Join us for a night celebrating a Protest of the Everyday, produced by BLUEPRINT.
SPARK is an annual festival of exciting new performance & art from early careers creatives at Tobacco Factory Theatres.
There seems to be no better time than now to celebrate protest in all forms. Whether it’s a pride march, a silent vigil, a toddler tantrum, a cabaret, a picket line or the act of rest in our busy world; protest takes on so many different forms and this festival is a chance to celebrate it together.
This year SPARK is a festival night of 10 acts showcasing their thoughts on the theme: Protest of the Everyday.
Book tickets for Spark 2024: Protest of the Everyday
There Is A Future
By Aish Humphreys and Eryn McDonald. Directed by Cal Wensley
From the safety of a bedroom, two trans poets use their poems to uncover their experiences of gender.
Content Warnings: Gender dysphoria, brief mentions of sexual assault.
Rotten
By Aimee Bennett
The world as we know it has all gone a bit wrong. Since the sea levels rose everything’s damp, mycelium is taking over, strange creatures are said to roam the empty streets at night…
And to top it all off, there are some unwelcome visitors in Sally’s bathroom. She’s furious – and a bit scared.
Aimee will perform the first half of her new show ‘Rotten’. Be prepared for a cliffhanger!
Content Warnings: Slight allusion to vomiting
Chickpeas
By Hagseed Theatre
Stacy and Adrienne have been cast in ‘The Forbidden Fruit’, a Regency-era lesbian melodrama, a catastrophe of clichés and male fantasies of hot lesbians ripping off each others’ corsets. They’re pretty sure it’s a crime against gay people. But they need the work.
‘Chickpeas’ is about Stacy and Adrienne – funny, real people that love to laugh at the regency romance they’re rehearsing; take the piss out of their unhinged director, and pretend that they’re not falling for each other. It’s a story about how queer women fall in love: the risk, the bravery and the joy.
Content Warnings: Swearing, homophobic language, sexual content, reference to death, reference to suicide, reference to drugs/alcohol, reference to grooming.
Corporate Floss
By Eilish Poston-Saynor and Freya Carter
A spoken word theatre blend about two girls discussing their anger at their creative growth being stunted by the corporate machine they have found themselves a part of.
Content Warnings: Swearing and sexual content.
BurnBeck Beast
By Move Until Dusk
The dance is playful, joyful, and wild.
Burnbeck Beast is a protest against the severance of our symbiotic relationship between nature and ourselves. The Beast represents the stories, traditions and mythology that honours that relationship as it enters this magical space. The beast reminds its audience of its enduring importance, even if we forget its presence in our everyday lives.
We invite you to laugh and enjoy this space with us as we bring the Beast to life. We have a second part of the performance where we open the space to you, the audience and offer you the chance to share, reflect and process your thoughts and feelings with us the performers and your fellow audience members. We offer, if you feel like it, the chance to draw, write, make or chat about the piece.
Content warnings: Sudden loud noise
Scraps
By Mia Macleod and Daisy Kennedy
Scraps is a very serious piece of theatre. Seriously.
Have you ever felt the increasing pressure to find the right balance between work and life but fear that you’ll never feel true happiness because of it? Well fear not because Mia and Daisy have looked deep into the issues of today’s world and have created a solution: a good play. Mia and Daisy’s groundbreaking theatre piece (that is really serious and really thought provoking) will make everything clearer… we hope.
Prepare to be moved, prepare to be provoked, prepare to be prepared for preparedness.
Content Warnings: Swearing and strong language
CODswallop
By Lottie Elcoate
Do you have frequent unwanted thoughts that seem uncontrollable?
Do you try to get rid of these thoughts and, if so, what do you do?
Do you struggle to escape from the burden of warding fish?
With humour, dread and a pervasive sense of absurdity, Codswallop invites you to look through the fisheye lens to explore an experience of living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Content Warnings: Discussions of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, intrusive thoughts, death and suicide.
Options
By BPMtheatre
How much do you trust clubs? Do you trust club goers? How about your friends? Your lovers? Yourself? We’d just really like a great night out. Join us for a great night out. You’ll be fine.
Content Warnings: Alcohol use, sexual references, swearing, spiking.
Cloven
By Eve Bee
We’ve decided Cartesian dualism is total nonsense, but life’s cleaver already separated me from myself. It’s time to reunite. She’s so so close.
Content Warnings: None
Posted on 25 January 2024
