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Entitled
Quarantine
PO Box 573
Manchester
England
M32 2BZ

Quarantine was established in 1998 by directors Richard Gregory and Renny O’Shea with designer Simon Banham. We make original theatre, performance and public events with and about the people who are in it. Whatever form it takes, our work begins and ends with the people in the room. for nearly 25 years, we've collaborated with a shifting constellation of artists, performers and people who've never done anything like this before. Our work seeks to create the circumstances for a conversation between strangers...

Entitled

 

 

In some sense, Entitled is a performance that never happens. It’s like watching the technical rehearsal for a show that doesn’t exist.  It takes the form of a get-in and a get-out: the usually hidden choreography of transforming a theatre from an empty space into a stage for a show – and back again.

How we made Entitled

Greg Akehurst, Chris Whitwood and Lisa Mattocks are theatre technicians. Usually they’re invisible. Usually that’s fine.

John Kilroy gave up dancing 12 years ago, when he was 29. Now he concentrates on playing guitar.  Joanne Fong has been dancing for 35 years. She and John met at the Rambert School when they were teenagers.  Since the late 1980’s, Fiona Wright has danced mostly alone, but more and more she wants to work with others….

Sonia Hughes is a writer – she’s worked with Quarantine on Grace, Susan & Darren, Old People, children & animals and Make-believe. For Entitled, Sonia Hughes is also a dancer.

Entitled is about the people who are in it.  Each of them has their own story to tell. 

Three theatre technicians take centre stage and lead us into their world of making a show.  We watch them do and talk about their job.  As microphones are checked and the starcloth is raised, the performers step outside their rehearsal and tell us what’s really going on…

Entitled is fragile and funny and intimately moving.  Like all of Quarantine’s work, it changes every night – real life doesn’t stop when the performance starts. We haven’t made anything that’s elicited such polarised reactions from critics and audiences.  People have had arguments.  The reviewer for Total Theatre magazine said it was “like marmite”.  She hated it.

This was Quarantine’s second collaboration with philosopher Dr Michael Brady.  Entitled explores hope, privilege and disappointment – and the things we do to try to make our life complete.  It ends before it even gets started.

 

“There’s something special going on here as Quarantine tries to reach into areas of the theatrical experience other companies ignore…”  The Times

“What Richard Gregory and his company do is show that mankind is constantly reaching for something beyond its power.”  NRC Handelsblad, Netherlands Daily

“Hugely audacious.”  The Stage 

 

Recent touring 

Festival de Otoño en Primavera, Madrid;  Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht;  LICA, Lancaster;  Curve, Leicester;  Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth; Sadler’s Wells, London;  LPAC, Lincoln; ICIA, Bath;  Northern Stage, Newcastle;  Summerhall, Edinburgh;  Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival, Groningen; Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. 

Resources Available

“It hums with quiet honesty, unflashy reveals, tender regrets and risk-taking.” Lyn Gardner, The Guardian

Credits and performance details

Performers: Greg Akehurst, Joanne Fong, Sonia Hughes, John Kilroy, Lisa Mattocks, Chris Whitwood, Fiona Wright

Director Richard Gregory; designer Simon Banham; writer Sonia Hughes; choreographer Jane Mason; original music John Kilroy; lighting designer Mike Brookes; dramaturg Swen Steinhauser; philosopher Micheal Brady; assistant director Jose Miguel Jimenez

Production manager Greg Akehurst; lighting technician Chris Whitwood; stage manager Lisa Mattocks.

Production details

Commissioned by the Royal Exchange Theatre, Sadler’s Wells and Curve Theatre, Leicester.

Entitled is a co-production between Quarantine and the Royal Exchange Theatre. Further development by Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival and The Grand Theatre, Groningen. 

Entitled is available for UK and international touring. Please contact Ali Dunican on [email protected] for further information. Video documentation is available on request.

Notebook