January 2023
HAVE YOU MISSED OUT?
Or were you there?
Well! We've made it through the first month of 2023! I think we all deserve a pat on the back. What's that little poem? Thirty days has September, April, June, and November, and January has seventy-five – or at least has felt it this year!
Well in those seventy-five- ok, thirty-one, days, we've had a busy little building full of all sort of arts and culture that your donations help make happen. Here's a little round-up for the month!
JANUARY
First up in the new year we had Cinemagic in the building for some auditions – in fact, auditions and new projects has been the theme of this month, with Starling Collective, Commedia Of Errors, and others coming in for castings and auditions throughout January.
Our friends Commedia Of Errors – with whom we filmed and live streamed their Plays Aloud project for care homes during lockdown – used the Rehearsal Room to meet with performers for their upcoming play I Am Maura, which will be presented as part of Belfast Children's Festival through Young At Art, before going on tour later this year. Last year we hosted a rehearsed reading of their work-in-progress play North Of The Island for an invited audience. Many of Commedia's plays, including both of these, are written by Clare McMahon and directed by Benjamin Gould; a brilliant husband and wife team creating great new theatre inside and outside of AT.
Also preparing a new project was Carol Murphy, who is taking her one woman show to the acclaimed Vault Festival in London in a few months. Carol was in rehearsing for her show The Body And Blood, https://www.thebodyandblood.co.uk/ - it's always exciting to have new pieces in the building with great potential to go on to big things!
In the middle of the month we took Accidental out of our building to the Black Box, where the team filmed NI Opera's OTL cabaret show, Opera For Lunch – Cabaret de la Boite Noir. Capturing some stunning performances from the singers, in a lovely relaxed atmosphere with lunch laid on was a highlight for the team – despite some minor drama (mostly on stage!) the show went on.
We had Emy, Marty and our friend Gerard on cameras (you may know him as one half off improv group Begins), and Richard directing.
We've had a range of workshops, with both Figure This, our regular life drawing class, and Comic Jam (not to be confused with Cosmic Jam, more below), a collaborative comic book drawing workshop by Kathryn McGrane, at the same time one Friday evening. A beautifully artistic evening!
We've welcomed some new office users to the building recently, and some residents have moved around.
If you'd like to enquire about our hotdesking or office renting set up, email us here.
And shows! We've had a load of shows on already this year.
We started off with our stalwart friends in Sunday Improv, weekly from mid-January.
Then we combined our two music events, Tea & Jam and Cosmic Jam, putting them one after the other for a night of experimenting and playing music that feed into each other.
Never Seen It Film Club was a hit with classic horror film Evil Dead (1981), and Members Fun Day had a lovely stream of lovely members popping in for chats and cuppas.
You can also see more of Never Seen It Film Club on Youtube and it’s a podcast! So check out our film discussions about each month’s film choice!