A unique series of events gets underway in Leeds this week, as Leeds Heritage Theatres celebrate The Stories We Tell: a new season platforming the experiences of individuals.
Inspired by Louisa May Alcott weaving her own story into Little Women - coming to Leeds Grand Theatre in a beautiful new adaptation by Anne-Marie Casey - this series of work invites audiences to discover fresh perspectives, explore new artistic experiences, and perhaps visit one of the city’s venues for the first time.
With Little Women, Louisa May Alcott wove her own personal story in with that of the beloved March sisters with such heart that almost 160 years later, both artists and audiences alike still flock to it.
To celebrate the importance of personal stories, Leeds Heritage Theatres has brought together this short season of other works in which a range of creatives use music, poetry, theatre and film to bring to life a range of similar stories, celebrating how the work we share can help interpret the most personal of experiences to empower, inform and uplift.
The Stories We Tell is a celebration of work which platforms the individual, whether that be the beautiful everyday world of family, or those pushing at the boundaries of their field.
Leeds-based singer-songwriter Satnam Galsian and comedian Sophie McCartney will both be appearing at City Varieties, films such as A New Kind of Wilderness and Seeking Mavis Beacon are showing at Hyde Park Picture House, and The Maladies, performed by the extremely talented Leeds Actors In Training (LAIT) will be at Seven Arts.
The series gets underway on 26 June, with an evening of music and conversation curated by Leeds-based singer-songwriter Satnam Galsian.
Folk Reimagined will begin with a performance by Zawedde, a singer-songwriter of Ugandan heritage. Satnam will then take to the stage to share a series of her own musical responses to traditional folk songs, exploring and reinterpreting their themes through a contemporary lens.
.jpg)
The first half will conclude with Sahiban – a bold, feminist reinterpretation of Mirza-Sahiban, a tragic love story from the Indian subcontinent. Developed during Satnam’s Opera North Resonance Residency 2024, this moving piece features Satnam alongside John Hogg on guitar and Simon Henry on drums.
Following the interval, Satnam will be joined by Zawedde for a post-show discussion, delving into her creative practice, the role of heritage and identity in her work, and her experience as a woman of colour in the music industry.
The evening concludes with a Q&A session, giving the audience a chance to join the conversation.
June 27 sees Leeds Actors in Training bring TheMaladies to Chapel Allerton. This is a new play by Carmen Nasr, originally devised with the Almeida Theatre Young Company (18-25). This production is directed by Lizi Patch:
‘When a group of women in London mysteriously fall silent, no one can work out why. The team at an all-female podcast decides to investigate.
Their journey to the truth causes them to butt heads with their new corporate sponsors and long-held secrets of past epidemics are revealed. As they dig deeper, the lines between past and present blur, revealing a shocking journey through 500 years of history.’
Daguerréotypes: the extraordinary 1976 documentary film from Agnès Varda, shows at Hyde Park Picture House on 6 July. Blending her photographer’s eye for still portraiture - and with her filmmaker’s gift for finding visual rhymes and resonances between images, Agnes Varda reveals the rich social fabric of an entire world - all without leaving her Paris block.
Spending most of her days at home following the birth of her son but curious as ever about the people and places that surrounded her, Agnès Varda found inspiration for Daguerréotypes just outside her door: on Paris’s rue Daguerre, where she had lived and worked since the 1950s. The director turns her camera on the business owners whose shops are the street’s lifeblood: bakers, tailors, butchers, perfumers, music-store clerks, driving instructors, and others, who, between the everyday rituals of their work, talk of their lives, relationships, and dreams.
On 15 July, Hyde Park Picture House shows E.1027: Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea. E.1027 is a cinematic journey into the mind of Eileen Gray. A story about the power of female expression and men’s desire to control it.
Eileen Gray had a truly eminent sense of design. The Irish artist and architect created some of the most iconic furniture of the 20th century, so when she focused her unique artistic vision on developing a house for herself on the Riviera in 1929, the result was a modernist triumph. A house and a work of art in one, overlooking the sun-sparkled infinity of the Mediterranean. The house is named E.1027, a cryptic contraction of the names of Gray and her lover, Romanian architect Jean Badovici. But when the Swiss-French star architect Le Corbusier learns of the house, he becomes obsessed, perhaps because Gray breathes light, air, and soul into her building, which is not just a machine to live in.
E.1027: Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea reconstructsthe dramatic story of Gray and the house that Le Corbusier amazingly managed to convince the world he had built himself. A stunningly beautiful and cinematic docufiction where the inspiration from Gray is present in lines, colours and shapes.
CEO of Leeds Heritage Theatres, Vicky Cheetham, said:“This has been an exciting opportunity to curate diverse seasons of work across our spaces, bringing together multiple art forms such as film, theatre and music. Our organisation can explore themes from multiple perspectives, sparking new conversations, connections, and experiences for both our audiences and those discovering our spaces for the first time.”
For the latest info and to book tickets for TheStories We Tell events CLICK HERE
Header Image: Satnam Galsian
