Meaning in the Void
Leeds Arts Centre’s main focus is our shows. We’ve been putting on roughly four productions a year for more than 75 years, and they’re grand affairs that take months of planning, development and rehearsal. We do not rush into things. So when the opportunity came to work with Planetarium Go UK, we found ourselves doing something rather different.
What was proposed in mid-July as a one-off performance quickly became a full programme, pulled together over the following weeks and rehearsed throughout August. MEANING IN THE VOID has been a true artistic sprint for us, and we’ve never been more proud of a project.
Planetarium Go UK approached us with the idea of bringing local theatre into their pop-up planetarium in Millennium Square. One show became six unique pieces of theatre, and one performance became 20 across four nights. Four writers, four directors, more than twenty actors and two very tired producers have pulled together a programme of poetry, prose, short plays and an adapted excerpt from Orwell’s 1984. At its heart, the project is about giving people in Leeds the chance to experience work made by local artists, at a price that makes theatre accessible. At £2 a show, it was an opportunity we simply couldn’t turn down.
And then there’s the planetarium itself. Theatre under a projected night sky feels different.
Across the programme, you’ll meet friends reconnecting beneath the stars, follow a lone Space Man as he careens helplessly into the far reaches of space, and watch ancient mythology collide with modern poetry. You’ll descend into a chaotic mind at war with itself, see two androids encounter a terrifying secret at the edge of the universe, and step into the dark dystopia of 1984 — all beneath the ever-changing skies created by the Planetarium Go UK team. It gives these very different pieces a strange and beautiful connection: whether we’re looking at the stars through myth, science fiction, poetry or dystopia, we’re all asking variations of the same question…what does it mean to be human in a universe this vast?
A project like this doesn’t happen by itself. The work of our members has been made possible by a remarkable network of Leeds artists, venues and organisations. Thank you to Leeds poets Nobody Important, Matt Haines, Rosie MacDonald and The High Poetess for lending their voices; to the Fox and Newt, Crowd of Favours and Slung Low for giving us spaces to rehearse and prepare; and to the team at Carriageworks, our usual staging ground, for helping us spread the word. Most of all, we’re excited to bring this slightly mad experiment to Millennium Square and invite people to experience what Leeds theatre can do when you give it a little bit of space — and an entire universe to play with.
MEANING IN THE VOID plays at the Planetarium in Millennium Square on 8, 10, 12 and 13 September.
Tickets are just £2 per show, with discounts available for whole nights find yours here.