The programme of events for our first ever Ripon Theatre Festival is launched on 15 April.
Tickets for all main events will be on sale by 11am and the outline for Festival Saturday will be revealed.
Children and families will be spoilt for choice with a mixture of free and ticketed events for all ages. Story Craft and Hoglets Theatre take over Ripon Library on two afternoons and puppetry and family theatre feature on Festival Saturday with back-to-back entertainment both indoors and outdoors across the city. Internationally respected Lempen Puppet Theatre take part in an entire day of indoor and outdoor shows and workshops. Badapple and Strange Twig Theatre Companies will be in residence in Ripon Spa Gardens and there’s Punch and Judy puppet shows throughout the day plus an interactive Musical Bear Hunt from Musicality Kids to kick off the proceedings.
Drama highlights include a visit from renowned radical theatre company Red Ladder with their production of The Damned United. Open-air theatre specialists Illyria come to Fountains Abbey with their production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Arts Hub will play host to visits from two North Yorkshire-based touring companies, Fell-Foss Theatre and Pyramus & Thisbe Productions.
Watch out for street theatre and “walkabout” acts, helping create a festival vibe throughout Festival Saturday. Alongside unicyclists and stilt-walkers, you are bound to bump into some crazy characters and surprising sights such as medieval dragons, dry-land mermaids and some silly men hidden in gigantic flower-pots. All this will be complemented by local community groups and musicians performing around the city streets and linking the three main Festival zones of Market Place, Spa Gardens and the Ripon Canal Basin.
Sunday events include pop-up dance theatre to be performed in two café locations and the culmination of a Jubilee-themed living history project at the Ripon Workhouse Museum, before the Festival Finale at Fountains Abbey. And if that weren’t enough, there’s pop-up indoor drama, storytelling and illustrated talk events at the Curzon Cinema, The Little Ripon Bookshop and Ripon Library, a puppet-led family Trail Game around the city centre and a community Revue of sketches and music from local writers and musicians.
Ripon Theatre Festival runs from 23-26 June 2022
