Poet Laureate Simon Armitage to work with LIPA students as part of new season

The adaptation of Gilgamesh will be a devised piece, with performance and making performance possible students collaborating directly with Simon and his band LYR.

Head of Acting Will Hammond says there’s great excitement around the production. “I think it’s almost a once in a lifetime opportunity. The involvement of students from many of our disciplines in creating this piece will be massive. And to be part of that process, with Simon, is fantastic.”

Based on the epic poem, Gilgamesh will be a multi-media performance featuring spoken word, music and art installations and will be directed by Nick Bagnall.

The season also features a collaboration with innovative digital storytellers Imitating The Dog. The Long Drift will be the debut public performance by our first cohort of BA (Hons) Acting (Screen & Digital Media). Will says it’s an ideal match up. “Imitating The Dog are one of the country’s most exciting theatre companies.

“It’s a brand-new production mixing live performance and digital technology. What they do is exactly what we aspire for our students to do, to look at how digital and live performances can interact.”

These collaborations follow our successful partnerships with Slung Low, Gecko and Peepolykus. All of these enable our students to experience - and influence - the latest performance trends. Gecko’s collaboration with us in 2019 was part of their initial research and development for their upcoming show commissioned by the National Theatre.

Other industry collaborators working with our performing and making performance possible students on productions include directors Francesca Goodridge, who is also a LIPA graduate on Posh, Hannah Sands on Everyman and Tian Glasgow, who will be directing a new original play, The Task – which was written especially by Afsaneh Gray for our MA Acting (Company) students.

The season concludes in June with a devised dance show that will see our second-year dance students working with a professional director and choreographers.

You can find out more about the spring/summer season and book tickets here.