RE:SOURCES
Developed in collaboration with Lighting Up Learning, the University of Bristol Theatre Collection and Bristol Archives, RE:SOURCES shine a light on the amazing stories of a theatre that has been entertaining Bristol for over 250 years.
RE:SOURCES are made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Pack 1: Behind the scenes at Bristol Old Vic
Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6
Subject links: Science, Design and Technology, PSHE
The final performance of any play is the result of hard work by lots of different people. The individual elements they contribute are often lost as audiences see only the “finished show”. This resource pack creates awareness of what it takes to put on a performance at Bristol Old Vic.
Pack 2: If Bristol Old Vic’s walls could talk, what would we hear?
Year 5 and Year 6
Subject links: History, Art and Design
Primary sources form the basis of all historical investigation. Each object in Bristol Old Vic’s collection tells a unique story about a place, person or time-period. This resource looks at how historians, authors and artists investigate these stories in different ways.
Pack 3: What makes a good performance great?
Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6
Subject links: History, English
Many of the elements that make performances at Bristol Old Vic successful today have their origins in the Ancient Greek world. This resource explores how theatre has evolved from the ancient world from the modern.
Pack 4: What makes a theatre, a theatre?
Key Stage 2
Subject links: Design and Technology, History, English.
As the oldest continually working theatre in the English-Speaking World, Bristol Old Vic is a fabulous source of historical, geographical and architectural inspiration for learners of all ages. This resource explores what it takes to design and build such an iconic space.
Production Resource Packs
With our Resource Packs, Bristol Old Vic aims to give teachers practical and insightful guides to bringing theatre to life in the classroom.
Metamorphosis
10 – 20 Jan 2024
In their first commission since 2019, Frantic Assembly and Lemn Sissay OBE collaborate on this thrilling new adaptation of Metamorphosis. Combining the fluidity and lyricism of Lemn Sissay’s adaptation and Frantic’s uncompromising physicality, this promises to be an unmissable retelling of Franz Kafka’s shocking tale of cruelty and kindness; a visceral and vital depiction of humans struggling within a system that crushes them under its heel.
Hamlet
13 Oct – 12 Nov 2022
Hamlet’s father is dead. His mother has remarried. He is alone with his thoughts. Then, he speaks.
Haunted by grief, and with his world spinning violently out of control, Hamlet has to make some decisions: forget or remember; live or die.
This visceral new production directed by John Haidar (Richard III) excavates the dark subconscious of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy.
The Meaning of Zong
2 Apr – 7 May 2022
Giles Terera’s boldly inventive debut play The Meaning of Zong is a story of our time, celebrating the power of the human spirit against adversity. Performed by an ensemble cast, it serves as an inspiration for how individual and collective action can drive unimaginable change.
I Think We Are Alone
28 Apr – 2 May 2020
I Think We Are Alone is a bittersweet and funny take on our ache to connect with those voices we need to hear again, those arms we need to feel around us and those faces we need to see again. It is about letting go and holding on to what we love the most.
Reasons To Stay Alive
1 – 5 Oct 2019
At 24, Matt’s world collapsed under the weight of depression. This is the true story of his journey out of crisis; a profoundly uplifting exploration of living and loving better.
In the Willows
29 May – 1 Jun 2019
With epic show tunes and killer beats, this classic story is brought popping and locking into the 21st century in an extraordinary new hip-hop musical. Featuring fast bikes, fierce moves and fabulous vocals, and starring the Olivier Award-winning Clive Rowe (Guys & Dolls, Tracy Beaker) as Badger.
Noughts & Crosses
12 – 16 Mar 2019
This gripping Romeo and Juliet story by acclaimed writer Malorie Blackman and adapted by Sabrina Mahfouz is a captivating drama of love, revolution and what it means to grow up in a divided world.
Wise Children
23 Jan – 16 Feb 2019
A big, bawdy tangle of theatrical joy and heartbreak, Wise Children is a celebration of show business, family, forgiveness and hope. Expect show girls and Shakespeare, sex and scandal, music, mischief and mistaken identity – and butterflies by the thousand.
Birdsong
10–14 Jul 2018
In pre-war France, a young Englishman Stephen Wraysford embarks on a passionate and dangerous affair with the beautiful Isabelle Azaire that turns their world upside down.
A Monster Calls
31 May – 16 Jun 2018
A Monster Calls, the extraordinary and heartbreaking novel by Patrick Ness – now an international bestseller and major motion picture – is brought to the stage for the first time in a powerful new adaptation by visionary director Sally Cookson (Jane Eyre, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty).
A Streetcar Named Desire
17–21 Mar 2018
This bold new revival of Tennessee Williams’ timeless masterpiece is a fiery portrayal of what it means to be an outsider, in a society where we’re all desperate to belong.
The Cherry Orchard
1 Mar – 7 Apr 2018
Full of wild humour and piercing sadness, award-winning playwright Rory Mullarkey’s fresh, funny and honest new translation of Chekhov’s final masterpiece maps a civilised and complacent culture on the brink of collapse.
The Wedding
17–20 Jan 2018
Combining movement, imagery and provocative narratives into Gecko Theatre’s trademark style, The Wedding brings the complexities of human nature into question.
The Little Matchgirl and Other Happier Tales
30 Nov 2017 – 14 Jan 2018
Emma Rice’s “exquisite” (Daily Telegraph) production came to Bristol following its critically acclaimed premiere at Shakespeare’s Globe.
Things I Know To Be True
6–10 Feb 2018
Co-directed by Frantic Assembly’s Tony and Olivier Award-nominated Artistic Director Scott Graham and State Theatre Company’s Artistic Director Geordie Brookman, Things I Know To Be True, featuring Frantic Assembly’s celebrated physicality, is a complex and intense study of the mechanics of a family that is both poetic and brutally frank.
Rita Sue and Bob Too
3–7 Oct 2017
Andrea Dunbar’s semi-autobiographical play, written for the Royal Court Theatre in 1982 when she was just 19, is a vivid portrait of girls caught between brutal childhood and an unpromising future, both hungry for adult adventure.
The Crucible
8 Oct – 7 Nov 2015
Written at the height of the McCarthyist witch-hunts in 1950s America, The Crucible plots the brutal self-destruction of a fragile Puritan community obsessed by the fear of witchcraft. A timeless moral parable, it has a habit of unmasking the fears and hypocrisies of any age in which it is played.
Medusa
7 – 11 Jul 2015
Athens is cursed! King Theseus has only one desire: a son to inherit the throne, but every child born to him perishes after only a few hours. Despair leads Theseus to seek terrifying answers, and a truth which will bring him eye-to-eye with the most hideous creature in the ancient world – Medusa!
A brand new legend inspired by Greek myths perfect for ages 7 years and older and Key Stage 2 and 3.
St Werburgh’s New Curriculum Pilot
1 & 3 July 2014
Aim of the session: To work with a year 4 class for two afternoon sessions, reinforcing the children’s learning around Anglo Saxon village life using theatre techniques.