Creative Kidzone @ The Lantern

A fantastic week of workshops and shows for children and young people during Brigton Fringe 2015. Creative Kidzone runs from Sunday the 24th of May to the Friday the 29th May.

Shows

Crackers Strikes Again

May 3rd, 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th @ 1pm £5.00 show only.

Mr Crackers the naughty professor is at again. He's trying to overthrow King Augusta Wind and take over the town.

Grimms Tales

24th May @ 5.00pm £6.00 (£4.00)

The deliciously scary and thrillingly charismatic stories of the Brothers Grimm are brought to life in an imaginative new production. Performed by AKT Juniors.

The Wardrobe by Sam Holcroft

26th May @ 7.00pm £6.00 (£4.00)

Across five centuries of British history, small groups of children seek sanctuary in the same solid, old wardrobe. It’s the safest place they know – but is it safe enough?

From the last days of the Wars Of The Roses, through the brutality of the English Civil War, the paranoia of the Plague, the heartbreak of conscription during the First World War right up to modern day complications with social networking, this beautifully written new play by Sam Holcroft seamlessly weaves humour with moments in history that ultimately depict the loss of innocence of these young people.

Don't Feed The Animals by Jemma Kennedy

27th May @ 5.00pm £6.00 (£4.00)

Sparks Circus is on its way down. The owners have been forced to sell their star attraction Tiny the elephant and a rival circus is poaching their artistes. With a busy bank holiday weekend approaching, it’s down to acrobatic twins Zack and Missy to fill the house and stop their family business from going under. When a local gang of bored youths volunteers to help them, the twins are faced with the task of training an un-trainable mob in circus skills.

The Musicians by Patrick Marber

27th May @ 7.00pm £6.00 (£4.00)

The orchestra of Ridley Road, a state school, is to give a concert in Moscow at the European Festival of Youth, playing Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony before an audience of cultural bigwigs. But their instruments have been impounded by Customs due to the foolishness of Second Flute. Luckily, Alex, the Russian boy who cleans the hall, is a devout Pinball Wizard fan who comes up with a plan that saves everyone.

Pronoun by Evan Placey

What Is Normal Anyway – A trio of plays exploring ‘normality’.

28th & 29th May @ 7.00pm £6.00 (£4.00)

Josh and Isabella are childhood sweethearts. They were meant to spend their gap year together, they were meant to be together forever. But Isabella has now become a boy. A love story about transition, testosterone, and James Dean.

Pronoun was commissioned as part of the 2014 National Theatre Connections Festival and premiered by youth theatres across the UK.

The other plays in the What is Normal season are Questo Strangolato Rumore and Hacktivists on May 25th @ 5.30pm.

Questo Strangolato Rumore & Hacktivists

What Is Normal Anyway – A trio of plays exploring ‘normality’.

25th May @ 5.30pm £6.00 (£4.00)

In ‘Hacktivists’, technogeeks transform into cyberbullies. In ‘Questo Strangolato Rumore’, insanity transforms into sanity or is it the other way around?

Hacktivists by Ben Ockrent

When Eloise is tasked with showing new girl, Beth, around the school, she takes her to the “Hackerspace” where her and her gang of nerdy friends hang out – a disused portacabin they’ve turned into a student-run IT lab.

Although the gang call themselves Hackers, their activities are entirely harmless… Until the gang’s self-elected leader, Archie, is humiliated by the school bully and Beth inspires them to use their tech-savviness to avenge him. Revelling in their newfound power, the group allow Beth to lead them in an increasingly dangerous direction. With Archie usurped and everyone in Beth’s thrall, just what kind of hackers will they become and what will it take to stop them?

Questo Strangolato Rumore ('This Strangled Noise')
written and directed by Davide Moretti
Teatro Rumore, Viareggio (Lucca), Italy

Winner of the Youth Theater Festival of Centre Italy 2014, Questo Strangolato Rumore ('This Strangled Noise') is a journey through madness.

We follow Beth, whose delirium of persecution stems from her inordinate sense of guilt, and Sara, who thirsts for purity. There's a routine-stricken man and a patient believing she's a KGB spy.

There is also Giulia, searching for memories of her mother, a former inmate; and Caterina, who manipulates a new doctor in order to flee. Then of course there is the disturbing case of the Papin sisters, who committed one of the most heinous crimes of the 20th century.

While prescribing gymnastic exercises, drugs and electroshock, the medical staff attempts at correct this madness, to strangle its noise. But, under the weight of their own brutal and alienating habits, they are destined to fail.

The patients cry, they sigh, they vomit senseless words. But if we silently listen to them, we might hear tenderness under harshness, fragility under armoured masks, beauty under coarseness.

Written by Davide Moretti and inspired by the work of Mario Tobino, who worked in a mental hospital from 1942 to 1980, this award winning study of insanity is a UK premiere.