Contact Theatre Announces Part Three Of Its In The City Programme

Contact will present the third part of Contact In The City, as work continues to transform its iconic building on Oxford Road. The season, which runs from January to June, promises to delve into urgent intercultural questions of politics, protest and community.

In 2019 Contact will continue to bring diverse and ambitious work from around the world to venues and audiences across Greater Manchester. This season Contact is thrilled to be presenting a major show from regular collaborator, poet and writer Inua Ellams, whose National Theatre production of Barber Shop Chronicles will be at the Royal Exchange Theatre (Thursday 7 - Saturday 23 March).

Contact will also be staging a taster of our annual Queer Contact Festival as a compact weekender in February, featuring some of the best-loved elements of the festival, including Mother's Ruin (Friday 8 February) and the famous Manchester Vogue Ball (Saturday 9 February). Contact will also be hosting a series of open forums and workshops on the Saturday of the festival hosted by International Artists and curators Nima Séne and Tuna Erdem at brand new Manchester venue YES, alongside a packed programme of young poets and spoken word artists performing as Outspoken (Saturday 9 February). The festival this year will, amongst other themes, put in dialogue questions of otherness related to queer, migrant and PoC identities.

Multi-award-winning Bristol-based theatre company Ad Infintium will be kicking off Queer Contact Festival and the season as a whole at The Lowry in February with their latest hilarious and thought-provoking play, No Kids (Friday 1 February), exploring the chaotic social anxieties of same sex parenting.

Later in the year Contact will be presenting two shows from the brilliant Contact Young Company, the first in partnership with Battersea Arts Centre (Friday 3 - Saturday 4 May) followed by a collaboration with local spoken word heroes, Young Identity (Wednesday 12 - Saturday 15 June). As ever with the Contact Young Company and Young Identity expect a frank and cutting social and political commentary with no stone left unturned.

Bringing this vibrant season of art and activism to a head in May, Contact, as part of Resistance in Residence in collaboration with Transform, will be bringing a group of young activist-performers from Brazil, now a national phenomenon, who have made a sensational show about their protest to education cuts, coletivA ocupação: When It Breaks It Burns (Wednesday 8 - Thursday 9 May).

Matt Fenton - Artistic Director at Contact said:

"In Spring 2019 Contact builds on the ambition of our In The City programme, continuing a journey across the city that has included the Palace Theatre, Science & Industry Museum, Upper Campfield Market and a working sari shop on Curry Mile. Our new programme explores global politics, decolonisation and protest in collaboration with International Artists and radical young voices from our city. It reaffirms Contact's commitment to local social action and global solidarity in these challenging times."

Contact In The City - Part Three - 2019 will go on sale at 12pm on Thursday 15 March, by phone on 0161 274 0600 or online at contactmcr.com. Please see below for the full list of theatre, spoken word, dialogues and live art, from Manchester's most exciting and provocative theatre.