FESTIVAL AND KING’S THEATRES’ RELAXED PERFORMANCES FOR THE FESTIVE SEASON @edtheatres

FESTIVAL AND KING’S THEATRES’

RELAXED PERFORMANCES FOR THE FESTIVE SEASON

The Festival City Theatres Trust, which runs the Festival and King’s Theatres, once again expands its programme of relaxed performances for audiences of all ages for the 2017/18 festive season.

Ahead of today’s inclusive performance of Scottish Ballet’s The Nutcracker, the Festival City Theatres Trust is delighted to present its fullest ever programme of performances which embrace the relaxed approach, making performances accessible to audiences of all ages with mild to complex support needs.

We have been building our programme of ‘relaxed performances’ for a number of years. The relaxed performance of The Snowman at the Festival Theatre in December 2012 was the first of its kind in Scotland, and helped foster a new approach in making live performance accessible to all. During this festive season, we have two shows in our programme The Tin Soldier from Birds of Paradise and The Attic from children’s theatre company Starcatchers which are designed to be accessible for audiences of all needs at every public performance.

 Our relaxed performances include performances for children from Edinburgh’s special schools, and inclusive performances for audiences of all ages with additional suppport needs:

 Inclusive Performance of Scottish Ballet’s The Nutcracker at the Festival Theatre, Thursday 14 December, 2.30pm (Relaxed and Dementia Friendly Performance)

• Relaxed Performance of The Tin Soldier in The Studio, Sat 16 Dec, 2pm (the whole run of The Tin Soldier from accessible arts company Birds of Paradise is relaxed in nature)
• Relaxed Performance of the King’s panto, Cinderella, Fri 12 Jan, 2pm
• Schools Relaxed Performance of King’s panto, Cinderella,Thu 18 Jan, 10.30am
• Every public performance in the run of Starcatcher’s The Attic in The Studio (6-21 Jan) is ‘relaxed’ with 5 additional performances for Edinburgh Special schools and an additional Dementia Friendly performance on Fri 19 Jan at 1.30pm.

The Festival and King’s Theatres are committed to ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy theatre in a supportive environment.

Our relaxed performances are made possible with generous support from our sponsors and funders. Our thanks and appreciation to Rowan Glen, Arts & Business Culture & Business Fun Scotland, Radio Forth’s Cash for Kids and Walter Scott.

 To overcome physical barriers to attending the theatres we run more access performances for audiences with sensory impairments throughout the year than any other theatre in Scotland including Captioned, British Sign Language Interpreted and Audio-Described performances. We arrange Touch Tours where visually-impaired patrons can explore the set and feel props and costumes, as well as providing braille, large-print and audio versions of our brochure.

 Our programme of relaxed performances – specifically tailored to people with additional needs who would otherwise not be able to access theatre – gets bigger every year.  In addition to the activity we programme for our festive shows, we now have inclusive performances throughout the year on a wide variety of performances for audiences of all ages.

Call for tickets on 0131 529 6000 or visit edtheatres.com