Vanishing Point Theatre company was founded in 1999 by Matthew Lenton. It makes theatre that is modern, visually dazzling and technically stunning. Its themes are often darkly comic and surreal, combining a childish, dreamlike fairy tale feel with adult nightmarish stories.
Vanishing Point's work has toured across the UK and, increasingly, internationally. It has toured to France, Corsica, Sri Lanka, Kosovo and Macedonia, with work including an adaptation of Maeterlinck's Les Aveugles, a wordless show Invisible Man, Lost Ones, Subway and Little Otik.
It receives funding from the Scottish Arts Council (SAC), the Lottery and the Glasgow City Council. It has launched an initiative, Space 11, aiming to encourage collaboration between young arts organisations in Scotland, by providing them with office space and workshops in order to enhance business skills and create more time for making work.[1][2][3]
Contact no: 00 44 (0)141 353 1315
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Formed in 1999 in Glasgow, Scotland by graduates of the University of Glasgow. Its first production was an adaptation of Les Aveugles (The Blind) by Maurice Maeterlinck, performed in total darkness. The piece was performed at BAC in London in a season entitled Playing in the Dark. The first few works were formative but the company really found its voice in 2004 with Lost Ones, a surreal show concerning a man, a murder on a mountain, the little creatures who are smuggling things out of him years later and a void on the other side of the skirting board. Lost Ones was extremely successful and toured internationally. Since then the company has created the shows Mancub (written by Douglas Maxwell), Subway (a collaboration with a group of musicians from Kosovo) and Little Otik (adapted from the film by Jan Svankmajer). The company has co-produced with The Soho Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith, The Citizens Theatre and The National Theatre of Scotland.
Typically the work is characterized by a theatrical yet filmic, extremely visual style and by dark, semi-surreal themes. It is created through a process it calls collective creation led by Matthew Lenton, but always involving a range of performers, designers, sound artists, video artists and musicians.
Severine Wyper General Manager
Eleanor Scott Operations Manager
Sandy Grierson Performer
Kai Fischer Set and Lighting Designer
Alasdair Macrae Musical Director/Performer
Matthew Lenton founded Vanishing Point Theatre company in 1999 and since then has directed or co-directed all of the company’s productions. Matthew Lenton is also a freelance director.
Sandy Grierson is an artistic associate of Vanishing Point and has collaborated with the company on at least three shows, Lost Ones, Subway and Little Otik. In addition to his association with Vanishing Point he is a distinguished theatre actor having worked with companies across the Uk and in Europe.
A co-production with The Tron Theatre Glasgow, commissioned by The Lyric Hammersmith and supported by NTS Workshop. A major international collaboration between Vanishing Point and an extraordinary seven-piece band from Kosovo.
‘Some people represent authority without ever possessing any of their own’
(Banksy)
The future. Patrick Dugan, or Scruggs to his friends, returns to his home city. He is here to have a proper adult conversation with his father, but finds himself in a world he no longer recognises. Things have changed: the neighbourhood, the people, even Porters Bar. The rich are taking over, the locals retreating into the shadows. But worst of all, Scrugg’s dad has gone missing and shacked up in the notorious ghetto Platinum Point. As tensions rise in the city and the wheels of underground revolution begin to turn, Scruggs begins a dark, comical, musical adventure to reconcile himself with his father.
Subway is a journey through a landscape a few years from now, a show about small acts of rebellion and where they lead.
A Vanishing Point and National Theatre of Scotland co-production, in association with the Citizens Theatre. A couple, desperate but unable to start a family, develop an intense relationship with a tree stump carved to look like a baby. Believing it to be real, gradually their obsession brings the stump of wood to life. As the fixation grows, so does the ‘baby’ along with its monstrous appetite. Not content with baby food, it eats the family cat and then the postman. Things get stranger when the social worker arrives to see what’s going on. Taken from the wonderfully twisted imagination of cult Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer, Little Otik combines dark humour, surreal horror and an unnerving but tender family story.
A co-production with Napoli Teatro Festival Italia, Mercadante Teatro Stabile di Napoli and Traverse Theatre in association with Lyric Hammersmith and Tron Theatre. Interiors was developed with the support of the National Theatre Studio. Behind a window, in a cosy room, a group of friends gather for a meal. The lamps are on, everyone is happy. Talk begins and stories unfold around the table, stories about the living and the dead, about missing necklaces and what happens when people get hungry. Secrets emerge. Lies are exposed. Outside someone is watching. This production is inspired by Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck’s astonishing play, Interior. Utterly hypnotic, deeply mysterious and powerfully intense, Interiors is about sounds, silence, the path of fate and the darkness outside the window.
A co-production with Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh and Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. In association with Tramway. A man who loves money, might as well be contented with one guinea, as I with one woman. The future’s here. It’s a brave new world, but wherever there’s a world there’s an underworld: muggers, smugglers, prostitutes, thieves. Nobody plays by the rules, least of all MacHeath – bandit, hedonist, superhero to some, villain to others. In a world of imitators and wannabes, he’s the genuine article. But where he goes, trouble is sure to follow. MacHeath has married Polly Peachum. But he fancies Lucy Lockit. Lucy Lockit fancies MacHeath, but Polly doesn’t want to share. Mr Peachum wants MacHeath’s head, so does Mr Lockit. And the law. With so many enemies, it’s hard to tell who your friends are. John Gay’s 18th century play, The Beggar’s Opera has been reconfigured in to our not too distant future: A dark, seedy, absurd, visually rich and cruelly comic co-production from Vanishing Poibt, The Royal Lyceum and Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, in association with Tramway. Featuring brand new live music from Alasdair Macrae and A Band Called Quinn, cutting edge production design and a large cast of leading performers.
Since September 2004 Vanishing Point has been running a Shared Resources Project with support from Scottish Arts Council Lottery and Glasgow City Council.
The purpose of the project is to maximise the amount of time we all spend doing what is really important: making adventurous, ambitious new theatre for a new generation of audiences. The project has so far been immensely successful and we hope it will continue long into the future.
The first four companies to benefit from this initiative were ek Performance (Pamela Carter), Fire Exit Limited (David Leddy), Random Accomplice (led by Julie Brown and Johnny McKnight) and Vox Motus (led by Jamie Harrison and Candice Edmunds). We have since worked with Stammer Productions (led by Colette Sadler), Never Did Nothing (led by Nick Underwood), Company Chordelia (led by Kally Lloyd-Jones), Glas(s) Performance (led by Tashi Gore and Jess Thorpe) and SeenUnSeen (led by Neil Doherty).
This project provides these companies with comprehensive office resources, and a creative environment in which experience, advice and information can be shared by all companies involved. Since December 2006 a consultancy program has been initiated and incorporated into the scheme with Di Robson from DREAM. This allows companies to focus on specific areas of need and benefit from the expertise of an individual advisor.