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A nation's theatre

Battersea Arts Centre and the Guardian explore the state of the nation's theatre in a series of live debates held around the UK. Join the conversation online with a strand of articles exploring regional identity in theatre and stage issues that are of local and national importance. Click here for full listings of shows staged at BAC as part of A Nation's Theatre.

9 June 2016

  • Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me) at Battersea Arts Centre

    Sleepovers, cycle wars and space travel: my weekend of theatre at BAC

    To mark A Nation’s Theatre festival, we offered one reader the chance to stay in one of the Battersea Arts Centre’s new artist-designed bedrooms and see a selection of shows. Harriet Porter reports on her experience

17 May 2016

  • Nic Green performance<br>Nic Green's show Cock and Bull at Battersea Arts Centre

    Cock and Bull: how we turned Tory conference speeches into theatre

    Tired of their meaningless slogans and soundbites, we decided to use politicians’ own words against them in a show that feels like an exorcism

16 May 2016

  • Leicester fans celebrate

    Football unites cities: can theatre ever do the same?

    Leicester’s victorious tour bus will be greeted by jubilant football fans as it passes the Curve theatre, which has also earned the pride and passion of locals

20 April 2016

  • Tom de Freston in his artist's bedroom at Battersea Arts Centre - still from artist's video

    Sleep furiously: step inside artist Tom de Freston's nightmarish bedroom – video

    Battersea Arts Centre commissioned Tom de Freston to create a bedroom for its resident artists – he responded by covering himself in paint to evoke a blend of King Lear and wild storms

18 April 2016

  • Lord of the Flies at the circus

    Plan your week's theatre – top tickets

    Hugh Bonneville stars in An Enemy of the People in Chichester and Ivo Van Hove returns to the Barbican – plus the rest of the week’s best theatre

5 April 2016

  • Re-enactment society... The performers of The Beanfield.

    Revolution of the heads: how we staged the Battle of the Beanfield

    In 1985, 1,300 police clashed with 600 hippy travellers near Stonehenge – and closed a chapter of British counterculture. Theatre director Billy Barrett describes how he staged a zero-budget version of the encounter

4 April 2016

  • A Nation’s Theatre.

    Terms and conditions – BAC/A Nation’s Theatre competition

  • A Nation’s Theatre

    Competition: win a stay in the artist residences at Battersea Arts Centre

31 March 2016

  • PRESS SHOT of The Shepherds Life. At the Theatre by the Lake, Keswick. From L to R Herdwick Flock operated by community cast, Joseph Richardson (Puppeteer / Joe / Ronnie / Ewan Goode), Kieran Hill (James), Ashleigh Cheadle (Puppeteer / Julie / Natasha / Pascale). Photo by Keith Pattison.

    Herding sheep: why London theatre critics really need to get out more

    Budget cuts, rising travel costs – it’s tough for critics to get to plays in remote areas but let’s not bolster the idea that regional theatre cannot compete

25 March 2016

  • aerial view of river Clyde running through Glasgow with The Clyde Arc in the foreground<br>F3MC31 aerial view of river Clyde running through Glasgow with The Clyde Arc in the foreground

    Scottish independence? In theatre, it's long-established

    Matthew Lenton
    Diverse and democratic, theatre in Scotland is largely unburdened by the class system that defines the arts in England. It is outward-looking, internationalist and keen to cross borders

23 March 2016

  • Mohsin Nouri, Ryan Harston and Jack Hobbs in The Broke ‘N’ Beat Collective

    Hip-hop theatre waxes lyrical about young lives in Liverpool and London

  • Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters (with yellow umbrellas) clash with government supporters (with red flags) in 2015.

    Staging a revolution: can theatre be an effective form of activism?

17 March 2016

  • This Land

    The village hall: home to bridge clubs, bingo and groundbreaking theatre

    Staging work in rural community spaces lets artists forge a deeper connection with audiences and the issues that are important to them

8 March 2016

  • The Iranian Feast at Farnham Maltings

    Not cosy, not safe, no tractors: the plays redefining rural theatre

    The Iranian Feast is just one of the ambitious shows challenging the stereotype that rural touring work is just armchair theatre

29 February 2016

  • Jenny Sealy MBE directing "Reasons to be Cheerful" rehersals at the GRAEAE Theatre company in Hackney. Sealy is profoundly deaf, and most of the cast have a disability of some sort.

    A Nation's Theatre looks at disability - Guardian Live event

    Why do so many venues still find it hard to open doors to disabled artists and audiences? At a Guardian Live event in Wolverhampton, Lyn Gardner and a panel discuss the opportunities and obstacles

16 February 2016

  • The Solid Life of Sugar Water, a rare example of disability arts getting mainstream support.

    Diversity in theatre: why is disability being left out?

    Gender and racial diversity is growing in UK theatres – but disabled creatives are being left behind. We have to shift away from patronising box-ticking

2 December 2015

  • Into the Blue by Replay theatre company

    Taking the plunge: new ways of talking about theatre

    Forget panel squabbles in a stuffy room – for our debate in the A Nation’s Theatre series, we wanted a format as engaging as theatre itself. So we asked audiences to lie down in bed, dropped them into a pool – and then had dinner together

19 October 2015

  • Theatre Absolute

    Theatres should be the new town squares, not monasteries

    Regional theatres will thrive when they are democratic open spaces, where communities gather to share ideas about the lives they lead and aspire to

6 October 2015

  • Seth Kriebel from his Edinburgh show We This Way press image supplied by Katie Elston <katiee@bac.org.uk>

    Blueprint for performance: audiences invited to build imaginary places

    In my new show A House Repeated, theatregoers dream up worlds that are inspired by actual buildings – you may step inside a room that you swear feels real

11 September 2015

  • Orpheus

    Farnham Maltings: the craft-loving community that's a close-knit success

    The shows that I make with Little Bulb theatre company are all informed by our neighbours in this Surrey arts hub – it’s a cornucopia of creativity with an international reach
About 41 results for A nation's theatre
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