Hope Street Liverpool
Everyman & Playhouse theatres will create a digital journey through Liverpool with contributions from the public and their famous friends Getintothis’ Claire Cook reports.
Liverpool: An A-Z of Hope is a project that “combines audio, video and written word delivered through a series of weekly letters” being developed by Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse.
Written for the city, by the city, readers will be placed in a different location each week that they can explore.
Submissions are invited from anyone with a Liverpool story to tell, “whether it’s a place that always reminds you of home, or a coffee shop where you broke up with your first love.”
Chosen stories will be complied to create a “tapestry of memories and feelings” attached to different parts of the city. From coffee shops to cathedrals, the project calls for monologues or poems that recount a memory, happy or sad, that was had somewhere on the city’s streets.
Artistic director of Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse theatres, Gemma Bodinetz, said: “With our buildings in lockdown we wanted to create an opportunity to interact with our audiences, communities and artists.
“Love, Liverpool is a digital project that we hope the whole city will want to enjoy. It’s a digital geographic journey of memories through the city and along the route we’ve asked some rather special people to provide some digital picnics and literary inspiration.”
Some famous faces are set to make appearances through ‘picnics’, sharing things from anecdotes of Liverpool, love letters to the city, or even recipes.
Liverpool Arts Diary: Bluecoat, FACT, World Museum – April-May 2020
Artists commissioned for the project so far include:
- Amina Atiq, Yemeni–Scouse writer, performance artist and activist whose work explores the conflict and beauty of her dual identity, taking us on a journey to her heartland, Yemen, and her homeland, Liverpool. She is currently producing and writing her first one-woman show, exploring a 1970s Yemeni- British household to untangle what it means to belong.
- Luke Barnes playwright and screenwriter whose work includes Freedom, Sad Club, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything and No One Will Tell Me When To Start A Revolution.
- Mandy Redvers-Rowe, Disabled writer whose drama Second Sight for Jimmy McGovern’s MO11 was broadcast on BBC1. In 2019 she developed Measuring Up in partnership with Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse theatres’ New Works department. She also recently co-wrote Blind School for BBC Radio 4.
- Chloë Moss playwright and screenwriter whose play This Wide Night won the Susan Smith Blackburn prize and was subsequently produced off Broadway. Chloe has written numerous other shows including Run Sister Run, The Gatekeeper, The Way Home and Christmas is Miles Away.
Submissions to take part are open now, and anyone hoping to contribute needs to submit a “short summary of a story, monologue or poem about Liverpool” before 5pm on Wednesday May 13. More information can be found here.
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