Global star Sting will be back on Tyneside in April to help Live Theatre celebrate its 50-year anniversary and fans can join him to hear talk about his life, career and musical inspirations as well as watch him perform some of his songs.
The musician will be appearing at the Quayside theatre for a one-off event on April 20 during a celebrity-studded month which will also see Jimmy Nail, Nadine Shah and Stewart Lee take part in a series of fund-raising events to help support Live's work with emerging talents, children and young people which has formed such a big part of its life over the past half-century.
This programme of Live Encounters, helping to mark the theatre's milestone year, will get under way on March 14 with director Ken Loach who recently shot his third film in the North East. The award-winning director will be in conversation with North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll about work and politics.
Read more: North East theatre shows to see this March
Wallsend-born Sting, who has won 17 Grammy Awards, will be chatting to the theatre's artistic director Jack McNamara who, on Tuesday evening, announced the event as part of Live's 50th Birthday Season where he was accompanied by some of the upcoming stars of the shows, including South Tyneside signer-songwriter Nadine Shah who herself will be taking part in a rare question-and-answer session about her own music and influences.
While April will be more about nostalgia, with plans for the month including readings of - and fresh takes on - work which has been pivotal to Live Theatre over the years, the rest of 2023 will be devoted to building upon its successes and its reputation as a new writing theatre. And on Thursday, March 9, Live will be launching two playwriting awards, including one for 16 to 25-year-olds and offering an opportunity for new writers to have a full production staged at the theatre.
"I want our 50th to be forward-looking," said Jack. "I didn't want it to be a nostalgia-fest or be introspective. We are putting time and investment into new talent and people we have not worked with before." But he was keen to pay tribute to those who began the journey which has seen Live Theatre make a name for itself both nationally and internationally.
He said he spoke recently to Val McLane, the actress, writer and teacher who co-founded the theatre which opened in January 1973 and had laughingly recalled its first production that March as being "a total disaster!", adding: "It went really badly - the audiences hated it and the actors hated it."
Jack said: "I thought it was a fantastic story! It strikes me as a very human and real way of walking that line between success and catastrophe. And that's just how making theatre is."
Having realised a dream, then seen a failure, those pioneers got up and did it all again - and that says everything "about why we're still here 50 years later", said Jack, adding that the birthday season is "dedicated to that first show that died for our sins".
The season has already kicked off, with Rob Ward's nineties-set football and politics drama Love It If We Beat Them, a Live Theatre production - running until March 25 - which initially took shape during its annual Elevator Festival of new work, which will return in the summer. "That's what we are here to do," points out Jack.
The theatre is renowned for its in-house productions and nurturing of local talent but also welcomes visiting productions and, following the pandemic and Arts Council funding challenges which the industry has faced, he is keen to extend support and theatre space to those less lucky than Live, which had its own funding renewed.
"All arts organisations have had so many different challenges which have conspired to to throw them off course," he said. Locally, Laurels theatre in Whitley Bay and Gateshead-based The Lawnmowers Independent Theatre Co. will be given a share of the spotlight.
For April's "nostalgia" month, which will see Jimmy Nail "talk about his creative journey and break into song" on April 12, a decision was made to steer away from the obvious choice of revisiting The Pitmen Painters - Lee Hall's play which had its debut at Live and has taken on a life of its own - and to instead, for instance, mark the anniversary of the death of Julia Darling; present a digital update on Tom Hadaway's well-known play The Filleting Machine and re-stage Paddy Campbell's play Wet House - which won an audience vote - with its original cast.
Comedian Stewart Lee will be in conversation at Live on April 15 and Nadine Shah, who is currently recording a new album, will be talking there on April 6 about a play she is writing, To Be A Young Man, which will pay tribute to a friend who took his own life ahead of her first album Love Your Dum and Mad. At the season launch, she told how there are similarities with writing music and she said of the process of creating her first play: "It's going to be great.
"I love to tell stories. I'll be taking these characters that exist in these songs, building a world for them and making a beautiful tribute."
Highlights later in the year will include family saga The Cold Buffet, inspired by writer Elijah Young's memories of the inevitable cold spread at the heart of get-togethers with relatives; Wintry Tales created by author Lisette Auton's working with children, and Three Acts of Love by three female playwrights whose answers to the question 'what is love' will "go off in all kinds of unexpected ways", says Jack. All the shows and events are on sale now. For the full programme for the year and to book tickets, see here.
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