SALFORD Arts Theatre is trying something different in it’s latest production The Secret Garden.

Salford Arts Theatre will be moving their stage for the show to create a more inclusive and intimate feel. The audience will then be on three sides of the stage, instead of the usual one or two, with the aim to make them feel closer to the action and more involved.

Roni Ellis, the director of The Secret Garden, said “We are looking at using the stage in a different way. We are extending the stage and pulling the raked seating back so the audience will be on three sides.

“I’m really excited about the fact we are extending the stage out really and using the space in a different way. Hopefully it will enable the audience to be or feel more part of performances”

The audience will not be the only ones who will be experiencing this new layout. The production will also be many of the actors’ first time on the stage.

“I’m really looking forward to getting started. There are some professional debuts going on.

“A young actor called Libby Hall, who is also a young writer as well, she’s having her professional debut. There are other young actors that have been to drama school but it’s the starting point of their career.”

The Secret Garden, based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, tackles the issues of grief, love and growing up.

“A few years ago we did actually do The Secret Garden but a few years have passed, our audiences have grown and I suppose the way in which we produce theatre, our ideas, have changed and evolved.

“The Secret Garden is such a wonderful play for all ages, like in a sense that pantos are for everybody I feel like the secret garden is. I love the story and I’m a fully grown adult.

“So it’s really lovely, I would say, for five years old to grannies and great grannies. It’s wide audiences which is what we want to capture here at Salford Arts Theatre given that we are right slap bang in the middle of a community.”

The Secret Garden has been written by Neil Duffield and will be at Salford Arts Theatre on Thursday 11 April – Sunday 14 April and Thursday 18 April – Sunday 21 April.

Buy tickets here or call 0161 925 0111.

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