|
Brighton Open Air Theatre, also known as B•O•A•T, is a new British theatre built in Dyke Road Park, Brighton, which opened in May 2015. It is unique in having been paid for not by corporate funding or public grants, but by private donations. B•O•A•T is the legacy of the Brighton showman and construction manager, Adrian Bunting, who died of pancreatic cancer, aged 47, in May 2013. ==Adrian Bunting== Adrian Bunting was a buildings project manager, working on the refurbishment of the Brighton Dome and designing and project managing the construction of hotels in Africa and the Caribbean. He first became involved in theatre in the early 1990s, when he created and presided over Brighton's Zincbar Cabaret. His Guardian obituary recalls, 'The Zincbar, staged every fortnight at the Basement Club in the city, was a gloriously unpredictable crucible into which both gold and rubbish were thrown: comedians, poets and situationists alike. Adrian celebrated all, rousing the audience at the end of each act with: "Wasn't that magnificent?" Bunting went on to create the street theatre installation The World’s Smallest Theatre. He was one of the founding members of the Upstairs Theatre Company and a regular performer with the Festival Shakespeare Company as well as a writer and performer of comedy and theatre. In 2011, he wrote, directed and produced the play ''Kemble's Riot'', which cast the audience as rioters taking part in the 1809 Covent Garden Theatre Old Price Riots. The play won the Best Theatre award at the Brighton Festival that year and a five star review from Fringe Guru.〔(Richard Stamp, 'Kemble's Riot' review, FringeGuru )〕 It went to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2012 and the New York Fringe in 2013. Bunting had a long-held ambition to create an open air theatre for Brighton, and had even identified the perfect location, the bowling lawn on Dyke Road Park. In April 2013, when Bunting was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer, he learned that the bowling lawn was being closed by the council, which was looking for a new use for the space. Interviewed six days before his death, he said, 'The bowling lawn was always the place that I dreamed of. It's a magical place, with its own copse, hidden from the world....I always dreamed of putting it there. But of course it was a bowling lawn. You've heard about my unfortunate illness...(that) combining with the fact that the bowling lawn is no longer needed was too big a coincidence to think about.' In his last weeks, Bunting initiated the theatre designs and arranged for his life’s savings (£18,000) to be left to the project. He then brought together a team of five friends to help create it after his death. The B•O•A•T team comprises Steve Turner, construction manager, James Payne, television writer, Ross-Gurney-Randall, actor and playwright, Donna Close, Arts Manager and Producer, and Claire Raftery, theatre director. James Payne told (etc magazine ), 'If anyone else had asked, you would have said 'we will do our best' but couldn’t make any promises, but Adrian was one of those people, if he asked you would move heaven and earth for.' In March 2015, Bunting was one of 24 celebrated Brightonians honoured by having their names on the front of the new bus fleet. His friend, Dan Wilson said, 'There are few greater Brightonian accolades than having your name on a bus and Adrian would have been delighted.'〔(Jo Wadsworth, 'Inspirational playwright among latest city greats to be given bus honour', Brighton and Hove News, 27 March 2015 )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Brighton Open Air Theatre」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|