York Theatre Royal are heading to Deer Shed Festival

Our Creative Engagement crew will be joining the Deer Shed Festival team for a day, at the North Yorkshire family festival’s annual schools day. The two organisations will support each other – together with the bridge organisation IVE – as Arts Award centres to deliver this exciting day in the festival calendar.

Deer Shed’s schools day offers kids from northern primary schools the chance to pilot a selection of the festival’s vast programme of arts, science and sport activities, prior to the festival opening to the public on Friday 26^th July. Among these activities will be York Theatre Royal’s acting workshops.

As well as these activities, Leeds-based Manic Chord Theatre will premiere their new Arts Council-funded promenade theatre production, The Unknown. Inspired by classic sci-fi films like E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, the show promises to be an out-of-this-world adventure for the whole family. Audience members will be prompted to download Manic Chord’s Pokémon Go-style alien detection app (created by video game developer Callum Rose), allowing them to locate and interact with the unearthly inhabitants of Baldersby Park’s woodland belt, known as The Wilderwild.

Deer Shed Festival is celebrating its tenth anniversary event this year, with the music line-up featuring Ezra Furman, Anna Calvi, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and The Wedding Present. Comedians on the bill include Nina Conti, Reginald D. Hunter, Milton Jones and Kiri Pritchard-McLean, but the eclectic programme promises something for every member of the family, with theatre, the best family friendly shows from the Fringe, cinema screenings, literary talks, woodland crafts, wellbeing areas and provisions for under 5s all on the menu.

Tickets for Deer Shed Festival 10, taking place the week after the schools day, are nearly sold out, with fewer than 200 adult tickets remaining.

Photo credit: Joe Burke