Festival which connects border-busting theatre to citizens of everywhere, returns on grand scale across nine London venues!
After 10 years hosted at The Cockpit theatre in Marylebone, Voila! Theatre Festival is delighted to announce its return and relaunch on a far wider scale.
From 4th – 24th November the festival will be reborn as a new multi-venue, panlingual festival reflecting a wide breadth of cultures, stories, and aesthetics, with challenge and change in the spotlight. Throughout its programme, Voila! Theatre Festival continues its welcoming grassroots ethos for both artists and audiences, even as it grows in scope and ambition.
Host venues will encompass Applecart Arts, Barons Court Theatre, Camden People’s Theatre, The Playground Theatre, The Questors Theatre, The Space Theatre, Theatre Deli, Upstairs at the Gatehouse and of course The Cockpit, with the aim of providing a launchpad for early career artists working in theatre, platforming their work right across the capital.
With a focus on programming in as many languages as possible, Voila will see three weeks of performances, scratch nights, live streams, workshops and events which will encompass a huge range of performances from all over the world. The programme is panlingual, multidisciplinary and fully committed to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI).To encourage as broad an audience as possible, the works encompass 35 languages present within the performances at the festival, with half the works being performed in both English and at least one other language.
A small selection of the vast array of work on offer includes:
THE COCKPIT: Thekla Gaiti’s Postdramatic (Thessaloniki Fringe Exchange Award winner) about an urban swimmer and a woman looking for her identity in a fragmented, absurd and ridiculous world. And Stampin in the Graveyard where we meet Rose - an AI chatbot that gives advice for the end of the world, powered by the memories of people whose worlds have already ended.
THE PLAYGROUND THEATRE: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man - tells the story of a man who plans to end his life, but instead falls asleep and dreams of a utopian Earth, deciding thereafter to preach his dream to the world.
BARON’S COURT THEATRE: Hide - a play about a pregnant woman who fantasises about the future life of her unborn daughter, knowing that one thing is certain: that future will be far from unproblematic.
CAMDEN PEOPLE’S THEATRE: The World of Yesterday - an experimental cabaret, exploring the life of Stefan Zwelg as an Austrian Jewish writer, living through Europe's descent into two World Wars.
UPSTAIRS AT THE GATEHOUSE: Everybody Has to Be Somewhere - A unique live intermedia performance where time-travelling performers reshape their existence on stage.
Amy Clare Tasker co-Director of the Voila! Theatre Festival says “We are delighted to present this new levelled-up Voila! Theatre Festival. Our aim for Voila! is to connect outposts, hubs, individuals, vanguards and burgeoning theatrical energy - wherever it's happening, whoever is making it happen, and whatever language it's using.”
Listings
Voila! Theatre Festival: 4th – 24th November