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Pitlochry Festival Theatre artistic director reveals her 2024 highlights – including Footloose!

From Footloose to Carole King and Nan Shepherd, Pitlochry Festival Theatre artistic director Elizabeth Newman can't wait to get the new theatre season started.

Pitlochry Festival Theatre artistic director Elizabeth Newman. Image: Pitlochry Festival Theatre
Pitlochry Festival Theatre artistic director Elizabeth Newman. Image: Pitlochry Festival Theatre

“A time to mourn… and there is a time to dance… See, this is our time to dance. It is our way of celebrating life.”

These words, famously spoken by Kevin Bacon in the 1984 film of Footloose, sit at the very heart of Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s 2024 summer season.

And the theatre’s artistic director Elizabeth Newman can’t wait for the new season to get underway.

Running from May 31 until September 26, the main auditorium season opens in style with a stage revival by Pitlochry Festival Theatre and New Wolsey Theatre of Footloose, the much-loved musical sensation celebrating youth, love and life, based on the iconic 1984 Oscar nominated film.

The production will then transfer to the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, in October.

“We open with Footloose which is going brilliantly in rehearsals,” said Elizabeth in an interview with The Courier.

“It’s got everything you would hope for. Amazing music, amazing dancing. Everything that the film offers and more which is great.”

Nan Shepherd and Carole King amongst other Pitlochry Festival Theatre highlights

Elizabeth explained that the studio season launches on May 24 with the premiere of the theatre’s co-production with Scotland’s Firebrand Theatre Company of Nan Shepherd: Naked and Unashamed (May 24 to July 6).

This entertaining and moving new play reveals how the iconic Scottish author, teacher, hillwalker and nature lover helped shape Scotland’s recent literary history, and the mystery of why her masterpiece, The Living Mountain, lay forgotten in a drawer for over 30 years.

“We originally trialled it at our Winter Words Festival last year and the audience absolutely loved it,” said Elizabeth.

Irene Randall and David Rankine in rehearsals for Nan Shepherd: Naked and Unashamed at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Image: Erin Mullins

“I just think that Nan Shepherd is such an important person to so many people for so many different reasons. I think audiences are going to be really transfixed by it, which is great.”

In early June, the theatre then stages the second of its exciting line-up of musicals when it stages a new production of the award-winning West End and Broadway musical Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (June 7 to September 28).

It tells the inspiring true story of King’s remarkable rise from being part of a hit song-writing team with her husband Gerry Goffin, to her relationship with fellow writers and best friends Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, to ultimately becoming one of the most successful solo acts in popular music history.

The cast of Sense and Sensibility in rehearsal at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Image: Fraser Band

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical features all her best-loved songs including You’ve Got a Friend, One Fine Day and Natural Woman.

Later in June, the main auditorium sees the theatre team up with OVO to stage the world première of Sense and Sensibility (June 21 to September 27).

Frances Poet’s new stage adaptation is based on Jane Austen’s iconic and witty novel of secrets and suppression, lies and seduction, which portrays a world where rigid social convention clashes with the impulses of the heart.

Sense and Sensibility will transfer to the Roman Theatre of St Albans in July and August.

What are other highlights of the Pitlochry Festival Theatre 2024 programme?

Other highlights then include the main auditorium staging the return of the theatre’s award-winning production of its 2022 revival of the much-loved comedy Shirley Valentine (July 4 to September 28) – Willy Russell’s heart-warming story about a middle-aged, working-class Liverpool housewife whose life is transformed after a holiday in Greece.

The production will feature Sally Reid, who will reprise her acclaimed role as Shirley (winner of the Outstanding Performance Award at the 2023 Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland).

Footloose rehearsals at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Image: Alicia Walker

In August, the theatre’s studio space will also host the world première of Harry Mould’s debut play The Brenda Line (August 15 to September 18).

Inspired by real-life events in Mould’s mother’s teenage life, as well as the lesser-known history of the Samaritans in the 1970s and 80s, The Brenda Line is a story about women, love and listening.

The 2024 season will also see two productions in the venue’s picturesque amphitheatre, nestled within its Explorers Garden and in the shadow of Ben-y-Vrackie, with the return of Elizabeth Newman’s sold-out adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s much-loved classic tale The Secret Garden (July 12 to August 22).

Pitlochry Festival Theatre artistic director Elizabeth Newman. Image: Pitlochry Festival Theatre

The theatre will unite with the Scots Opera Project to produce a Gaelic and Scots language version of Purcell’s baroque masterpiece tale of doomed love, Dido and Aeneas (August 31 to September 15), performed by a cast of professional opera singers and the powerful voices of a community company.

Keeping audiences and the Pitlochry Festival Theatre ensemble in mind

“I guess I’m really thinking about audiences all the time when programming,” said Elizabeth when asked how she’s approached programming during her six years at Pitlochry.

“We’re really keen to engage with as many different people as possible.

“It’s really important to us that people can come to Pitlochry to see lots of different things.

“That’s always the starting point. What do we think the audience might enjoy.

“Who could we work with to make it? Whether it be artists and/or organisations.

The Pitlochry Festival Theatre ensemble 2024. Image: Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

“And that’s the starting point. We know we want a musical, we know we want plays.

“Sometimes, like with Shirley Valentine, we are even looking at things that might deserve a further life to be shared with even more people.

“It’s just thinking about what people like and enjoy and beginning to piece it together.

“Obviously because we’ve got an ensemble it’s got to work for a certain number of people.

“So it’s a really lovely process thinking about what an audience would enjoy coming to Pitlochry.”

For further information about the Pitlochry Festival Theatre 2024 programme, go to pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com

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