Theatre Stage at Village Green

Village Green is delighted to announce the N-Act Theatre Stage at this year’s festival. 

The stage recreates the popular Chalkwell Beach Theatre of the 1950s, and the N-Act’s Theatre Tent hosts some fantastic performances across the day and will also house an interactive exhibition of Southend theatre history.

The N-Act Theatre Stage, aimed at teenagers, young people and families, includes performances from AFK Productions with an extract from Ashton Moore’snew musical ‘I Wish’; students from Morgan Academy of Performing Artsperforming a variety of different styles of dance and Science Boffins presenting a show full of jaw-dropping experiments and mind-blowing demonstrations. The Laughter Academy show off their improvised comedy; Amanda Restell students perform jazz and musical theatre numbers, Faces Theatre Arts present their fantastic Joseph Megamix and Players Theatre company share songs from their show ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’. Magic Dave’s magic is for kids and grownups. 

Additionally, SODS offer some musical theatre classics including songs from their current show ‘Rent’, Shoebury High School perform numbers from previous shows; Mushroom Theatre Companyshares some of its fantastic integrated work and Holda Poetry’s is a must see. N-Act’s Theatre Stage is hosted by performer, writer, producer and director  Jo Melville, who has worked extensively in Southend. Jo was part of the very first Village Green and hosted the Teatro Verdi Showcase in 2016. The stage frontage has been designed by Patrick Moriarty.  

Steven King spoke to the team:

N-Act will perform extracts from its current portfolio: ‘Linked’, ‘Friend’ and a new show ‘Invisible’. N-Act Theatre in Schools is a Southend-based company, which creates interactive performances for schools to engage young people in theatre. Their aim is to harness the power of interactive theatre to entertain, to ignite curiosity, provoke thought, and to educate young people to enable them to make informed choices. N-Act has performed to over 10,000 young people over the last two years, in Southend, Essex, London and internationally. They recently won an award from the High Sheriff of Essex in recognition of their ‘dedication to educating young people of Southend and adjoining areas on internet safety and the dangers of gang culture.’

Sharon Williams,N-Act Artistic Director, says 

“This is an exciting opportunity for local artists to share their work with the Southend community. The importance of drawing young people to the world of the arts cannot be underestimated. And the Southend arts scene has so much to offer young people. They can find out how to join these groups, maybe to help backstage, or learn about lighting and sound; or to attend workshops, or performing arts classes; to be in future shows; or simply to become a member of their audiences!”

The theatre exhibition has been created by Chris Izod, David Simmons, Peter Optical, Alice Ryan and Alison Garner and includes 3D models from the team at 3D FilaPrint and Stage House UK. Amazingly there have been a 21 theatres in Southend and festival goers can discover their history and hear interviews with visitors to and performers at these venues plus peruse old posters and programmes from the Palace Theatre. 

Tickets for Village Green are on sale now with Early Bird tickets on sale until the end of May. As in previous years, 500 free tickets are available to holders of Southend Council’s Advantage card C. These can be picked up from the Southend Borough Council reception – just have your Advantage Card ready to show.