Francesca goes into rehearsals for GOLD!
This week Francesca Millican-Slater has officially begun the rehearsal process and development of her new show GOLD! We're really excited to be working with the New Vic Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent to create this piece as part of the Staffordshire Hoard Festival.
The Festival as a whole looks fantastic, and it's brilliant to be involved. I'd advise you to get along and see some of the work if you possibly can. I am particularly looking forward to seeing Caroline Horton and some of the table-top plays, but there's a wealth of exciting new work.
Francesca has been researching this show for many months now, visiting the Hoard, meeting pawn brokers, talking to Goldsmiths, conducting online surveys and more. She's got some exciting material, and really looking forward to sharing it all with audiences in July.
"Early last year, Theresa, saw the beginning of a show of mine and enjoyed my treatment of history so it started a conversation about her plans for The Hoard festival. Before I knew it I was pressed up against protective glass at Birmingham Museum squinting at these shining objects, imagining the fingers that twisted and formed this delicate metal.
I saw Gold: the indestructible, the communication, the magic. What had these pieces been before they were crafted, broken and buried? Melted down from Roman Coins, Aztec Mask, another warrior’s Hoard? And what could this metal have been had it not slept in the ground? The ring on your finger, a molar in your mouth. I wanted to create something that started with The Hoard, it’s wealth for the West Midlands that travels back and forth from old stories, new stories, Staffordshire stories of our own hoards of Gold. Counting up the price of what Gold is really worth. Now, in this country, in this county.
Based in Birmingham, I’m a midlander by choice (not birth) and I’m excited to be getting to know Staffordshire and Stoke further by the people that come to New Vic. I like a sing song, and a bit of eating and drinking as part of my shows, so Gold will be like a modern Anglo-Saxon banquet (but not a full feast, they’ll be no swords, and Spandau Ballet will be our minstrels)."
Francesca Millican-Slater
Book tickets here
