Riding Lights is a British independent theatre company which has toured shows nationally and internationally since 1977. Based at Friargate Theatre, York since 2000, the company has staged numerous original productions such as "Science Friction" and "Dick Turpin", that have toured nationally. Other recent tours have included Mistero Buffo (2005), The Winter's Tale (2006) and a co-production with York Theatre Royal, African Snow played at York and the Trafalgar Studios in London before touring across the country. The play was a contribution to the national commemorations of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the UK and took as its theme the stories of John Newton and Olaudah Equiano. In 2007 they toured a play looking at the Christian community of contemporary Bethlehem called Salaam Bethlehem. In 2008 they revived their production of Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat as a co-production with York Theatre Royal.
The company has a thriving Youth Theatre which has performed many well-received productions, including Headstrong and The Miracle as part of the BT Shell Connections National Theatre Competition, Free For All (a devised production) and a modern production of Julius Caesar.
Riding Lights are one of the co-producers of the historic York Mystery Plays which will be staged in York Museum Gardens between 2-27 August 2012. The Plays are directed by Paul Burbridge, Artistic Director of Riding Lights and Damian Cruden, Artistic Director of York Theatre Royal.
Famous quotes containing the words riding, lights, theatre and/or company:
“With its frame of shaking curls all in disarray,
earrings swinging,
make-up smudged by beads of sweat,
eyes languid at the end of lovemaking,
may the face of the slim girl
who’s riding on top of you
protect you long.
What’s the use
of Vi.s».n»u, iva, Skanda,
and all those other gods?”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)
“To motorists bound to or from the Jersey shore, Perth Amboy consists of five traffic lights that sometimes tie up week-end traffic for miles. While cars creep along or come to a prolonged halt, drivers lean out to discuss with each other this red menace to freedom of the road.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“If an irreducible distinction between theatre and cinema does exist, it may be this: Theatre is confined to a logical or continuous use of space. Cinema ... has access to an alogical or discontinuous use of space.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“In the old days, one married a wife; now one forms a company with a female partner, or moves in to live with a friend. And then one seduces the partner, or defiles the friend.”
—J. August Strindberg (1849–1912)