Summer is in full swing and we’re delighted to invite you to a series of events celebrating stories, place, and community.
Union: A Celebration
Thursday 13 August | 7pm-9pm
Cafe at Department
Tickets free, book your place here
Come along to Department for a celebration of LGBT+ Arts, Heritage, People and Places!
There will be readings from our zine, Union, exploring the hidden LGBTQ+ heritage or Ryde; the launch of our new book, Stories Underfoot, published by Figmentum Press, featuring the scripts and behind-the-scenes insights of our immersive promenade performances; and an exclusive screening of Girls Who Saved the World, and Old Town Hall in Newtown.
Tickets are free but places are limited so we recommend booking quickly. Find out more and book your place here!
Stories Underfoot: Mew in Newport
Saturday 12 September | 11am
Meet by Yellowfin Propeller outside Quay Arts
Tickets £10, book here
Join Charlotte Mew, a remarkable poet who is now rarely celebrated, on an immersive walking tour in Newport exploring her life and works.
“Do look out for these wonderful walks – it’s as near as you can get to meeting some of the Island’s literary giants”, Maureen Sullivan, IW Theatre
For more information and to book tickets, click here.
Dates for your diary: The Woman Who Tamed Lightning
16 & 17 October at Ventnor Exchange Arena (Sandown)
27 November at The Barn, Department (Ryde)
The untold story of a trailblazer and a summer of sisterhood, sanctuary and stardust.
In the summer of 1912, fourteen-year-old Irene Curie arrives on the Isle of Wight with her mother (Marie Curie) and Hertha Ayrton, her mother’s strange, brilliant friend. She doesn’t yet know that Hertha has spent her life outsmarting a world that doubted her. She just knows this is the summer everything felt possible. A story of one unforgettable summer and the possibilities that open up when the world finally gives you room to dream.
With StoneCrabs Theatre’s signature visual imagination and physically striking performance style, the show transforms the Island into a world of discovery, friendship and possibility, revealing the extraordinary women behind the science and the summer that gave two trailblazers space to breathe, dream and change the world.
StoneCrabs HAF Drama Summer Group
More info here
The Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme provides support to families whose children are eligible for benefit-related free school meals. As part of this initiative StoneCrabs are excited to deliver three fun summer drama workshops for 8–12 year olds. (www.stonecrabs.co.uk).
LGBTQ+ Meet-up
Saturday 1 August | 10.30am – 12.30pm
Fitting Room at Department, Ryde
On the first Saturday of each month, we meet in the Fitting Room at Department. This is a relaxed social event, welcome to all. There is free tea and coffee available, or you can choose from the delicious selection of cakes and drinks in the cafe. It is an accessible venue, with a lift to the first floor.
LGBTQ+ Meet up – Summer special
Sunday 16 August | 1pm – 3pm
Mottistone Gardens
This month, we also have a special LGBTQ+ meet-up at Mottistone Gardens. There is a range of activities, such as a walk around the garden, a visit to the shack, and a chance to see the renovated room by owners John Seely and Paul Paget in the house. The tea hut serves sandwiches, scones, drinks, and ice cream, or you can bring a picnic along. Dogs are welcome on a lead.
Photo by Christine Matthews, Wikimedia
LGBTQ+ book club
Saturday 29 August | 10.30am – 12.30pm
Toolshed at One Holyrood, Newport
Our regular LGBTQ+ book club meets on the last Saturday of each month. In August, we meet on Saturday 29th. As it is Bank Holiday weekend, this will be a relaxed occasion with no set book but if you want to get ahead, we are reading Leeward and The Devil to Pay by Katie Daysh for September’s pick(s).
News from our friends
Final Queen at Edinburgh Fringe
7-31 August | 9.30pm
Big Belly at Underbelly, Cowgate Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Tickets and more info here
A drag circus horror-comedy. Join Australia’s own circus queen Grace Lightning as she embarks on a road trip through the Outback. Think Priscilla Queen of the Desert meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre under the Big Top! Expect haunted acrobatics, blood soaked hula hooping and a whole lot of hair-raising hilarity, oozing with all your favourite horror tropes on the small stage.
I Was Always Here
29 August (7pm) & 30 August (11am and 2.30pm)
Mayflower, Southampton
Tickets and more info here
Theatre for Life brings their next and biggest project yet, in collaboration with Beyond Reflections. I Was Always Here is an electrifying journey through trans+ histories. From the first trans surgeon, to the green rooms of the 90s club scene, through 1920s speakeasies and gothic literature, we celebrate the lives of trans+ people that history so often forgets.