NUMBER 9.................. Reviewing The Arts UK-wide: NEWS: Where fine art and theatre combine: New Perspectives present Christmas Cards Restaged.

Monday 9 November 2020

NEWS: Where fine art and theatre combine: New Perspectives present Christmas Cards Restaged.

New Perspectives presents:

CHRISTMAS CARDS RESTAGED

Six limited edition artworks reimagining the traditional Christmas card for a theatre audience

“tender vignettes… it feels private, secret, special” The Guardian (on Love from Cleethorpes)

In collaboration with six renowned UK theatre makers, New Perspectives are producing six limited edition Christmas cards, each reimagining traditional yuletide messages. The artists have each designed the front and inside of a card to create a handheld piece of artwork which can be kept as a curio or given as a gift. The cards can be bought singly, as a pack of three or a pack of six.

The artists creating the cards are:

1927 Founded in 2005 by Director, Writer & Performer Suzanne Andrade and Animator & Illustrator Paul Barritt. This multi-award winning company, based in Margate & London, specialises in combining performance and live music with animation to create magical filmic performance.
Tim Etchells is an artist and writer based in Sheffield and London. He is artistic director of Forced Entertainment, an experimental performance company founded in 1984; his work shifts between performance, visual art and writing.
Eve Leigh is a playwright, theatre-maker and dramaturg. She was the Royal Court Jerwood playwright 2019, and the first ever artist-in-residence at the Experimental Stage of the National Theatre of Greece 2017.
Selina Thompson is artist and performer based in Birmingham. Her work is playful, participatory and intimate, focusing on the politics of identity and how this defines our bodies, lives and environments.
Jane Upton is a Nottingham writer whose plays include All The Little Lights, which was nominated for Best Play at the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Awards 2017, and saw Jane joint winner of the George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright.
Jatinder Verma MBE is a British theatre director pioneer and activist, who in 1977 co-founded the Asian theatre company Tara Arts, leading it as Artistic Director for 42 years. In 2019, he founded JVP with designer Claudia Mayer.

Artistic Director Jack McNamara said “At the end of an eventful but also strangely eventless year, we felt that people really needed a gift this Christmas. Something they could hold, share and spend proper time with. And so we asked six truly adventurous theatre makers to reinvent the age old Christmas Card, and turn it into a novel dramatic experience for audiences across the country. We are so thrilled and inspired to be able to share these six brand new pieces with people throughout the winter season. Each of these artists are utterly unique and know exactly how to make work against all expectations and all odds. This is our version of a 'Christmas show', full of intimacy, invention and surprise.”

New Perspectives have also announced another opportunity to experience Stay Safe, the spine-chilling drama via WhatsApp and a Christmas extension of their postcard drama Love From Cleethorpes, a drama told through a series of postcards, both as a result of popular demand. Love From Cleethorpes has recently been ‘toured’ to 25 countries worldwide. These projects are the latest from the company’s innovation in playing with form, which also include their live Zoom of Lars von Trier’s office comedy The Boss of It All with Josie Lawrence, and a 10-part podcast series PlacePrints by David Rudkin.

New Perspectives is an East Midlands based company with over 40 years experience of touring high-quality productions to venues of all sizes across the UK, from mid-scale theatres to village halls. With a strong rural core, they create productions to fit spaces of any size in order to bring new work that is unexpected and thought-provoking to a wide range of audiences. Since 2012, New Perspectives has been led by Artistic Director Jack McNamara whose productions include The Boss of It All by Lars von Trier (Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh and Soho Theatre), The Lovesong of Alfred J Hitchcock by David Rudkin (Brits off Broadway, New York and UK tour), Darkness, Darkness (Nottingham Playhouse co-production) and the Stage Award winning The Fishermen by Gbolohan Obisesan (Trafalgar Studios, Assembly George Square Studios and UK Tour). Their podcast series PlacePrints is currently available, and their postcard drama Love From Cleethorpes is available again at Christmas.

Limited Edition Christmas Cards

Commissioned by New Perspectives

Cards by 1927, Tim Etchells, Eve Leigh, Selina Thompson, Jane Upton and Jatinda Verma

1 card addressed and mailed to recipient: £4.50

Pack of 3 cards mailed to one UK address: £12.50

Collection 1: Tim Etchells, Selina Thompson Jatinder Verma

Collection 2: Eve Leigh, Jane Upton, 1927

Pack of the 6 cards mailed to one UK address: £24

Plus:

£3.00: Donate a card and New Perspectives will send to an emerging artist or someone who might feel isolated this Christmas

Bookings until 29 November (card packs), 13 December for single cards

#NPXmas