Twenty Theatres to See Before You Die

Shortlisted for the 2018 Theatre Book Prize From the tip of Cornwall to the Isle of Mull, through rural communities and the inner-city, Amber Massie-Blomfield takes the road less travelled to discover Britain's most astonishing and unexpected theatres. A ruined playhouse, haunted halls, a stage hewn from granite cliffs. Theatres on wheels, squeezed into a former public lavatory and rescued from fire. A theatre that is not there at all. Making the case for radical, quirky and non-conforming performance spaces alongside iconic venues, this book is a celebration of thriving against the odds. It also tells a personal account of a life-long love affair with the places where 'anything is possible': from open-air fry-ups and an impromptu can-can to paranormal manifestations. An adventure through theatre, place and the people who make it happen, Twenty Theatres to See Before You Die gives us reason to be hopeful.

Amber Massie-Blomfield is a theatre producer and a non-fiction writer. Her work has been commissioned and published by Penned in the Margins, Standart, Unbound, Annexe Magazine, The Wrong Quarterly, The Independent, The Guardian, Exeunt and New Internationalist. As a playwright she has had work staged at The Tricycle, ICA, Theatre Royal Bath, and internationally. She is a columnist for The Stage. She received the 2016 Society of Authors' Michael Meyer Award. She is Executive Director of Camden People's Theatre, and a fellow of Birkbeck, University of London. Twenty Theatres to See Before You Die is her first book.