Fascinating performances at the heart of Hastings Theatre Festival

Hastings Theatre Festival will run from Monday July 1 until Sunday July 7 to bring talented performance to The Stables Theatre, cementing Hastings as a destination for powerful, relevant storytelling.

Sponsored by Arts Council England and managed by Hastings Fringe Festival CIC, the event promises a week of thought-provoking theatre from Apphia Campbell’s globally acclaimed Black Is The Colour Of My Voice to unique work by established and emerging companies.

Hastings Theatre Festival will provide an entirely new platform for audiences to explore shifting social perspectives with challenging and sometimes raw stories about truthfulness, notions of ‘home’, and the human condition.

The programme’s engaging stories will reach out to sometimes overlooked communities that help make up Hastings and the south east, and contribute to the town’s vibrant cultural life.

Among the highlights is Apphia Campbell’s play with music inspired by Nina Simone’s volatile journey from piano prodigy to key spokeswoman at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement. Praised by critics, Campbell’s vocal performance and compelling portrayal was described as “beyond impersonation” by The Times newspaper.

Other unmissable productions include Those Magnificent Men, the true story of pilot Capt. John Alcock and navigator Lt. Arthur Whitten Brown, the British daredevils who flew non-stop across the Atlantic. Yours Ever, Jane is a revealing account of Jane Austen’s life weaved from Pride And Prejudice, and letters to her sister, told through words, music and dance, while Neil Gore’s Edwardian Magic Show is based on England’s first authentic working-class novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists set in a fictional town widely acknowledged to be based on Hastings.

The Hastings Theatre Festival seeks to provide an aspirational model for performers involved in open access arts festivals such as Hastings Fringe as well as scope for future performance opportunities; tickets on sale shortly - for details go to www.hastingstheatrefestival.com.