Red Ladder Theatre Company in collaboration with Theatre Royal Wakefield & CAPA College present

Sanctuary

Thu 31 Oct, 2024 Archive
Traditionally, churches across the world have offered sanctuary to those seeking safety from persecution. But how do we react when that ideal becomes a reality?

When Alland, a young Iranian man, begs to be given sanctuary at St Mary’s church in a northern town, it sparks a community to react in all the ways each member believes to be right. Molly, a young worker there, joins forces with vicar Fiona to resist both the angry vigilantes and the hard-hearted authorities beyond the church walls to try to protect Alland.

Holding a special community service where voices on all sides sing their songs of redemption and condemnation, Fiona asks the question to everyone present: do we give Alland over to the State or live up to our well-versed ideals of compassion?

Sanctuary is a brand-new musical that welcomes us in and asks the question: do we want safety and freedom for only ourselves, or for us all? A vital story of one man’s hopes for help and support in a time when not all strangers are welcomed.

With a chorus drawn from students at Wakefield’s CAPA College, Boff Whalley (‘We’re Not Going Back‘) and Sarah Woods’ musical mixes hard-hitting ideas with memorable melodic tunes and harmonies.

Come on in – the Service is about to begin…

Kindly supported by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

All performances will be captioned via The Difference Engine, a tool that enables d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people to read performance captions on their phone.

Venue

Main House

Overview

Time: 7:30pm
Performance duration: 2 hours (including interval)
Age guidance: 13+

Trailer

Sanctuary Trailer

Cast

Molly

Ingrid Bolton-Gabrielsen

Fiona

Emily Chatten

Peter

Richard Kay

Alland

Aein Nasseri

Uzma

Ravneet Sehra

Creatives

Director

Cheryl Martin

Pre-show Scratch

Join us for an inspiring evening as part of a series of events organised by DT Communities!

The evening’s scratch performers are members of DRS (Derbyshire Refugee Solidarity) Music Group. — Ashti (meaning ‘peace’ in Kurdish and Farsi) is a band formed in 2023 by Carol Fieldhouse, Dlivan Salih and Mohammadreza Behjat. They sing songs in Arabic, Farsi and original English songs by Carol arranged together for Santoor, Drum, Keyboard and Guitar. Their music has been described as atmospheric, soothing, rhythmic and moving. The different instruments and musical traditions of Farsi, Kurdish, Arabic and English sit together comfortably because of the nature of the instruments and voices. This year they have performed at Coach house Studios, Wirksworth with poet Seni Seneviratne, Departure Lounge, Derby Theatre Tender scratch, Refugee Week at the Museum of Making and more.
The band will start at 18.30 in the upper foyer and are also playing during the interval as well.