NEWS RELEASE
UK’S LARGEST SWING DANCE COMMUNITY SWING PATROL PARTNERS WITH TEDDY AT SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE
SNAPDRAGON PRODUCTIONS AND THEATRE BENCH PRESENTS THE WORLD PREMIERE OF
TEDDY
By Tristan Bernays
Music by Dougal Irvine
4 June – 27 June 2015
Press night: 8 June at 7.30pm
Director: Eleanor Rhode; Musical Director: Harrison White;
Choreographer: Tom Jackson Greaves;Set Designer: Max Dorey
Costume Designer: Holly Rose Henshaw; Lighting Designer: Christopher Nairne
Sound Designer: Max Pappenheim; Producers: Sarah Loader and Jim Zalles
Swing Patrol, the UK’s largest swing dance community is teaming up with Snapdragon Productions and Theatre Bench to hold dance classes before the 11 and 15 June performances of Teddy at Southwark Playhouse. Swing Patrol’s professional teachers, including Scott Cupit, Dance Today magazine’s Teacher of the Year 2015, will join forces with Teddy choreographer Tom Jackson Greaves to produce a Teddy Boy Swing Dance experience, recreating the style of the 1950s dance featured in the production.
Swing Patrol is a community of thousands of dancers and holds a year-round programme of swing events, dance workshops and 37 weekly regular classes all over London from Camden to Camberwell. Swing Patrol’s Director Scott Cupit was assistant Charleston choreographer to Jenny Thomas for the 2014 season of Strictly Come Dancing. Scott Cupit said “The partnership with Teddy is the latest in a string of projects we have worked on with other companies. Providing swing dance lessons before theatre goers sit down to experience Teddy will inspire more people to experience the style, energy and fun of swing dancing.”
Tom Jackson Greaves commented “I’m thrilled to be creating the World Premiere of Teddy with Snapdragon, and bringing Dougal Irvine’s music to life! I’m also delighted to be collaborating with Swing Patrol and their superb teachers on the pre-show dance classes. We’ll be bringing my original choreography inspired by the rhythms and raw energy of Teddy Boy culture together with the style, energy and fun that Swing Patrol are known for.” Teddy is written by Tristan Bernays with music by Dougal Irvine and directed by Snapdragon’s Eleanor Rhode. The production opens on 8 June, with previews from 4 June and runs until 27 June.
Swing Patrol will hold a pre-show 45-minute beginner-friendly swing dance class with some steps inspired by the 1950s rock and roll era. The classes will take place at 6.30pm on 11 and 15 June at Southwark Playhouse. There are a limited number of tickets for the classes which can be purchased for £6 as an add-on to tickets for Teddy by visiting www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk.
TEDDY
Elephant and Castle. 1956. Saturday night.
Teddy and Josie are about to hit the streets of London for a good time. It’s pissing it down, they’re totally skint, and someone wants them dead — but a little trouble never stopped a Ted from having a good time. Desperate times call for rock ‘n’ roll.
Teddy is a punchy, lyrical ride though the dark and damaged world of 1950s London. Featuring a blistering live performance from Johnny Valentine and The Broken Hearts and an electrifying original score by Dougal Irvine.
Expect sex, violence and damn good hair.
Tristan Bernays is a writer and performer. As a writer, his work includes Iron(Orange Tree Theatre), Iron Oxide(Southwark Playhouse as part of Theatre Renegade’s Courting Drama), The Bread & The Beer(Soho Theatre and UK Tour), Old Fools(Bush Theatre as part of Theatre Renegade’s Courting Drama), Coffin (Kings Head Theatre), Arden 2.0 as part of Old Vic New Voices’ Arden Project (Warner Brothers Theatre) and Aftershocks (National Theatre Studio).
Dougal Irvine is an award winning composer, lyricist and writer. He trained in playwriting at Royal Court. Credits as a bookwriter/lyricist/composer include Departure Lounge, In Touch, The Other School, Angry Birds and The Busker’s Opera. As a lyricist his credits include Britain’s Got Bhangra (The Off West End Award for Best New Musical), Laila and The Lighthouse. As a composer, his work includes The Snow Queen (Nuffield Theatre/Royal and Derngate), The Bacchae, Blood Wedding (Royal and Derngate during the Cameron Mackintosh/Mercury Musicals Resident Composer Scheme), The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Comedy of Errors (Changeling Theatre) and Captured by the Dark (StopGap Theatre).
Eleanor Rhode directs. Her recent theatre work includes Toast, The Dead Wait and Thark (Park Theatre), Generous, the London première of The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey and the first London revival in over 30 years of A Life by Hugh Leonard (all Finborough Theatre). Other directing includes The Gypsy Thread (National Theatre Studio), Can I Be Straight With You? (Bush Theatre), The Error of Their Ways (Cockpit Theatre), A Number (Camden People’s Theatre), This Lime Tree Bower (Edinburgh Festival) and staged readings of The Session (Pushkin House), The Promised Land (Tristan Bates), The Geese of Beverly Road (Theatre 503), Photos of You Sleeping (Hampstead Theatre) and The December Man (L’homme de décembre), Sihanoukville and Barrow Hill (Finborough Theatre). She is currently working on a new musical for Centerstage Theatre Seattle.
Tom Jackson Greaves is choreographer. His choreographic credits include Defect (Arts Ed), Gimme Love (The MTA at the Bridewell), Harvest Fire (YMT The Lemon Tree Aberdeen), Buds (Arts Ed), Cherry Jubilee (Dance Academy Russia), Shadowthief (Barnsley Civic), Kerry Ellis at the Palladium (London Palladium), LIFT (Soho Theatre), The Seventh Muse (YMT Barbican Plymouth) and music videos for Boy George and Clare Maguire. Tom also creates his own dance-theatre work: Seven Deadly Sins (UK Tour) and Vanity Fowl (Sadlers Wells). Tom was a winner of the New Adventures Choreographer Award in 2012. Tom has also worked extensively as a performer touring regularly with Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures including Cinderella, Nutcracker!, Early Adventures and most recently the principal role of Carabosse/Caradoc in the worldwide tour of Sleeping Beauty. Other highlights include; Tristan And Yseult (Kneehigh Theatre) Kes (Sheffield Crucible), Dirty Dancing (Future Cinema), And Then You Were Gone (Cameron McMillan Dance) and Slaughter (The Mconie Company for The Place Prize).
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SNAPDRAGON PRODUCTIONS LTD
Snapdragon Productions was founded in 2009 by Producer Sarah Loader and Artistic Director Eleanor Rhode, to bring neglected and unknown works to new audiences.
In August 2013, Snapdragon began their collaboration with Park Theatre, and have since presented three plays in their 200-seat space. Their first was a multi-award nominated revival of Thark by Ben Travers (August 2013) in a new adaptation by actor / writer Clive Francis. In December 2013 they presented the London première of The Dead Wait by Paul Herzberg; and in 2014 a revival of Richard Bean’s debut play Toast, which broke box office records and earned Snapdragon a nomination for ‘Best Producer’ in the 2015 Off West End Awards.
As Associate Producers, Snapdragon recently worked with Nicola Seed on her revival of Accolade by Emlyn Williams, which played at the St. James’ Theatre from November 2014.
Snapdragon’s previous productions include the revival of A Life by Hugh Leonard, London première of Michael Healey’s The Drawer Boy, world première of Barrow Hill by Jane Wainwright, European première of Michael Healey’s Generous (Finborough Theatre) which enjoyed two sell-out runs, the award-winning European première of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Me and Juliet (all at the Finborough Theatre) and Anna Karenina (Arcola Theatre).
Snapdragon co-produced the world premiere of Anders Lustgarten’s A Day at the Racists (Finborough Theatre and the Broadway Theatre, Barking) which was nominated for the 2010 TMA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Regional Theatre and won the playwright the Inaugural Harold Pinter Award for Playwriting.
THEATRE BENCH
Jim Zalles launched Theatre Bench in October 2012 to support the development of new works in theatre and dance. In partnership with Perfect Pitch Musicals and Ros Povey Productions Jim produced the world première of Craig Adams & Ian Watson’s LIFT at Soho Theatre in February 2013. Theatre Bench also produced the one-man-show Our Friends The Enemy at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, along with several standalone cabarets at the St James Studio Theatre. In 2014, Theatre Bench has produced the critically-acclaimed Carthage and Thérèse Raquin at the Finborough Theatre and co-produced Drunk at the Bridewell Theatre with the McOnie Company.
Theatre Bench are proud to be producing the world première of These Trees are Made of Blood at Southwark Playhouse in Spring 2015, a political cabaret about the Dirty War in 1970s Argentina. They launched the album Rush of Life by Julie Atherton, featuring new songs written for her by Dougal Irvine, Benedict, George Maguire, Craig Adams and Lance Horne.
Listings
Teddy
Southwark Playhouse
77-85 Newington Causeway, London, SE1 6BD
Box Office: 020 7407 0234
www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
Monday – Saturday at 7.30pm
Sat Matinees at 3.00pm
Swing Patrol classes taking place at 6.30pm on 11 and 15 June
Prices
Full £18 (with Swing Patrol class £24)
Concessions £16 (with Swing Patrol class £22)
Previews £10
Useful Links:
For further information on the production, please contact: Kate Morley
07970 465 648 / [email protected]
For information about Swing Patrol, please contact
[email protected]
(0) 20 3287 9030
