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We are looking for people to participate in a workshop on queer immigrant narratives based on performance art and the intersection of different artistic mediums.

Do you consider yourself part of a queer immigrant community?

Interested in finding collaborators and potentially devising a new international work or series of works?

Join our safe space for sharing, discussing, and creating with artist Vera Boitcova.

 

This workshop is part of the Future Laboratory programme and is hosted by Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch.

Vera Boitcova is a performance artist, theatre director, playwright, political activist (LGBT+ and women’s rights), and a long-time nomad (lived and worked in the US, the UK, China, Finland), currently based in Germany. Coordinator at Eve’s Ribs feminist art organization + Curator/organizer of the annual Eve’s Ribs Festival (Russia) en.rebraevy.ru Curator/organizer of QueerFest (Russia) queerfest.ru/en Curator of Fairytales for Girls project (web-archive and a series of published books of fairytales focusing on female characters) femitales.pro Creator/curator of Tales of Transformation project (performative and web-archive focusing on transforming traumatic experiences into fairytales) tales-of-transformation.weebly.com/

 

When and where:

Preliminary informal discussion with artist 24-29 Oct (optional)
There are two in-person Workshops:
31 Oct – 18:00 – 20:00 – Romford, venue TBC
2 Nov – 18:00 – 20:00 – Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch

Please email Vera Boitcova if you are interested in attending or want to know more information. vera.boitcova@uniarts.f

 

 

Following its incredible run at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, this show will be touring FOUR community venues throughout Havering. Tickets are available at the unbelievable price of just £10. The price includes both the show and a 3-course meal! You can book your tickets through the links at the bottom of the page.

 

About Rice & Peas

This is the first major production from Blouse & Skirt and is inspired by Artistic Director, Mia’s, family history. Through each delicious West Indian course, you’ll be transported back to discover the heartache and courage it took so many to start a new life in Great Britain.

Grenada, 1948.

Couple Figgy and Edith enjoy a meal the evening before Figgy boards The Empire Windrush – both blissfully unaware they will not see each other for 2 years.

But, when Edith arrives in London 2 years later, she carries a secret that threatens to tear apart their dreams of the Motherland…

 

About the Menu

Executive Chef, Jon Bentham – former Head Chef to Gary Rhodes, designed this delicious vegetarian menu. A vegan option is available on request.

 

Amuse Bouche

Callaloo Soup

[Vegan] – Mustard

 

Appetiser

Green Fig & Oil-Cornmeal Biscuit

Soused Green Fig Salad

[Vegan] – Coconut oil, carrots, onion, cucumber, lime, scotch bonnet, celery, and tomatoes

 

Main Course

Oil Down – Rice and Peas

[Vegan] – Celery, Gluten, Soya, Mustard

Mac and Cheese

[Vegetarian] – Dairy, Gluten, Mustard

 

Dessert
Grenada Spice Cake – Bitter Chocolate Mousse – Vanilla Seed Ice Cream

[Vegetarian] – Dairy, Eggs, Soya

Grenada Spice Cake – Chocolate Mango Mousse – Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream

[Vegan] – Soya

 

Please note: The menu is subject to change. Unfortunately, we cannot cater to certain allergens so please check the menu for allergen information. There are no alternative menu options available. Please note that we cannot guarantee a nut-free environment.

 

Performance times & dates

 

Harold Hill

Chippenham Road Children’s Centre, The Arcade, 85-89 Chippenham Rd, Harold Hill, RM3 8HP

Tues 27th Sep | 1.30pm | 7.30pm
Wed 28th Sep | 1.30pm | 7.30pm

 

Orchard Village

Mardyke Community Centre, South St, Rainham RM13 8PJ

Thurs 29th Sep | 7.30pm
Fri 30th Sep | 7.30pm
Sat 1st Oct | 1.30pm | 7.30pm

 

Rainham

Royals Youth Centre, Viking Way, Rainham, RM13 9YG

Tues 4th Oct | 1.30pm | 7.30pm
Wed 5th Oct | 1.30pm | 7.30pm

 

Romford

YMCA Romford, 29 Rush Green Road, Romford, RM7 0PH

Fri 7th Oct | 1.30pm | 7.30pm
Sat 8th Oct | 1.30pm | 7.30pm

 

Click here to book tickets

Running time = 90 minutes (no interval)

 

Mia Jerome founded Blouse & Skirt Theatre Company in 2021 to celebrate stories, songs, performers and puppets from the African-Caribbean diaspora. She studied Creative Writing and Television at Kingston University and trained as an actress and theatre maker at Fourth Monkey Theatre Company.

Mia (Writer, Director, and Producer), and Jon (Executive Chief), will be joined by Luke Circus as Senior Sous Chef, Simon George as Commis Chef, Anne Odeke as Dramaturg, and Wesley Laing as Sound Designer.

Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch has been supporting the development of Rice & Peas for the past year, before programming this production as part of the Blueprint festival.

• Theatre Nation Partnerships is an innovative network of theatres and community organisations founded by the National Theatre in 2017 to grow nationwide engagement with theatre
• The new programme will reach over 500,000 audiences, artists and participants across England over three years including in Outer East London and South Essex
• Theatre Nation Partnerships is supported by the National Theatre and a £1.25 million award by Arts Council England, made possible thanks to National Lottery players

Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch will extend its involvement with the Theatre Nation Partnerships (TNP) network today.

Since 2017, the programme has engaged with over 222,000 participants, audiences and artists, including across England. In Outer East London and South Essex it has delivered three schools tours, and created a Public Acts performance in collaboration with local community organisations.

Three productions will tour directly into schools in Havering over the next three years, with a touring production of new play Shut Up, I’m Dreaming visiting secondary schools across the area from January 2023, as part of a national tour reaching over 12,000 students. Devised and directed by The PappyShow following residencies in three schools in Sunderland, Wolverhampton and Wakefield to bring young people’s voices into the heart of the creative process, Shut Up, I’m Dreaming explores the ambitions, hopes and feelings of the next generation in an uncertain world. The touring production will be accompanied by a post-show Q&A, teaching resources and professional development workshops for teachers.

A new TNP production of Roy Williams’ award-winning play Sucker Punch, produced by Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, will open in Hornchurch in March 2023. Directed by Nathan Powell, Sucker Punch is a bruising and funny play, winner of the Alfred Fagon Award, which explores being young and black in the 80s. Further tours of landmark productions will take place in 2024 and 2025.

Already announced, an epic multi-version production of The Odyssey will be retold in five episodes created and performed by artists and communities, with Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch supporting the fifth episode taking place at the National Theatre in August 2023. The production marks the fifth anniversary of Public Acts, the NT’s nationwide initiative to create extraordinary acts of theatre and community.

Speak Up which sees young people working in collaboration with local artists and teachers to lead creative projects will continue to work in schools in Havering from October 2023. This dynamic programme has been developed with Theatre Nation Partners to inspire young people to speak up about the issues that matter to them and will reach 140,000 young people nationwide.

The new partner organisations joining the Theatre Nation Partnerships (TNP) network today are Restoke, Regent Theatre & Victoria Hall (Ambassador Theatre Group) in Stoke-on-Trent, Peterborough New Theatre with Selladoor Venues, Queen’s Theatre Barnstaple and The Landmark in Ilfracombe, North Devon with Selladoor Venues, Curve in Leicester, and Trowbridge Town Hall. Together, the 14 partner organisations will engage over half a million people over three years, more than doubling the existing reach of the network.

Theatre Nation Partnerships is supported by a £1.25million award from Arts Council England, made possible by National Lottery players. The National Theatre will triple this investment through further fundraising and commercial activity, and almost 90% of the total will be spent outside London directly in partner areas.

Mathew Russell, Chief Executive of Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch said, “Audiences and communities, including thousands of school children, from Outer East London and South Essex have benefited so much ‎from the life changing opportunities offered by the first phase of Theatre Nation Partnerships, including the rather extraordinary Public Acts version of ‘As You Like It’, produced by Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch. As founding partners, we can’t wait to work with and learn from any even wider array of theatres with shared values across the country and to engage with an increasing range of young people, artists and underrepresented and underserved communities to share and shape the power of world class theatre. We’re particularly proud to be producing and opening the first TNP mid-scale tour – a landmark production of Roy Williams’ ‘Sucker Punch’.”

Rufus Norris, Director of National Theatre said, “Theatre Nation Partnerships has shown how effectively a network of theatres can work together to inspire new audiences for theatre, deepen roots within communities and create more opportunities for the next generation to engage in the arts. Our nationwide work is a key part of the National Theatre’s activity and we look forward to welcoming our new partners on board, learning from each other and creating an even bigger impact across the country over the next three years”.

The route is today announced for Final Farewell, a self-guided audio production that arrives at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch in a blaze of glowing reviews. The dramatic audio experience, created by pioneering theatre company Tara, is presented on 23 – 24 September, as part of the Theatre’s Blueprint Festival.

The self-guided walking tour leads participants around the area immediately outside Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, starting at the theatre. The route takes in Queen’s Theatre Green, Langtons Gardens and Fielders Woodland and Wildlife Pond. The journey is expected to take 75 minutes.

As they walk, people will listen to four moving stories based on real-life accounts of loss during the pandemic. The original stories were collected and recreated by writer Sudha Bhuchar and directed by Tara’s Abdul Shayek, to present a deeply-felt experience of love and resilience. The stories are told by actors giving voice to Shahin, Baby Han, Ann and Oberon.
Theatre bible The Stage gave Final Farewell ★★★★ when it was presented at Greenwich + Docklands International Festival earlier this month,. The Stage noted: “The monologues are direct and heartfelt, a penetratingly strong reminder of all the pain still being felt by thousands in the aftermath of the pandemic. Final Farewell offers a balm to those mourning and for others yet to mourn.”
It was another ★★★★ review for Final Farewell from website ToDoList.London, which said: ‘Final Farewell invites us to listen, learn and reflect – and succeeds in warming the heart – just make sure you have some tissues handy.’
Tara Theatre Company’s latest production Silence, also based on personal testimonies, this time from those living through the last days of the British Raj, finished its critically acclaimed run at the Donmar Warehouse this weekend (17 September), before dates at the company’s own theatre in SW18.

After a successful first week, Blueprint Festival of new ideas continues at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch for a second week of non-traditional forms of theatre to be performed in and around the recently Grade II-listed building. From the basement to the roof and the carpark, as well as the auditorium and foyer. There are immersive and devised pieces, staged play readings, a dramatic design-led production on a revolving cal set of 31 scenes in 31 minutes, Shakespeare on film and digital and musical innovation.

 

Final Farewell is playing 23 & 24 September throughout the day. Tickets cost £5, £3 concessions +65p QNext fee. Click here to purchase tickets.

To see the whole route click here

Festival Pass

(with the exception of Rice & Peas, The Story Is True For Most Of Us and Boost!)

Book 4 Blueprint events and get 50p off each ticket

Book 6 Blueprint events and get £1 off each ticket

Add the events to your basket and the discount will apply automatically. Get 20% off food and drink at QBar and The Cafe by showing your festival pass.

A trio of micro plays commissioned for our Blueprint Festival of new ideas are all based on one theme, Food For Thought, but they could not be more different.

Festival-goers can see script-in-hand performances of the three 20-minute plays that feature a mouse, a wake and a trendy restaurant in one festival event.

The programme, curated by Danielle Kassaraté (Associate Director Talent Development) and playwright Somebody Jones, includes discussion time after each play when the audience is invited to join the conversation about the work with the creative team and actors.

Food For Thought is part of our ongoing mission to encourage new voices into the building and develop new and local talent, particularly from the Global Majority.

The first play in the programme is There’s a Mouse in the Kitchen, written by Cal-I Jonel and directed by George Morgan. It looks at the relationship of an anxious student with a rodent phobia and his sporty older brother, played by Owen Chaponda and Dauda Ladejobi.

In Antoinette Jackman’s Like My Skin and Blister secrets are revealed between two cousins in the kitchen after a family funeral. Sharon Rose and Deborah Imhogiemhe play the two young women and Britny Virginia Albert directs.

Finger Food by Somebody Jones and directed by Charleen Qwaye is a thriller set in a trendy restaurant, where Adam Karim and Mia Lysandrou are meeting to get their stories straight about their missing friend

 

Food for Thought is playing 21 & 23 September at 3 pm in the Learning Space. Tickets cost £5, £3 concessions +65p QNext fee. Click here to purchase tickets.

 

Festival Pass

(with the exception of Rice & Peas, The Story Is True For Most Of Us and Boost!)

Book 4 Blueprint events and get 50p off each ticket

Book 6 Blueprint events and get £1 off each ticket

Add the events to your basket and the discount will apply automatically. Get 20% off food and drink at QBar and The Cafe by showing your festival pass.

David Shearing is an award-winning artist who creates immersive multimedia installations. His recent work, The Rising Sun, a building filled with light and voices, stopped Romford in its tracks when it was situated in the town centre earlier this year.

Designed to represent a public house, The Rising Sun space offered a magical environment to experience, while listening to the recorded stories of the people of Romford.

Now the artist has found another intriguing space to invite visitors and stimulate conversation. For his Blueprint Festival event at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, Shearing presents This Story is True for Most of Us, on 23 and 24 September. It will take place (weather permitting) on the roof of our recently grade-II listed building.

Shearing says: ‘I can’t wait to get people up there to gaze over the rooftops of Hornchurch, all the way towards Dartford in one direction, and London in another.’

He will seat visitors – an intimate maximum gathering of 12 for each performance – at a 10-metre long table set up on the roof for five brief plant-based tasting moments, while he leads them via headphones towards some of the most challenging climate questions of our time.

‘Each tasting moment is designed to question our relationship with the natural world,” Shearing says. “Expect little bursts of flavour and a deconstruction of food to its simplest form.’

This Story is True For Most Of Us is presented by Shearing in collaboration with designer Paul Burgess and the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch’s Environmental Responsibility Group.

More than anything, This Story Is True For Most Of Us in a project created to inspire conversation about the environment.

Shearing says: ‘This project invites us to look at the details, to examine our relationship with plants and how they shape us, to take a breath. Being on the rooftop enables us to zoom out, to see it all from a distance, away from the hustle of everyday life. Food offers us a way to be together, to break bread with a stranger and propose a toast to a new future – it will be a very special experience.‘

Mathew Russell, Chief Executive of Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch adds: ‘We are thrilled that David Shearing has found a way to open up to festival-goers such a privileged view from our roof. Blueprint as a festival was always conceived as a theatre-takeover, using every space of the building, bringing every corner to life with theatre and art and letting visitors into bits of it they haven’t seen before.’

A free exhibition of prints with video from Shearing’s The Rising Sun also runs in Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch foyer throughout Blueprint, 12 – 24 September.

 

Click here to book

Writer and director Kate Lovell is the creative force behind Blueprint Festival’s family show, Frostiana, 21 – 24 September. With designer Gabe Gilmour, she presents a sensory environment, specially built in a space inside the building of Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, where audiences will be led by a performer on a short interactive journey inspired by Frost Fairs.

Frost Fairs were a common sight in the 17th century when the River Thames regularly froze over. As soon as the river became solid, sailors and bargemen temporarily unable to work joined traders and entertainers to set up makeshift shops and entertainments in tents on the firm ice. Visitors from all sections of society flocked to play nine-pins, have a go at ice-sliding and feast on ox-roast and gingerbread.

Lovell is an associate artist at Graeae, the influential theatre company that champions d/Deaf and disabled actors and contributes to the creative leadership team at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch. With Frostiana, a 15-minute taster for a longer show she is developing, Lovell presents an experience suitable for anyone who might benefit from a more relaxed environment.

Singer and performer Elinor Machen-Fortune, last seen in Gaeae’s This Woven O, directed by Lovell for this year’s Greenwich + Docklands International Festival, will lead small audience groups of two to six at a time through Frostiana. The experience will include tactile elements, taste and interactivity as well as live performance.

London-based set designer Gilmour, who studied design at Wimbledon College of Arts and acting at Mountview, is interested in collaboration between performers and designers.

Gilmour says: “I am delighted to be board this project as part of Blueprint Festival and to design a snippet from the incredible once-in-a-lifetime event that was a London Frost Fair.”

Lovell is a disabled and neurodivergent writer, committed to making theatre with, for and about marginalised people and shining a light on less explored subjects. Her short play Selfie was showcased as part of Graeae’s online Crips with Chips at Home in 2021 and she is currently working as dramaturg and writer on the disabled-led project Define Your Journey, an Arts Council funded online interactive experience.

Lovell says: “I’ve always been fascinated by the Frost Fairs and I’ve long wanted to create a sensory-led piece of theatre. The Frost Fairs delighted all the senses, tastes, smells, sounds, music, and Frostiana will bring them to life. It’s a concept I’m excited to develop further.”

These performances are part of Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch’s Blueprint Festival of new ideas, which runs 12 – 24 September.

The Blueprint programme includes 12 mostly new works of non-traditional forms of theatre to be performed in and around the recently Grade II-listed building. From the basement to the roof and the car park, as well as the auditorium and foyer. There will be immersive and devised pieces, staged play readings, a dramatic design-led production on a revolving cal set of 31 scenes in 31 minutes, Shakespeare on film and digital and musical innovation.

Tickets for Frostiana are free, but advanced booking is required.

For more details about Centre Stage and the full programme of the Blueprint Festival, click here.

Poet and songwriter Miss Jacqui is announced to headline Blueprint festival’s Centre Stage evening of local d/Deaf, disabled, and neuro-divergent talent on 22 September at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch.

Miss Jacqui is an activist who has been working to challenge perceptions of disability for more than 15 years. A wheelchair user, she performed as part of the 2012 Paralympics Opening Ceremony, and with her debut EP “Perception” in 2019 she introduced her activism to the music industry to draw attention, particularly to the accessibility of music venues and recording spaces.

Miss Jacqui says: “I make music that makes people see the world differently. So that I inspire and make people feel comfortable about being themselves.”

Centre Stage will be as much a celebration of d/Deaf, disabled, and neuro-divergent audience members as the performers taking part. The host for the evening is Britny Virginia, who has also curated the event and promises “an evening of fun and laughter”. She is an associate artist at Graeae, the influential theatre company that champions Deaf and disabled actors and contributes to the creative leadership team at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch.

In keeping with one of the aims of the Theatre, Centre Stage is providing a platform for artists from Essex and Outer East London. Contributions from local artists include a screening of a short film by Sarah Elliot, and performances by spoken word poet Rayhad Ali and comedian Zahra Kiernan.

Completing the Centre Stage line-up is DJ Chinaman Lee, aka Troi Lee who is a Deaf DJ and founder of Deaf Rave.

Britny says: “Centre Stage is an opportunity to celebrate and experience the depth of talent in the local area of East London and Essex from the d/Deaf, disabled, and neuro-divergent community. I am so thrilled and privileged to be curating and hosting it. I am looking forward to the performers growing in their craft and ability – and using this as an opportunity to further their career and relationship with Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch.”

Finger food will also be served at the fully accessible evening, which will include British Sign Language interpreters, performance interpreters, captioning, and access workers and a quiet area available.

Blueprint: a festival of new ideas has something for everyone. Two weeks of 12 exciting events inside and outside the theatre using every available space from the rooftop to the basement and car park – with new writing, immersive experiences, a scratch night, culinary delights, promenade performances, Essex stories, accessible performances, DJ Chinaman and more. Most events are £5 plus 65p QNext Fee and some are free. 

Tickets for Centre Stage are £5 | £3 conc. Centre Stage plays on 22 Sep at 6pm.

For more details about Centre Stage and the full programme of the Blueprint Festival, click here. Blueprint runs from 12 – 24 September. 

Countdown to Blueprint 

A pop-up restaurant inside Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch is the venue for Rice & Peas, the first major production from theatre company Blouse & Skirt! from Monday 19 September to Saturday 24 September. 

In an immersive West Indian dining and theatre experience, audiences seated at tables will be served a three-course menu created by Executive Chef Jon Bentham (former head chef for Gary Rhodes), while the story of Figgy and Edith, a couple from the Windrush generation, unfolds in three acts. 

Written and directed by Mia Jerome, who is Artistic Director of Blouse & Skirt!, Rice & Peas opens in 1970. The setting is the Caribbean family restaurant that Figgy and Edith opened where celebrations are underway for its 10th anniversary. 

Filling the theatre with the tastes and smells of the Caribbean, the menu will include Green Fig Salad, Ground Provision Oil Down, Rice & Peas, Macaroni & Cheese, Grenada Spice Cake & Vanilla Ice Cream. (Dishes may be subject to change, and an optional vegan menu will be available.) 

As the audience are served, they are transported back in time and place, to 1948 Grenada and the night before Figgy is due to board The Empire Windrush for Britain, leaving Edith behind. Over the course of the meal, their story of being separated, reunited and finally making their life in London is told.  

Damian Lynch (The Split, BBC) played Figgy in the short run of Rice & Peas at Metal Culture, Southend-on-Sea, in April this year, and now returns to the role.  

Damian says: “I’m delighted to be playing Figgy again in Rice & Peas and bringing such an important part of our history to the Blueprint Festival. As an actor of Caribbean heritage, I’m honoured to be able to bring Figgy’s story to life in such a unique and exciting way. I was born in East London so it feels like I’m coming home!” 

Also returning, in the role of Edith, is Nicole Dayes (Phoenix, The Big House Theatre Company) and Khrystalle Moriah as Marion (Performance Preparation Acadamy graduate). 

New to the cast are JD Hunt as Marcus (Who Cares?, ITV); and Daiyaan Simeon as Michael (Identity School Of Acting Talent graduate). 

Mia Jerome founded Blouse & Skirt Theatre Company in 2021 to celebrate stories, songs, performers and puppets from the African-Caribbean diaspora. She studied Creative Writing and Television at Kingston University and trained as an actress and theatre maker at Fourth Monkey Theatre Company. 

Mia (Writer, Director, and Producer), and Jon (Executive Chief), will be joined by Luke Circus as Senior Sous Chef, Simon George as Commis Chef, Anne Odeke as Dramaturg, and Wesley Laing as Sound Designer. 

Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch has been supporting development of Rice & Peas for the past year, before programming this production as part of the Blueprint festival. Mia says, “It is wonderful to be on the roster with so many exciting artists in this festival. I can’t wait to see the Theatre transformed into a space for experimentation.” 

★★★★★ “Mia Jerome’s ‘Rice and Peas’ sets the bar astronomically high for concept of immersive theatre and it will be an experience I will be pondering on for a while to come.” Alwaystimefortheatre.com 

“A clever, meticulously thought out experience with a great atmosphere established, I highly recommend!” Theatrefullstop.com 

Blueprint: a festival of new ideas has something for everyone. Two weeks of 12 exciting events inside and outside the theatre using every available space from the rooftop to the basement and carpark – with new writing, immersive experiences, a scratch night, culinary delights, promenade performances, Essex stories, accessible performances, DJ Chinaman and more. Most events are £5 plus 65p QNext Fee and some are free. 

Tickets for Rice & Peas are £38. Rice and Peas runs from 19 – 24 Sep. For more details about Rice & Pease and the full programme of the Blueprint Festival, click here. Blueprint runs from 12 – 24 September.