Open Air Theatre and Performance
The ruins of Reading Abbey have a history of live performance. From early impromptu artist-led events, the site has established a history of open air theatre.
In the late 1980s, the food art and performance collective 'La Grande Bouche' organised a cabaret under marquee in the ruins. The evening offered music and performance acts combined with food, much of which cooked by contributing performers.
In 1994, a large scale performance event 'From the Ruins' was held in the abbey ruins, the finale event for the 'Art in Reading' (AIR) festival, funded in part by Reading Borough Council. This was organised by and featured a large number of artists and performers living or working in Reading, and combined specially created music, dance, paintings, poetry and culminated in a spectacular evening performance involving large scale puppetry and pyrotechnics loosely based upon the history of Reading Abbey from the foundation by William I through the rise of the merchant classes to the dissolution and eventual sacking of the Abbey under Henry VIII.
In 1995, the ruined South Transept was used as the setting for the first Abbey Ruins Open Air Shakespeare production by MDM Productions and Progress Theatre in partnership with Reading Borough Council. In 1996, the outdoor production moved to the ruined chapter house and since 1999 has been staged by Progress Theatre in partnership with Reading Borough Council. This annual event expanded to the Reading Abbey Ruins Open Air Festival in 2007.
Because of the current access limitations, the 2009 and 2010 Open Air Festivals could not be held.
Read more about this topic: Reading Abbey
Famous quotes containing the words open, air, theatre and/or performance:
““What care I for a goose-feather bed,
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For to-night I shall sleep in a cold open field,
Along with the wraggle taggle gipsies, O!””
—Unknown. The Wraggle Taggle Gipsies (l. 33–36)
“... in this air of withering sweetness ...”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Compare ... the cinema with theatre. Both are dramatic arts. Theatre brings actors before a public and every night during the season they re-enact the same drama. Deep in the nature of theatre is a sense of ritual. The cinema, by contrast, transports its audience individually, singly, out of the theatre towards the unknown.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“The audience is the most revered member of the theater. Without an audience there is no theater. Every technique learned by the actor, every curtain, every flat on the stage, every careful analysis by the director, every coordinated scene, is for the enjoyment of the audience. They are our guests, our evaluators, and the last spoke in the wheel which can then begin to roll. They make the performance meaningful.”
—Viola Spolin (b. 1911)