Productions seen at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and a First World War play are set to wow residents in the borough’s first professional theatre festival.
![Ilford Recorder: Theatre Ad Infinitum, who are performing a preview of their brand new show Light to open the festival and also performing Odyssey. They are an award-winning, associate company of Redbridge Drama Centre.This picture is from Odyssey. [Picture: Theatre Ad Infinitum]](/resources/images/15068142.jpg?type=mds-article-620 "Ilford Recorder: Theatre Ad Infinitum, who are performing a preview of their brand new show Light to open the festival and also performing Odyssey. They are an award-winning, associate company of Redbridge Drama Centre.This picture is from Odyssey. [Picture: Theatre Ad Infinitum]")
Redbridge Drama Centre has organised the 10-day Labyrinth Theatre Festival, which will include existing productions as well as premieres of new plays.
Sally Polden, 39, the centre’s development manager, said: “We had the idea of the festival because we started up apprentice theatre companies a few years ago and have quite a lot of growing apprentice and growing theatre companies we support.
“We wanted to give people the opportunity to see really good quality professional theatre at a decent price and support a lot of our own companies.
“We wanted to do it in Redbridge because there has not been anything like it here before.”
To mark the centenary of the First World War, the original production Heydays will be staged.
Created by all-women company The Paper Birds, the play, which will take place on the first two nights, will see residents over 55 present a history of Redbridge over the past 100 years.
The festival will also see new takes on existing plays. Oddsocks will perform their version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the gardens of Valentines Mansion, Ilford, while the Impulse Collective will present The Canterbury Tales at the drama centre in Churchfields, South Woodford.
Shows for children will include Theatre Button’s Jack and the Beanstalk and the interactive Let’s Build a Story, by Wizard Stories.
For Sally, highlights of the programme will be AndOnTheatre’s Bits and Box, about what two men can do with just their imagination and a cardboard box, and Theatre Ad Infinitum’s Light,
Productions are being staged from June 19-29 at 11 venues including the Kenneth More Theatre, Ilford, and in Fullwell Cross, Wanstead and Woodford Green libraries.
For more details, visit redbridgedramacentre.co.uk.
Read more:
First World War centenary: Theatre production will look back at last 100 years in Redbridge
Redbridge’s first professional theatre festival runs next month
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