Sunderland's Fire Station Auditorium to be transformed into Parisian club and Speakeasy as part of dramatic line-up

While the likes of Field Music, Emeli Sande and Kathryn Tickell, the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Mica Paris have thrilled audiences at the freshly-opened The Fire Station Auditorium recently, a range of dance performances, plays and comedians will show the venue’s flexibility over the months to come.

This month Rendezvous Dance will bring their critically-acclaimed new piece, The Monocle, to Sunderland (Saturday, February 19). The Monocle, by celebrated, award-winning choreographer Mathieu Geffre, is set in a flamboyant lesbian nightclub in 1930s Paris and features six dancers and a singer.

The auditorium will be transformed into a club setting where the audience can participate in a thrilling and exciting evening which will mix dance and live music.

Later in February, the venue will host Open House, a showcase for the city’s performing talent.

Helen Green, Head of Performance at Sunderland Culture, is producing Open House and explained: “This will be a celebration of community performing arts in the city and will feature all types of performers from singers and dancers to comedians and poets.”

Open House will feature a wide range of performances from Thursday, February 24 to Sunday, February 27 (during the February half-term). For more information about performance dates and times, keep an eye on Sunderland Culture’s website – www.sunderlandculture.org.uk

In March comedian Gary Delaney brings his show Gary in Punderland to The Fire Station. Known for his appearances on Live at the Apollo and Mock the Week, Gary is one of the most sought-after joke writers in the country. His show comes to Sunderland on Saturday, March 26 and his show is suitable for over16s.

Three days later (Tuesday, March 29) there’s a change of pace when children’s show The Smartest Giant in Town rolls into town. A musical adaption of the bestselling book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, the show is a puppet-filled adventure exploring friendship and helping those in need.

Dance returns to the venue in April when Southpaw Dance Company will perform Speakeasy, a breathtaking show based on the Faust legend and featuring a spectacular 1920’s themed set, world-class projection visuals, a cinematic soundtrack comprising big band classics and contemporary hits, alongside the distinctive Southpaw choreography that has gained the company international repute.

Speakeasy is a reinterpretation of the classic tale of Faust, where Faust enters a seemingly normal prohibition era bar, unaware that the bar is owned by the devil and populated by his demons, including the charismatic barman, Mephistopheles. The show is at The Fire Station on Friday, April 8.

In early May, the National Theatre’s NT Connections programme will deliver a range of performances from young people at the venue. NT Connections will feature new plays and this year the programme will see 300 youth theatre companies and more than 6,000 young people across the UK producing a play.

Groups performing at The Fire Station Auditorium on Thursday, May 5, Friday, May 6 and Saturday May 7 are The Customs House Youth Theatre, Bedlington Academy, Curious Connections, Gateshead College, Cramlington Youth Dramatic Society and Reslife Youth Theatre

in Newcastle.

Also in May, Extraordinary Bodies, the UK’s leading professional and integrated circus company, brings their new show Human, to the auditorium. Human is about the small moments that shape us, based on real-life stories from the company told through circus, music and film. Intimate, funny and celebratory, it looks into the heart of birth, love and change.

Extraordinary Bodies, a troupe of disabled and able-bodied people, were a highlight of The Tall Ships performance programme when the event was hosted by Sunderland in 2018. Human will be at The Fire Station on Saturday, May 14, and is part of an ongoing, three-year partnership between Sunderland Culture and Extraordinary Bodies.

Later in the year, the venue will host children’s show Dinosaur World Live (Tuesday, June 21 and Wednesday, June 22); Ibsen’s classic tragedy The Doll’s House, produced by Durham-based Elysium Theatre (Thursday, October 13) and then cult comedian Milton Jones, star of Mock the Week, appears with his Milton: Impossible show on Wednesday, November 9.

Helen Green said: “We’ve already seen what an amazing venue The Fire Station is for music performances and the music programme we have planned for the next few months is spectacular. However, the auditorium was designed for drama, dance, comedy and the spoken word and our busy programme will show its flexibility.

“More shows will be added to the programme in the coming weeks – in particular we have some outstanding family shows to announce soon, so watch this space.”

The Fire Station Auditorium will programme up to 300 events a year in music, theatre, comedy and dance. It can host up to 550 people seated or up to 800 people standing and is operated by Sunderland Culture on behalf of Sunderland Music, Arts and Culture (MAC) Trust.

The new, state-of-the-art auditorium, designed by award-winning architects Flanagan Lawrence, will be complemented by an outdoor stage, called The Parade Ground, which is being built at the rear of the site.

Due to open in spring, the 600-capacity outdoor performance space will have an external stage and bar.

The £7million first phase of The Fire Station, the redevelopment of an Edwardian building into a bar and restaurant, studios and heritage exhibition, was built thanks to a £3.6million grant from National Lottery Heritage Fund. Sunderland City Council also provided generous and valuable support.

The Fire Station Auditorium was developed thanks to a £6.25million award from Arts Council England‘s Capital: Large Grants programme, funded by the National Lottery, and a £1.38million grant from the government’s Culture Recovery Fund.

Further generous support came from Sunderland City Council , the Garfield Weston Foundation , the Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust , the Foyle Foundation , the Wolfson Foundation , the Backstage Trust and the Sir James Knott Trust.

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