A blog about ambition and community by Artistic Director, Annie Rigby

Last year I was stuck on a very delayed train. Overhead power cables had been damaged by a storm. During that four hours of going nowhere, my phone rang. It was Helen Green, Head of Performance at Sunderland Culture. She wanted to know if I’d be interested in directing a large-scale community production of The Odyssey in Sunderland for National Theatre Public Acts. This was easily the highlight of that long journey home.

The Odyssey is an epic tale. National Theatre are staging the story in 5 episodes in locations across England in 2023. It's a big story and we have a big community cast to tell it. With this comes big ambition. This is the reason I was so excited to direct The Island of the Sun. I love making theatre with communities, and I love it most when ambition is at the heart of the project. This doesn’t always mean staging something big. But it does mean telling stories that matter, and finding extraordinary ways to do so.

Our episode sees Odysseus navigate his crew between the sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis – the ultimate choice between a rock and a hard place - before landing at the Island of the Sun. Lindsay Rodden’s brilliant script tells the tale from the perspective of people who live on the Island of the Sun’s shores. A place that is – in Lindsay’s adaptation - “a little bit like Sunderland”.

We’ve been thinking a lot about our Island of the Sun (a.k.a. Sunderland). It’s easy to fall back on often-told stories and stereotypes of post-industrial Northern cities. Grit, tough times, tight communities. While all of this resonates, we reminded ourselves early in the creative process there are many stories Sunderland has to tell. So, we decided not to be strict about the ‘right’ way to pronounce Mackem words. There are many accents in our community cast and there are many accents in Sunderland. They are all right.

On a big national project like this, I get asked a lot about impact. What difference will the project make to me as an artist, to our cast, to our audiences? And of course there is more than I could ever capture in a few sentences. But right now, one of the most exciting impacts I see comes from the chance to see ourselves – and the places we call home - with fresh eyes. Who we were, who we are, and who we might be.

The Island of the Sun is a treat on so many levels, with original songs by Sean Cooney (The Young ‘Uns) and choreography by Patrick Ziza bringing Lindsay’s script to life. You can get your tickets for this truly epic adventure by a truly epic community company here.

28-29 April 2023

Presented at The Fire Station for Sunderland Culture in partnership with The Sunderland Empire and National Theatre Public Acts