Showcasing cabaret, circus, dance and genre-defying performance, the cast has been announced for London’s new immersive masquerade ball, Red Palace. Shotgun Carousel invite their audiences to be escorted by a glorious array of audacious characters through swirling revelry to a place of glamour, danger and transformation where they can find their own fairy tale ending.
The wholly female and non-binary cast of players, aerialists and cabaret artists includes Ella Prendergast (Secret Cinema presents Bladerunner: The Final Cut), Teddy Lamb (Since U Been Gone, HighTide), Porscha Present (Divine Proportions, The Vaults) and Emer Dineen (The Dark Side of Love, Camden Roundhouse). Actors and circus artists, EM Williams (Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Harold Pinter Theatre), Rosie Rowlands (Anna Nicole, Royal Opera House), Emily Essery (Doctor Dolittle, UK tour), and Rebecca Solomons (Hive City Legacy, Roundhouse) will also join the company. Completing this ensemble production are Steffi Walker (Baba’s War, White Bear Theatre and War Festival), Megan Ford (Feminasty, UK tour), Eleanor Dillon-Reams (HoneyBEE, Edinburgh Fringe), Camilla Harding (The Tempest, Rose Playhouse), and Alice Morgan-Richards (Alice’s Adventure’s Underground, The Vaults).
Following the huge success of Divine Proportions, Shotgun Carousel return to The Vaults with a Gothic cabaret guided by an irresistible tale. Join The Prince and meet the court; witness the beautiful, the brilliant, the wanton, the bizarre – nothing and no one is what they seem. Gastro storyteller and Masterchef semi-finalist Annie McKenzie will provide an exclusive menu for booked diners to enjoy a decadent evening of feast and fantasy (subject to limited availability).
Red Palace is inspired by the vicious narratives of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen but these are not the fairy tale characters we think we know as Snow White joins Gretel, mermaids and the Big Bad Wolf. With the allure of the carnivals of Venice, topped up with the Gothic macabre of Edgar Allan Poe, audiences must dance, dine and discover the mystery at the heart of the masked ball. The stories threaded through the production look behind the mask to explore power and duplicity. The Red Palace sheds the binds of gender and sexual conformity to release a world of pleasure and freedom.
Director Celine Lowenthal comments, I am so thrilled to be working with our extraordinary cohort of performers on Red Palace, and it is a pure delight to be able to introduce to our audiences such a fantastic range of experienced and charismatic artists. We are drawing together a phenomenal array of Shakespearean character actors, death-defying circus performers, cabaret and burlesque royalty, with some of the most experienced immersive and promenade actors in the UK. You name it, we’ve got it: tarot readers, improvisational comedians, singer-songwriters, contortionists, drag kings, MCs – all ready to bring their phenomenal array of talents to the wild and exciting Red Palace experience. And, as always with Shotgun Carousel, we are proud to be introducing to you an all-female/non-binary/trans* cast, celebrating, elevating, and providing a platform for the artists we most want to see centre stage. I can’t wait to begin our exciting new collaboration!
Deliciously risqué, the sybaritic evening is an all-encompassing voyage through a world where extravagance is the norm, labels are left at the door, and everyone can be who they truly are (Broadway World on Divine Proportions).
Red Palace is at The Vaults 24th September 2019 to 12th January 2020.
