Emergency Season at MAST Mayflower Studios, Southampton

Emergency Season at MAST Mayflower Studios, Southampton

The temperature is rising, there’s plastic in the oceans, the rainforest is disappearing…and maybe using a ‘bag for life’ isn’t going to turn it all around.

MAST Mayflower Studios brings its Emergency Festival – a season of work across October and November relating to the climate crisis and asking the difficult questions about the future of our planet.

Join in as they endeavour to spread awareness of the climate crisis through theatre, spoken word, live performance and more!

 Vigil – 20 October 2023

Dusky Seaside Sparrow, Cinnamon-coloured Cryptic Tree Hunter, Problematic Flasher, Fire Millipede From Hell…

Blending projection from Limbic Cinema, movement, poetry, a stunning soundscape, one human and 26,000 other species, Vigil is a wild, playful exploration of life in an age of extinction.

All the animal and plant names that appear in the show are listed on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) ‘Red List’ of extinct and threatened species. The show was made in collaboration with zoologists from UCL who help create this list.

Created by Herald Angel award-winning company Mechanimal, and performed by Tom Bailey, the show premiered at Summerhall in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2019 to critical acclaim. It is currently available for touring.

Family Fun Day – 28 October 2023

Families from across the local community join MAST Mayflower Studios throughout the year for Family Fun Days. Families are invited to attend for a day of fun, free arts-based activities such as arts and crafts, workshops, and work in progress scratch performances.

The activities appeal to the wider community and are delivered in a variety of ways covering a range of artforms, including drama, music, dance/movement, and craft.

Drag ‘n’ Drop! – 1 November 2023

In a world where gender has been outlawed, only drag can save us… DragonaBudjet (it’s pronounced bou-jzay, m’kay?!) is one half of high-energy drag removals company Drag ‘n’ Drop! She really puts the all in removals, bringing entertainment and education in unequal measure.

Rifling through the universe’s rhinestone curtains, join her on a journey through music, comedy, and spoken word, deep into the near dystopian future of gender neutrality and across the nebulous territories of queerness, identity, mental health, climate change, and quantum physics.

In a show that puts the feathered eyebrow in high-brow and the dick joke in Phillip K. Dick, Dragona gets to the top and bottom of the biggest questions: if a drag queen falls in a forest, will her makeup survive? Where
does self-worth come from? What’s a lesbian doing on the island of Lesbos? And where the hell is Drop?

PROPEL: Scratch Night – 4 November 2023

Join in the Climate themed Propel: Scratch Night, showcasing work-in-progress extracts of brand-new theatre and performance from a selection of local artists. MAST Mayflower Studios Scratch Nights are an opportunity for artists to test and explore new work in front of an audience. The audience will have the opportunity to offer feedback to artists at the end of each performance which will help shape the future of the productions.

PROPEL: 48 Hour Challenge – 19 November 2023

To end the Emergency Season 2023 local artists will come together to create and perform a brand-new piece of work from scratch in under 48 hours. Performers, musicians, directors and storytellers will meet for the first time to respond to the artists brief, collaborating to make work that is shared during a one-off performance on Sunday 19 November.

More Emergency Season announcements are still to come, so keep up to date by visiting MAST Mayflower Studios website and following their social channels.

Tickets for any shows or events mentioned above are available are on sale at mayflowerstudios.org.uk or 02380 711811.

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