International students acting-up in Sheffield

If you see lots of earnest looking floppy-haired students dressed in black emoting round Sheffield next week its because from 22 June Sheffield Theatres becomes home to the first ever International Student Drama Festival. While the National Student Drama Festival (NSDF) has been a stalwart of the theatrical calendar for some years, this year it goes global to celebrate the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

Co-produced by NSDF and Sheffield Theatres, in association with the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, this nine-day festival brings together the brightest and best new theatre-makers from across the world to perform a range of live theatre, workshops and late night entertainment.  Ten international student shows, from countries as far afield as Iran, Zimbabwe, Georgia, Japan and America, will join ten ground-breaking UK student shows selected by the ISDF team in this celebration of worldwide student theatre.

Amongst this smorgasbord of international delights is an unpublished Howard Barker play, Five Names, performed by Pot of Thieves, Aberystwyth University, a tale of family rivalry Fatherly performed by students from Iran, a verbatim piece called The Gaza Monologues and Tainai from Japan which confronts the country’s defeat in the war.

Judging the student productions are local award-winning playwright, John Godber,  award-winning American actor Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler in the West Wing) and Malaysian actress, writer and director Rani Moorthy (Handful of Henna, Children’s Theatre Festival), chaired by writer, Professor and NSDF Board member, Robert Hewison.

Alongside the shows will be 200 cutting-edge workshops and discussions from world leading theatre companies, drama schools and technicians exploring topics from acting, writing, devising and directing to design, lighting, sound, costume, puppetry, choreography, and stage fighting.  Companies leading the workshops include the LAMDA, Menier Chocolate Factory, Old Vic Tunnels, Royal Shakespeare Company, The Sunday Times and locally-based companies Slung Low and Forced Entertainment.

The full festival runs for 9 days and there are 9, 6 3 and  1 day tickets available which entitles you to see all the shows and workshops on those days. For more information and to book visit: http://www.nsdf.org.uk/.

Single event tickets are available for just £5.00 and can be purchased from Sheffield Theatres’ Box Office in-person, by phone on 0114 249 6000 or online at sheffieldtheatres.co.uk.