Liverpool’s 20 Stories High reunites with acclaimed children’s theatre company Theatre-Rites following the success of their hip-hop puppetry show for young people The Broke ‘N’ Beat Collective (which premiered at Unity Theatre in 2016). Their brand-new show together Big Up! is for 3 to 6 year olds to share with everyone that looks after them, combining hip-hop, puppetry and live music.
No matter whether you are Big or Small, the world is full of rules. Sometimes we make our own rules, sometimes we don’t know the rules and sometimes we want to play by different rules. A Beatboxer, a Singer and a Puppeteer arrive on stage, but nothing is ready for them. No set, no instruments, no puppets. No rules. A world full of joy and chaos erupts, where objects come to life and everything is possible.
Big Up! will be accompanied by residencies at each tour venue, including an extensive programme of outreach and activities at the Unity Theatre, both for children and for young adult parents and young carers. This includes creative play sessions for ages 3-6 and everyone who looks after them, and Mash Up, a music gig for young adults, hosted by the Big Up! cast and featuring guest spots from local urban artists and an open-mic live jam.
Sue Buckmaster (Artistic Director, Theatre-Rites) said, “Big Up! is a universal story – we all know how full of rules the world is when we are young. We wanted to explore the subtle and not so subtle differences in family dynamics – who sets the rules? The five-year old or the parent? And what do you do when one of you finds it difficult to follow the rules?
We hope Big Up! will enthral and provoke everyone in its audience, regardless of whether they are Big or Small. We delight in the shared experiences parents have with their children at any Theatre-Rites show and are thrilled to reach out to an audience of young adult parents and young carers who may not have had this experience or opportunity before. We look forward to sharing our Residencies, this show – and hopefully a future theatre-going tradition with them. It is brilliant to be working with 20 Stories High again to recreate the magic we discovered together through The Broke ‘N’ Beat Collective.”
Keith Saha (Co-Artistic Director, 20 Stories High), said “One of the strongest and most recurring themes during our research was the memory of being young, but desperately wanting to be Big and yet for most of us once we became Big, we forgot how to play. This production plays with the notion of who is the parent and who is the child and how as parents we are often so preoccupied with setting rules, being strict, being a certain kind of parent, or not knowing how to parent that we sometimes forget how to play. It is exciting for us at 20 Stories High to team up with Theatre-Rites again and experience making theatre for young children for the first time, whilst also engaging with the young people who are always close to 20 Stories High’s heart.”
The cast is: beatboxer Hobbit, puppeteers Iestyn Evans and Clarke Joseph-Edwards, and singer/rapper Dorcas Sebuyange.
Tickets for Big Up! at the Unity from February 8th to the 16th, are on sale now from the venue’s Box office.