Heritage Open Weekend 2017

Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th September   - NVT Heritage Open Days

The New Venture Theatre ( affectionately known as the ‘NVT’)  is an amateur theatre which specializes in presenting high quality theatre productions with a particular focus on new dramatic writing. The NVT was founded in 1947 as the Brighton and Hove Repertory Company and, for many years, led a nomadic existence until it took a lease on the first floor of Christchurch Schoolrooms in Bedford Place in 1956. As a result of numerous refurbishments over seven decades, the building now houses a 100 seater proscenium arch theatre upstairs, and a 60 seat Studio space and bar area downstairs. NVT has approximately 250 volunteer members who work all year round to produce one production a month, provide regular acting classes, and nurture our flourishing youth theatre.  Over the weekend, NVT will be offering tours of the building, fun activities exploring all aspects of life at NVT, and the chance to delve into 70 years of our theatrical history. 

Opening Times

Saturday 9th September 10.30am – 3.30pm 
Sunday  10th September: 10.30am – 3.30pm 

Tours at 11am, 12pm, 1pm, 2.30pm on both days (all tours are free and have a capacity of 20 people)

Unfortunately our Upstairs theatre, and therefore our tours, are not wheelchair accessible.  However, the downstairs Studio space, bar area and archive displays are wheelchair accessible.

Studio

Antigone by Sophokles

Book tickets now

‘We come out of the dark’

Civil war has decimated Thebes and torn apart the troubled family of Oidipous.  Kreon must keep a grip if his new government is to be strong and stable.  But when Antigone defies him and buries her traitor brother, she sparks a series of catastrophic events. Is she a criminal with terrorist leanings, a brave voice of reason, or simply a loyal sister?  Is Kreon a heartless dictator, or a man trying desperately to balance the needs of state and family? 

Anne Carson’s poetic and colloquial translation brings these extraordinary personal and political circumstances into the present day - a world where civil war and despotism are still rife; a world that longs for truth and courage.

Theatre Upstairs

Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill

Anna was sent by her Swedish seafaring father to live with cousins in Minnesota where she was badly abused. She escaped and wrote to her father telling him it’s time to help her. They are reconciled, but whilst on her father’s barge they come across a shipwrecked sailor Matt Burke and she falls in love. Dare she tell them the truth and risk everything?

O’Neill’s Pulitzer winning play is about love and forgiveness, charting one woman’s longing to forget the dark secrets of her past and hope for salvation.