Rewrites: Nel’s Place at The Lowry
Kristy Stott, Theatre Editor
If you fancy seeing a brand-new musical before everyone else, Rewrites offers a cracking night out.
Offering scratch nights, work-in-progress pieces and concerts, Rewrites was launched by The Lowry in 2017 to put brand-new musicals in front of an audience for the first time. The project offers a great way to showcase new musicals and get them on their feet and in front of a live crowd.
This year, the Lowry has teamed up with Birmingham Hippodrome, MAST Mayflower Studios and Norwich Theatre, to create a new touring model for this work. It’s great news for a company like Sheep Soup who will present their new work, Nel’s Place at The Lowry this March.
Trapped in a hoard of memories and music, Nel yearns to make space for granddaughter Molly’s 16th birthday celebrations – but can Nel find a way through grief to let her family in? Nel’s Place is a brand-new musical from Sheep Soup, examining what material things really mean to us, and how easily we can become buried by the past.
Most pleasingly, each evening, before the performance, there will be a short preview of another brand-new musical in development. On Friday 8 March, audiences will be treated to Coming Back Around by David Fallon and Fraser Scott; a story of intergenerational poverty set in a housing estate in Glasgow. Meanwhile, on Saturday 9 March, Finn Anderson’s The Edge of Me is a synth-pop musical exploring a young queer man’s journey of sexual discovery.
For just a tenner, Rewrites offers a great night out and the chance to be part of something special, right at the beginning. Shape the theatre of tomorrow.
