We produce high-quality professional theatre for young people, schools and family audiences. We also have a new programme of family theatre at the Tramshed, including the Greenwich Children’s Theatre Festival during the Easter holidays. We also have our Christmas musical Treasure Island in December, a show not to be missed! For schools we offer a range of challenging, educational and interactive productions which deal with a range of topical issues for both primary and secondary school audiences.
A new musical production of one of the greatest adventure stories of all time!
This December come and join Jim Hawkins on a thrilling journey to the exotic Treasure Island. An exciting tale of buried treasure and boyhood adventure, swash-buckling pirates and scary smugglers…and maybe the occasional parrot!
Follow our hero as he searches for hidden treasure and encounters famous characters Long John Silver, Black Dog, Ben Gunn and Billy Bones.
In this new take on the children’s classic there will be dazzling imagery, magical music and pulsating action that will have you on the edge of your seat… You may even get to sing-along to their sea shanties!
From the same production team who brought you TheHunchback of Notre Dame in 2011. A show not to be missed…
For school bookings please call 020 8845 1316 or email the downloadable booking form to zoe.bateman@glypt.co.uk
(Suitable for all primary school years and year 7)
Running time:
School shows: 90 mins (including interval)
Public shows: 1 hour 45 mins (including interval)
Writer:
Emily Hunka from the classic tale by Robert Louis Stevenson. Music composed by Oscar Wood
Venue:
The Tramshed
Dates:
2 - 22 December 2013
Times:
School shows: 10am & 1:15pm / Public shows 2pm & 5.30pm
Price:
School bookings: £5 per pupil (teachers go free) / Public shows - Adults £9 / Children & Senior Citizens £6 / Family ticket (4 people) £26
Bristol Old Vic co-production with Duke’s Playhouse, Lancaster/ Theatre Iolo, Cardiff/ the egg, Bath
Written & directed by John Retallack / Adaptation by Suzanne van Lohuizen Runner-up Hans Snoek Young People’s Theatre Award, Amsterdam, 2006
A wild girl appears from the woods. Who is she? She’s a fish in the water, a deer on the earth, a flying squirrel in the treetops where she eats and she sleeps.She imitates birdsong so well you’d think there was a nightingale in the room, but she can’t say the words ‘cat’ or ‘dog’. Of course, people want to save the wild girl and make her like everyone else — a citizen who can play, study, go to work and marry. Who will decide what is best for her? Or is that up to the wild girl herself? Wild Girl is about what a child might do if she had the choice…
In partnership with East 15 Acting School, Community Theatre course.
Two pupils, two problems: Jaz is being bullied so severely, she is self- harming, and Nathan is an exhausted young carer, has conduct disorder and has just injured a teacher. And they’ve both disappeared.
GOING MENTAL is a hard-hitting new play for Years 8-10 that explores the challenges of being a young person in today’s Britain. Rather than preaching an anti-bullying or anger management agenda so often seen in Theatre-in–Education productions, it casts the pupils as a jury in judgement of the people in the Jaz and Nathan’s lives, and asks them to consider the very difficult question of how to make our children happier, safer and able to thrive, and how adults and peers can rise to the challenge of safeguarding the most vulnerable.
Bristol Old Vic co-production with Duke’s Playhouse, Lancaster/ Theatre Iolo, Cardiff/ the egg, Bath
‘Refugees don’t exist. Only blown away people exist, People blown by the wind all over the world.’
Set in the Bosnian civil war, this play tells the story of a 13 year old boy’s survival despite the loss of his parents, one dead, the other missing.
Mirad is a unique play in its searing portrayal of the impact of war on children. Earthy and natural, written in everyday language, and featuring people who are anything but heroes, Mirad manages to be funny, tragic and hopeful all at once. It has been seen, and vividly remembered, by children and teenagers throughout Europe.
This timely production of Mirad marks the 20th anniversary of the play.
Writer:
Ad de Bont (1993) / translated by Marian Buijs
We are pleased to announce the 6th Greenwich Children’s Theatre Festival will be taking place during Easter Holidays 2013. This will tell you everything that is happening across the borough, click on the show names for further info…
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Tue 9 – Sat 13 Apr Gomito in association with Greenwich Theatre presents WOODLAND at Greenwich Theatre Part play, part installation, this family theatre treat features puppetry, adventure and surprises in an interactive woodland world.
Times: Tues, Wed & Fri at 10am & 2pm / Sat at 11am & 2pm / Sun at 11am & 3pm
Tickets: Adults £10, Children & Concessions £7.50, Family ticket £30 BOOK NOW
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Tue 9 – Sat 13 Apr Katie Grace Cooper in association with Greenwich Theatre presents MRS MCMOON at Greenwich Theatre The charming story of a little girl called Mary Jane who brings the joy of rainbows to a grey, dull and boring town. A perfectly pitched piece for 2-5 year olds.
Times: 10am & 2pm
Tickets: Adults £7.50, Children & Concessions £5, Family ticket £20 BOOK NOW
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Wed 10th Apr Horse + Bamboo presents THE NIGHTINGALE at The Tramshed This age old story from Hans Christian Anderson is told through a mesmerising blend of masks, puppetry, animation, vivid performance and original music. Times: 12noon
Tickets: Adults £7.50, Children & Concessions £5, Family ticket £20 BOOK NOW
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Thu 11 Apr Tall Stories presents MY BROTHER THE ROBOT at Greenwich Theatre Once upon a time in the future, there will be a little girl called Bobbie, who will live with her inventor dad in a house filled with technology. Bobbie will have everything she needs – until one day, she announces that she’s lonely…
Times: 12.30pm & 4pm
Tickets: Adults £10, Children & Concessions £7.50, Family ticket £30 BOOK NOW
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Thu 11 April Old Saw presents TOMTEN at The Tramshed When all is quiet on the farm, when everyone is asleep, when the show covers the ground and stars twinkle in the sky – that’s when Tomten wakes up.
Times: 12noon & 3pm
Tickets: Adults £10, Children & Concessions £7.50, Family ticket £30 BOOK NOW
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Fri 12 Apr Little Cauliflower presents STREET DREAMS at The Tramshed Mischievous banana skins, aggressive plastic bags and a rubber glove (with a nervous disposition). Everyday objects come to life whilst a confused puppet tries to make sense of it all.
Times: 11am
Tickets: Adults £7.50, Children & Concessions £5, Family ticket £20 BOOK NOW
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Fri 12 Apr Aria Entertainment presents THE SECRET GARDEN at Greenwich Theatre Open the door to a world of secrets. There’s a door to a garden which has been locked for many years, the key buried and all but forgotten…
Times: 6pm
Adults £12.50, Children & Concessions £7.50, Family ticket £32 BOOK NOW
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Sun 14 Apr Blunderbus presents HOW TO CATCH A STAR at Greenwich Theatre Once there was a boy and he loved stars very much. Every night he watched stars from his bedroom window and wished he had one of his own. One day, he decided he would try to catch a star. But first he had to think of a plan…
Times: 1pm
Tickets: Adults £10, Children & Concessions £7.50, Family ticket £30 BOOK NOW
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Sat 13 April BIG WORKSHOP DAY
FREE arts workshops across Royal Greenwich. Everything from Circus to Street Dance, Puppets to Poetry. For all ages.
Venue:
The Tramshed, Greenwich Theatre and other venues across Royal Greenwich
Dates:
29 March - 14 April 2013
Price:
Ticket offer! Book for 2 shows and get a 3rd FREE! Valid on all shows up to 14 April. Cheapest show free. Not available online. Box Office: 020 8854 7755
A Little Cauliflower production
Exploring object theatre and contemporary clowning, this show was first shown as a work in progress at the The 2010 International Student Puppet Festival. It was performed at the International Youth Arts Festival 2011 before being premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe. Mischievous banana skins, aggressive plastic bags and a rubber glove (with a nervous disposition). Everyday objects come to life whilst a confused puppet tries to make sense of it all.
When all is quiet on the farm, when everyone is asleep, when the snow covers the ground and stars twinkle in the frosty sky – that’s when Tomten wakes up. He watches over everyone on the farm without them ever knowing. But sometimes you can see his footprints in the snow. That’s how you know he is real.
Tomten has lived here since the sunbeams were young. Since the first snow fell on the first winter. Since the first farmer built his first farmstead. He has seen generations come and generations go. But from where? Where do they come from, and where do they go?
A deep riddle plays on Tomten’s mind.
One thing he knows for sure is that spring is coming; soon cows will be grazing in the fields and swallows singing in the trees again.
Freely adapted by Greta Clough, Viktor Rydberg’s well-loved poem is brought to life in a new puppetry show for children 3+ and their families.
Imagine you could have anything you wanted…the best that money can buy. Unfortunately for the little King, he already has that, and he still feels something is missing
That is, until he is enchanted by the most beautiful sound in the world and finds friendship in the most unexpected place.
A roguish Soldier finds himself in possession of a tinderbox, a very special tinderbox which gives him the power to magically summon three extraordinary dogs to do his bidding. These dogs bring him riches beyond his wildest dreams, but his fortunes quickly take a turn for the worse in the big city where your charms are counted by the penny. Watch The Soldier’s remarkable roller-coaster adventure reach dizzy heights and plunge dark depths; will he survive The Witch’s wicked ways and win the love of the beautiful Princess?
As part of the Cultural Olympiad, GLYPT performed a series of ‘Short Shakespeare’ plays around the Greenwich borough. Fast, fun and with lots of audience interaction, our team of talented actors entertained adults, children, tourists and locals alike.
GLYPT’s second summer performance project took place during the Paralympic Games. Masterclass students performed alongside professional actors, bringing the ‘British seaside’ to parks across Lewisham.
The ‘CHOICES’ programme, which aims to raise awareness about gang culture and violence amongst young people.
The play ‘Nowhere Fast‘ by Tunde Euba tells the story of a man’s relationship with his girlfriend, brother and his past and the choices he can make about his future.
It is a really comprehensive look at young people engaging in gang culture, violent crime and the carrying of weapons. It is a partnership with CO19 of the Met Police and their Operation Makepeace programme and Families United (a collective of families who have all been closely affected by violent crime). It is a really thought provoking and powerful set of presentations that schools have been feeding back as having a profound impact on their young people.
For further logistics of the programme (numbers, timings etc) please see the downloadable doc on the right hand side of this page.
In the play ‘Brothers’ we meet a pair of 2nd generation Nigerian twins growing up in the streets of London. Ken, with his traditional ideas and values, is becoming increasingly alienated from Tai, who lives by the ethics of the street. It’s a complex and potentially dangerous sibling rivalry where anger, violence and membership of a polarised street culture clash with family loyalty.
It is a partnership with CO19 of the Met Police and their Operation Makepeace programme and Families United (a collective of families who have all been closely affected by violent crime). It is a really thought provoking and powerful set of presentations that schools have been feeding back as having a profound impact on their young people.
GLYPT’s Festival Family Musical at the Tramshed in 2011 was an enchanting new musical about love, friendship and beauty:
Come with us on a magical journey to the heart of 15th century Paris and the Festival of Fools. Meet hunchback Quasimodo, wicked priest Frollo, dashing soldier Phoebus and the beautiful dancer Esmeralda, who has captured their hearts – plus a whole host of storytellers, birds, poets, gargoyles and…a sock eating goat. With soaring melodies, spectacular imagery, and a bellyful of laughs, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is an action-packed, festive theatrical feast for the family. Suitable for ages 5+.
Writer:
Adapted by Emily Hunka / Music by Oscar Wood
Come and explore an underwater world with Neptune the King of the Sea …at your local new venue, The Tramshed in Woolwich.
A fantastic new musical theatre production of the classic fairy tale The Little Mermaid. An enchanting story for young people and their families, bringing a touch of magic to Woolwich this Christmas.
England is at civil war. Caleb, who has been used to a life with play-stations and television and football, suddenly finds himself without parents, fleeing from his home with thousands of other refugees. As he struggles to find a safe place in a war-torn country, he meets Tricks, an older boy who offers him food and shelter and a chance to stay safe with the protection of his ‘gang’ of children.
But when Tricks hands him a gun, and offers him the chance to be a man and avenge the death of his brother, he discovers that being strong is more complicated and frightening than he thought. Will he stay with Tricks and fight a war he doesn’t understand, or is there another way to be safe?
This is hard-hitting theatre that draws parallels between global conflict, human rights and crime on London’s streets. Participating children will have the opportunity to explore for themselves the temptation of violence, and ways to challenge and resist it.
IMAGINE will cover curriculum PSHE topics of rights and responsibilities, refugees and global awareness. Children will have the opportunity to take part in drama, creative writing and roll play, in a creative learning experience with a difference.
This award-winning participatory theatre production dealt with issue of young people carrying guns and knives. The Inquiry was a participatory piece of theatre created to explore issues of young people engaging in gang culture and choosing to carry weapons, specifically guns and knives. The project was successfully piloted to 7 schools in Camden, Haringey, Islington, Greenwich and Lewisham for two weeks in November 2007. The Inquiry aimed to: – Empower young people to discuss and explore issues that are hard to embrace amongst their peers; -Giving teachers a platform for discussing further these and related issues with students; -Encourage positive approaches to peer learning and opinion sharing; -Dispel the myth that the carrying of dangerous weapons is ‘cool.’
Mud City was a new piece of participatory theatre for Years 5 and 6 that ran parallel to the broader celebratory Refugee Week programme, raising awareness of the plight of refugees, especially those in large refugee camps. Mud City was one of an extraordinary trilogy of books by award-winning Canadian author Deborah Ellis that looks at the stories of young people living in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mud City followed the fortunes of Afghan refugee Shauzia, as she copes with the difficulties of the Taliban regime, war in her country, a large refugee camp and life on the streets of Peshawar, Pakistan, before finally arriving as an asylum seeker in the UK.Our production is a team of actors, musicians and visual artists presenting parts of Shauzia’s story from Mud City in a day-long residency in primary schools. The audience of 9 and 10 year olds became active participants in this incredible journey, using drama, descriptive writing, music, screen-printing and shadow puppetry to explore how they might resolve the dilemmas faced by children like Shauzia.
The aim of Mud City was to make children in the UK more understanding of the context of refugees who arrive in this country; or to appreciate what it must be like to live in a refugee camp in the developing world and how children survive around the world living on rubbish dumps. They explored issues such as refuge and asylum, the global picture, children’s rights, and how we welcome new people from different places in the world into our communities.
SK8 Angel is the powerful and emotive story of Con, a fourteen-year old boy coming to terms with the loss of his mother. He feels an urgent need to escape, to lose himself … Then he meets ‘SK8’, a skateboarder who shows him a place where only the most committed and determined will learn to fly; where he will begin to find his feet again.
GLYPT and writer Michael Wicherek bring this new play and epic poem to young adult audiences, combining the skills and excitement of skateboarding with the traumas of growing up and dealing with all that life can throw at us; setting tragedy alongside soaring moments of release.
SK8 Angel with its pulsating sounds and visuals is a ride that will keep you on the edge of your seat!
Writer:
Michael Wicherek
Venue:
Toured venues and schools in London and surrounding regions
Master Juba was a new play from the writer & installation artist Michael McMillan, based on the true story of William Henry Lane, the father of black British dance, whose legacy to the performing world is tap dance.
In 1854 William Henry Lane, a witty, sharp, young, black man arrives in London from New York as a superstar. He is about to win a competition that will make him the ‘King of all Dancers’, the ‘Master of the Juba’. Lane was 17 years old when he was discovered by PT Barnum in New York. But when the ‘superstar’ came to London he had to ‘black up’ as a minstrel to be allowed to perform on the British stage. The play explores his battles to overcome racial stereotyping and the challenges he made to British social conventions.
Master Juba offered an outstanding evening of entertainment with dance, music, theatre and digital animation.
Writer:
Michael McMillan
Venue:
Toured to venues in London and the East of England
The production offered an insight into and understanding of both the learning opportunities that the Internet offers, and also the potential dangers that young people may be exposed to. Online you can be anybody you want to be. Cora – aka Lulu – is insecure, curious and nervous, desperate for magic and wonderment, but as Lulu she is wild and remarkable. Her parents and teachers think chat rooms are a waste of time. Lulu develops an online relationship with Hairy Lemon, which is the beginning of a friendship that takes them both into unknown territory…
Writer:
Brian Jordan
Venue:
Toured to venues in London and the East of England
Red, White, Black and Blue aimed at helping students gain a better understanding of the citizen in the context of a diverse society, and enabling students to participate in debate and discussion, and to reflect on the process of inclusion.
The show raised difficult questions concerning identity, race and belonging …. other questions asked include “Which community do I feel part of” and “Whose ‘flag’ do I feel happy to ‘wear’”?
Writer:
Devised by the company and working with Tunde Euba
This production explored ideas around the regeneration of the urban landscape: planning, architecture and how young people exist and interact with that environment at moments of significant change.
On the edge of a large estate in a sprawling urban landscape lies in a small pocket of space, unused and unplanned…a blank canvas waiting for a transformation. However, a small group of local people, young & old use this space – to play or contemplate in, to work or just to escape to. Now it is all to change!
The land is to be developed as part of the wider regeneration plans for this estate and surrounding areas. Change, as we all know, is frightening. And now, the community must turn their attention to the reality of how that evolution will affect their lives.
Writer:
Devised by the company working with the writer Clive Holland
Using GLYPT’s innovative participatory theatre techniques “Inside out” will take your class on a theatrical journey that enables them to explore the complex and often tense relationship between new arrivals and existing communities.
“It was really thought provoking and the children enjoyed it. The follow up activities were excellent too.”
“The day was brilliant and the girls thoroughly enjoyed it. It was extremely powerful and I know that it will have a lasting impact on both staff and students”
“…A multi layered piece of genius…breathtaking performance…an absolute classic”
“Soon the audience was getting into the spirit of the British beach scene: there was a boat, a mermaid, sunbathing, trying to put up a deckchair (which caused a few chuckles from older members of the audience, remembering their own experiences in the past!)”
Greenwich Children’s Theatre Festival
Looking for something to do this Easter? The Greenwich Children's Theatre Festival is back with loads of exciting shows and workshops for you to enjoy. Look out for children's classics, new plays and the Big Workshop Day on Saturday 13th April where all workshops are free!
Wild Girl
This school show is now sold out. Please come check out other show we have coming up...