improved lighting design.
This is all in preparation for the new season of original plays, visiting performances and a host of community artistic projects and workshops.
Off The Fence's very successful in house productions of England Expects and Clamber Up The Crucifix, both created to commemorate the start of World War One a hundred years ago, are back prior to extensive UK tours.
Alongside tried and trusted genres Upstairs is mixing in some new ideas. Leicester Rugby legend George Chuter is doing a Q&A session with anecdotes from his illustrious career on 16th Sept. Dan Nicholas' hugely popular Conversation Garden returns from this year's Edinburgh fringe for a final round of chaos on 31 October and Blanchard's Balloon capitalises on the success of last seasons puppetry workshops for the young with performances aimed at the 8-15's and the over 16's on 15 November
There are also the regularly popular poetry evenings, open mike nights and writing workshops encouraging both amateurs and semi-professionals to have a go and entertaining an audience
Inbetween all that there are a myriad of visiting companies covering a wide range of subjects from Alzheimers (from Robert Gee on 2 October) to Stockholm Syndrome (Inside on 25 October) to homelessness (Bag Lady 23/24 October) and many more
All listings can be found on the Western website

First published in Western Gazette 
© Paul Towers 21/8/2014