Now the autumn rush is upon us, suddenly there is much potentially exiting stuff to see (and hear) in and around Birmingham. Birmingham Weekender is this weekend. The Stan’s Cafe contribution is a subtle input into one of the most subtle events in festival. Michael Wolters has written a Requiem to be performed in a disused retail unit and we have been called in to consider the presentation of this piece.
Requiem is an hour long performed either by a bass bassoon and voice or just a voice, both versions are accompanied by a prerecorded vocal score. The result is beautiful, hypnotic, meditative and a touch melancholic. Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, who have commissioned the piece, discovered that although there are many empty retail units around the city they are difficult to bust into for musical performances. To the rescue have come the Great Western Arcade. We have called these performances of Requiem, Requiem To Let and have dressed the space accordingly. The first performance is 11am on Saturday. It’s the bassoon version.
There is stuff all over Birmingham this weekend
Fierce have a good looking piece in a car park. In fact it looks like a vintage year for Fierce, a valedictory season for the outgoing artistic directors, including friend of Stan Ursula Martinez and admired by Stan Chris Goode & Company.
The REP are cranking things up as well with Stan collaborators White Rabbit bringing their new show How To Be A Hero to the venue next week before more good looking shows follow it up.
Not to be outdone mac have the internationally acclaimed (a phrase perhaps used rather too liberally at the moment, but certainly true in this case) Ontroerend Goed in town, which is pretty remarkable.
At Warwick Arts Centre is awash with great stuff including Can I Start Again Please, which writing Gerard has seen and recommended to us. ALSO if you missed A Translation of Shadows at The REP we have it back again at WAC as part of Bite Size.
Right people, there is an enormous amount of interesting and exciting and hopefully brilliant theatre out there in the next couple of months, let’s get out there and experience some of it – wallets at the ready.