Criterion Theatre, Coventry, CV5 6EF

LTG Rep at Criterion Theatre, Andrew Sharpe, announces a great festival hosted by his theatre.

Nestling amongst the restaurants and bars of Earlsdon, a popular gastro destination to the south of Coventry, the theatre hosts an eight-night festival of the performing arts. It will bring together a collation of amateur, community and professional companies and artists. It offers a chance to try out something different in a dynamic and supportive setting. We want to blur boundaries, move margins, and expand fringes.

Birmingham poet laureate and beatboxer Jasmine Gardosi, musician Wes Finch, and poet John Bernard perform alongside short plays by Lucy Kirkwood, Fin Kennedy (by our youth theatre), Martha Haddon Allpress, and premieres by Karen Forbes and newcomer Cassandra O Floresca, all performed by our company. We have a preview of a masked retelling of Pe’er Gynt, and other visiting productions by writer and campaigner Srabani Sen OBE (another premiere) and Beverly Andrews, Hattie is a moving tribute to the first black woman to win an Oscar.

We have writer and comedian Keith Donnelly, classical pianist Mikael Petersson and Coventry poet laureate Emilie Lauren Jones, and The Sonoplasts featuring vocalist Amy Kakoura, renowned violinist Simon Chalk and composer Derek Nisbett.  

There is a performance of a new work devised by the Coventry Resource Centre for the Blind, and another by ‘The Word from the Floor’, a newly formed collective of poets drawn from the city’s vibrant spoken word scene. Visual artist Nicky Cure and songwriter annA rydeR bring us the fabulous multimedia Fat Chance Show, and Nicky is also resident with poet Dangermouse and sketch artist Paul Chokran.

We want to and show off our fabulous little theatre and its community, as we strive to provide opportunities for emerging artists of all ages and backgrounds and support the creative economy Coventry and Warwickshire.  As with everything we do, the Criterion Theatre is committed to producing diverse and inclusive art and serving as a catalyst for community creation though an active workshop programme.

Our festival has no connection with the City of Culture, which passed by our small theatre, and its amateur repertory company, a volunteer run registered Charity.

For tickets and more information contact Andrew andrew@ckam.co.uk

Anne Gilmour