“It’s a massive achievement,” Creation Theatre’s artistic director and CEO Helen Eastman tells us while discussing their 30th anniversary and all the events we can look forward to. “Creation has been producing theatre for 30 years, can you believe it, regular as clockwork, through heat waves, snow storms and Covid, and our audiences keep coming back.
‘We really feel that we have found our space in the Oxford community, so our 30th anniversary feels very celebratory and exciting’
“Which means that our aim to create cross-generational theatre experiences that brings the community together is working and we are on the right track. So our anniversary is a big deal for us and we aim to ensure that we can continue to thrive for the next 30 years.”
Which is why Creation has spent years planning their 30th anniversary to ensure a packed programme of events, plays and experiences , alongside its 30 for 30 fundraising campaign.
“Creation is in a great place to see in our 30th anniversary,” Helen explains. “We had a great summer and Christmas and our online season has been watched globally which has really helped us turn a corner. So we are on an even keel. Things are really good here. So we are really excited about our 30th celebrations.”
So what’s in store? First up is the current ‘30 for 30 – Creation Theatre’s 30th Birthday Fundraiser‘ being held alongside a silent auction https://aucly.co.uk/auctions/creationtheatre/creationauction offering some incredible prizes from VIP holidays to Creation’s Hall of Fame costumes, memorabilia and original artwork, to ensure Creation’s future and increase bursary places for children in its education programme. https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/creation30
The fun then kicks off with The Bard’s Birthday Party on April 23 featuring Shakespeare’s poems and songs, excerpts from his plays, party games, fizz and cake, a Shakespeare themed tombola, sonnet bingo and a Bard Baking Competition where you can bring your own Shakespeare themed cakes. Summertown United Reformed Church, Banbury Road, Summertown, OX2 7ED. BOOK HERE
An exciting new production of Jekyll and Hyde then opens at OVADA Gallery in Oxford from April 29 – May 17, complete with a degenerate cocktail bar and signature cocktails. Helen says: “Ovada is the perfect setting for Jekyll and Hyde and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Gothic masterpiece will align so brilliantly with the space.”
This new production draws audiences deep into Victorian London; its lamplit streets, locked laboratories, and the dark corners of the human soul, where scientist Dr Henry Jekyll will unleash something monstrous — a second self with an appetite for violence and freedom. BOOK HERE
In terms of the summer season, Creation is pulling out all the stops with a double bill of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, back by public demand, which it will alternate with a new production of Twelfth Night.
So why restage 2025’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream? READ OUR REVIEW HERE “At the end of our run at Wolfson College last summer every performance was sold out with long waiting lists, even though we kept adding rows of chairs, and so many people asked us to bring it back, that we have. We want everyone to be able to see it,” Helen explains. BOOK HERE
“As for Twelfth Night, we haven’t done it before and suddenly realised it’s one of our favourite Shakespeare plays, so we want to make it a really joyful, playful, music filled, ensemble production for all ages, with lots of fun, dressing up and maybe some cricket. It feels like the right choice for our monumental summer programme,” Helen adds.
In the autumn Creation is working with the new Schwarzman Centre on a script-in-hand performance of the comedy Wives as They Were with Orange Tree Theatre on October 24. Written in the 1790s, Elizabeth Inchbald’s characters navigate love, marriage, and independence in a world that insists on defining them in this witty, subversive, and strikingly modern Restoration play. BOOK HERE
Just as exciting is Creation’s immersive collaboration with Erica Whyman and the Schwarzman Centre (working title ‘Things Unknown’) which will tell an alternative history of Oxford, its radicals and revolutionaries, as the audience travels by bus between Blackbird Leys and the city centre as part of the Blackbird Leys Festival in July.
Erica Whyman of course directed Hamnet on Broadway, and is the acting director of the RSC, having conceived this show with Creation for the Blackbird Leys Festival, so a big feather in Creation’s cap.
Come Christmas, you can expect the usual high octane show, which is yet to be announced, but is always a highlight of the festive season.
So quite the year then? “Yes, it’s been really inspiring. We’ve been collecting people’s Creation memories from the past 30 years and the thing that’s really struck me is that they are full of exciting experiences, strong recollections and feelings. We really feel that we have found our space in the Oxford community, so our 30th anniversary feels very celebratory and exciting.
“We have made it this far, and we want to continue to produce really high quality work for our audiences. So we hope people will help us by donating to our 30 for 30 campaign.” https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/creation30
For more info go to https://creationtheatre.co.uk
