Following the successful live theatre productions in pubs in East Anglia earlier in the year the INN CROWD partnership between Applause Rural Touring and Creative Arts East has moved down the coast to East Sussex.
This Friday (11th November) a specially adapted production of Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me) will play to a capacity crowd of sixty people at 8pm at the Roebuck Inn at Laughton in East Sussex in their function room. The production has been specially adapted for a pub audience in a one-man staging of Milton’s epic poem condensed into 70 minutes, combining theatre, comedy and movement and tickets at £12.50 per head have already sold out.
Tony Leonard who runs the Roebuck Inn found out about INN CROWD through Anthony Miller at Pub is The Hub. He said: “We’ve been delighted to be involved in this project. There aren’t many performance spaces in this area so it is wonderful to meet that need for local people.
“In fact, this project has inspired us to create temporary theatre staging that can be removed and stored for more regular ‘pop-up theatre’ events at the pub in future. It’s a great use for our function room.”
INN CROWD is a specially designed partnership project for pubs being delivered by Applause Rural Touring and Creative Arts East with expert support from Writers’ Centre Norwich, New Writing South and funding from Arts Council England.
The project offers landlords a new way to attract customers and creates a unique performing environment for some of the UK’s most talented artists & performers.
Any rural licensees or community organisers in East Sussex, West Sussex, Kent, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire or Suffolk that would like to host Inn Crowd performances in local pubs can contact Pub is The Hub for more information.