The goal was to start with northern premieres, plays that had been seen all across the world – London, New York, Belfast, South Africa etc – which had never been done in the north east or north west. Since then we have been able to break new ground with hugely popular productions of classics and new plays of our own.
All our shows would focus on great writing, poetic but gritty, emotional but real, with real focus on fantastic acting and big themes. We would develop creative relationships across the north, with a special focus on the north east, build an ensemble of actors who be at the core of our productions,
We started in 2017 with the Durham and Manchester premiere of Owen MacCafferty’s adaptation of J P Miller’s ‘Days Of Wine And Roses’. Starting at the Assembly Rooms, Durham, it transferred to 53two in Manchester. It got rave reviews in both cities, put us on the map and saw Danny Solomon nominated for Best Fringe Performance at the Manchester Theatre Awards.
We followed that with the northern premiere of American playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis’s powerful metaphysical prison drama ‘Jesus Hopped The A Train’. The first time this hard-hitting play had been seen outside London, this played at the Assembly Rooms, Durham before transferring to HOME, Manchester. Once again it got rave reviews in both cities.
Since then we have done a double bill of Samuel Beckett plays, ‘Footfalls’ and ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’ as part of the Durham Festival of Arts at the Assembly Rooms, and the north east premiere of Jez Butterworth’s ‘The River’, this time at the City Theatre, Durham and the studio space at Queen’s Hall, Hexham, where we sold out.
The following year we produced a Northumberland-set adaptation of August Strindberg’s ‘Miss Julie’, which reunited Alice Frankham and Danny Solomon in the leads. This started at Queen’s Hall, Hexham, who were our co-producers, and went on to play at the Gala, Durham, the Exchange, North Shields and the Majestic in Darlington, before a week’s run at Hope Mill in Manchester. We swept the board with fine reviews and won Best New Revival In The North East in the British Theatre Guide.
We finished 2019 with a north eastern premiere of Playland, Athol Fugard’s brilliant, intense drama of the end of Apartheid. This played all across the North East and in Manchester and got the best reviews and audience reaction we have had for any of our shows.
2020 saw Covid-19 hit. We moved online with a series of playreadings and workshops and, most excitingly of all, the Covid-19 Monologues, fifteen new one-person plays by new writers… Our first five we won an Olwen Wymark Award from the Writers Guild of Great Britain, and since then they have been seen all over the world. One, The Moth, has been selected for nearly 30 international film festivals, and in 2023 won Best Monologue at the Kwanzaa Film Festival in Harlem, New York. In addition to all this, we also live streamed a full scale production of Fugard’s powerful drama of poor white South Africans Hello And Goodbye.
In 2022 we relaunched ourselves onto stages with two sell-out tours: A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen and Reiver – Tales From The Borders by Steve Byron. Reiver was the first of three adaptations of the Covid-19 Monologues we plan to bring to the stage over the next few years.
Right now we are touring our third Fugard, The Island, written in collaboration with legendary South African actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona. This 50th Anniversary production will play at 15 northern venues…
Its been quite a time since our humble beginnings in 2017. Onwards to the future and our post-Covid world!
Come join the adventure….
A fine production of an important and powerful piece of theatre.
With Miss Julie, Elysium Theatre shows they are just as capable at staging the classics are they are with contemporary plays.
A riveting piece of theatre… you could hear the proverbial pin drop as the lights go down, so rapt is the audience’s focus.
Exhilarating and highly accomplished
A force to reckon with
Mesmerising… another excellent production
Riveting… A truly poignant and artful piece of theatre, one which I would highly recommend.
**** ”A pair of staggeringly good performances… Solomon and Frankham make Donal and Mona so convincingly human and vulnerable… director Jake Murray catches the giddy sense of time and place superbly, with gorgeous black and white photographs lining the stage and an excellent choice in period music… a very powerful play with excellent performances.
This is the sort of Theatre I love to see. It’s well written, well performed and well directed.
A pulsating drama by a promising new playwright which goes to the heart of the big questions about morality, life, hope and redemption in the darkest of settings.
There is excellent chemistry between Solomon and Frankham right from the start, and in this well-paced piece, Murray takes us on this very intimate journey with skill. Starting in romantic comedy mode, the downward spiral to tragedy and despair is really quite compelling.
A lively interpretation of a play that hasn’t been seen in the region before with some interesting things to say and Solomon gives another impressive performance after his Manchester Theatre Awards nomination for Elysium’s inaugural production last year.
Exceptional direction from Jake Murray brings the best out of the actors. They deliver sublime performances that perfectly render the realism that Strindberg’s play yearns for.
“Congratulations to the Elysium Theatre Company”
A real theatrical treat.
Playland is a play that everyone should see, and Elysium’s production has done the story justice.
Provocative, funny, and captivating.
Elysium Theatre Company have once again shown what high calibre work they can produce… sound direction from Jake Murray and powerful performances from both male leads ensure that this is a great piece of theatre.
The acting here is excellent. The play runs for two hours with no frills to distract the audience, and all parts demand a lot from their respective performers, but every member of the cast delivers the goods. Alastair Gillies makes a skin-crawling Valdez and Danny Solomon presents Angel Cruz as one of the most well realised, three-dimensional characters I have ever seen on a stage.
“Great writing, great acting and great directing… totally floors you.”
Gripping from beginning to end. Another excellent production from Elysium.
Incredibly performed… beautifully directed.
Incredibly exciting.. high quality drama.
The uniform excellence of the performances… A strong production… Intimate and faithful.
Best Revival In The North East Winner 2019
Faz Singhateh heads up a powerful opening before taking a stoic backseat to Danny Solomon’s colourful, boisterous lead. The pair balance each other beautifully… Don’t miss out on this intelligent and honest production.
Great writing, great acting and great directing… totally floors you.
A challenging, hard-hitting, but rewarding production, with a strong message about addiction and love. Definitely one to watch.
“Varied and compelling”
This is an opening production for the Elysium Theatre Company and they have chosen to open with a premiere for the region. Their plans are to present new writing in the region and they are to be commended on this. I, for one, look forward to their next production… This is well acted and gritty tale that deserves a big audience.
Over the past few years, Elysium Theatre Company have become a force to be reckoned with. They are on the forefront of making high quality theatre for northern audiences. Having previously staged critically acclaimed productions of ‘Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train’ and ‘Miss Julie’, Elysium have built a reputation for producing complex plays that are profound, provocative and deliberately uncomfortable to watch. ‘Playland’ is no different.
***** A big play – and played in the HOME studio space has an intimacy that makes it even more affecting, as we literally look into the eyes of a killer. The set, dominated by a huge stars and stripes backdrop, is bold enough to make a big statement, yet unfussy enough to leave the impact to the extraordinary script and flawless performances.
Varied and compelling
Stays with you after the curtain comes down, teasing away at both brain and emotions.
It is incredibly exciting to see a local theatre company put on such a challenging play with such grace and modesty… The net effect is high-quality drama minutes away from Durham market place that breaks new ground in community engagement.
**** An excellent piece of writing…. Brilliant performances…. Pushes the audience through the emotional barriers surrounding violent crime to instead rouse a much deeper contemplation of the forces that shaped the actions in the first place.
Congratulations to the Elysium Theatre Company
A powerful, immersive and poignant production: excellent theatre!
Both actors immerse themselves in their roles… Compelling from start to finish.
A well acted and gritty tale that deserves a big audience… I, for one, look forward to their next production.
**** “Casting Alice Frankham and Danny Solomon is not Jake Murray’s only success in this production, but clearly the one on which all others hang. This is the key to this production’s success: there is chemistry between these two. We follow their story not as two hopeless drunks, but as two brutally afflicted lovers. We believe in them and warm to them as a couple… Come awards season, if all three names do not feature on this year’s list of nominations, Manchester theatre will have had a very blessed year, indeed.
Incredibly performed by Alice Frankham and Danny Solomon… I found myself frequently forgetting I was watching a play, rather it felt like witnessing someone’s life unfold… Beautifully directed by Jake Murray… This performance captivated, surprised, and impressed me.
Elysium TC is a new, northern-based theatre company, and Jesus Hopped the A Train is only its second production – the first being Days of Wine and Roses, which was nominated for a Manchester Theatre Award. Its mission is ‘to bring the best of world theatre to the North.’ This is obviously a worthy ambition – and, judging by this exhilarating and highly accomplished production, Elysium is well on the way to achieving it.
At the forefront of making high quality theatre for northern audiences
Having seen Elysium Theatre Company’s Manchester debut last year with ‘Days Of Wine And Roses’ at 53Two, I was delighted to be able to see their latest production playing at HOME until Saturday. Based in Durham, this company produce contemporary plays rarely if ever seen outside of London, and, even after only 2 productions, are already a force to reckon with.
to bring the best of world theatre to the north
to create an ensemble of actors, artistes, technicians and other practitioners from which our work will emerge.
to find and commission emerging playwrights to write new work for Elysium’s ensemble.
to stage a mixture of new and contemporary plays, all of which will be a northern premiere of some kind, thus bringing cutting edge writing to new audiences.
to present dynamic productions of modern and ancient classics in a way that appeals to Northern communities.
to give voice to as wide a range of our modern society as possible – male, female, young, children, old, LBGT and BAME.
Jake is an award-winning theatre director of 30 years experience. He has worked all across the country from the London and Edinburgh fringes to the Chichester Festival Theatre, the Nottingham Playhouse, the Salisbury Playhouse, the Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich and London’s West End. From 2001 to 2008 he was at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, before leaving to go freelance. Notable productions include premieres of ‘Wolfboy’ by Brad Fraser, ‘Sitting Pretty’ by Amy Rosenthal, ‘The Sanctuary Lamp’ by Tom Murphy, ‘A Conversation’ by David Williamson and ‘Shoot The Crow’ and ‘Days Of Wine And Roses’ by Owen McCafferty and ‘Haddock And Chips’ by Janet Plater. . His record-making production of ‘Romeo And Juliet’ at the Royal Exchange starred Andrew Garfield and Gugu-Mbatha Raw and his production of ‘A Whistle In The Dark’ by Tom Murphy transferred to the Tricycle in London
A founder member of Elysium he has directed all of its productions, including ‘Days Of Wine And Roses’, ‘Jesus Hopped The A Train’, ‘Two By Beckett’, ‘The River’, ‘Miss Julie’, ‘Playland’, ‘Hello And Goodbye’, ‘A Doll’s House’, ‘Reiver – Tales From The Borders’ and ‘The Island’, as well as 14 of the 15 Covid-19 Monologues.
Danny trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts before leaving in 2011. Founder member of Elysium TC. Danny worked extensively in London in productions such as Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’, ‘The Spanish Tragedy’ by William Kyd, The Man Who by Peter Brook, ‘The Rivals’ by Sheridan and Consolation an original production by Mick Wood for which Danny was nominated for an ‘Offie’.
He moved to Manchester in 2015. After co-founding Elysium with Jake and Hannah he has played lead roles in eight of its ten productions: Donal Mackin in Elysium’s ‘Days of Wine & Roses’ (for which Danny was nominated for a Manchester Theatre Award) Angel Cruz in ‘Jesus Hopped the A Train’, the Man in ‘The River’, John in ‘Miss Julie’, Gideon Le Roux in ‘Playland’, Johnnie Smit in ‘Hello And Goodbye’ and Torvald Helmer in ‘A Doll’s House’.
Hannah Ellis Ryan is a Manchester-based actor and producer, originally from Australia. She co-founded Play With Fire Productions, who have staged two productions a year, focusing on giving voices to the invisible, telling great stories and daring greatly. She is the proud Theatre Manager at Hope Mill Theatre in Ancoats and co-founder of community group Manchester ADP.
Hannah is so proud to work with Elysium Theatre Company as both a producer, writer & actor. Acting credits include: ‘Sans Merci’ (Hope Mill Theatre), ‘Women of the World’ (Rochdale Literature Festival), Mercutio in Girl Gang Manchester’s all-female production of ‘Romeo & Juliet’, Roberta in ‘Danny And The Deep Blue Sea’ (Play With Fire) and portraying villain Hannah Gilmore in ITV’s ‘Coronation Street’.
For Elysium she has played the Woman in ‘The River’, Hester Smit in ‘Hello And Goodbye’ and Nora in ‘A Doll’s House’. She also wrote Covid-19 Monologue ‘Oh By The Way, I Hate Myself’.