Hours announces a full rebrand from its previous moniker, Orange Skies Theatre, with a celebratory gala showcase at Underbelly Boulevard Soho on 14 April. The event, open to the public via a ticket request waitlist, will feature a special presentation of the company’s debut trio of shows as a showcase for bookings across stages, festivals, and commercial opportunities.
Hours is an interdisciplinary circus, theatre, and installation company that blends text and story with high-level circus arts and theatrical dramaturgy to create a unique vision. The company offers performances, education across arts and sciences, and workshops for circus artists and theatre makers.
The company operates across three pillars: education, stage and festival performances, and commercial partnerships, offering bespoke circus storytelling experiences for brands and companies.
The gala performance will showcase:
I’ll Hold You – a Northern Soul and circus show that debuted as a work-in-progress at The Place Theatre’s Resolution Festival to critical acclaim.
SpaceJunk – an original piece combining puppetry, acrobatics, and storytelling to explore caregiving and grieving a parent’s loss, created in partnership with the UK Space Agency.
Cabaret KiwiKiwi – a brand-new cabaret inspired by magical realism and Wes Anderson, following a chirpy postman as he discovers the metropolis he inhabits.
Alongside its performance work, Hours collaborates with educational partners such as Harrow Arts Centre, the National Circus School of Arts, and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Additionally, the company is delivering an original installation sound piece to schools nationwide in partnership with the UK Space Agency.
Artistic Director of Hours, Daisy Minto, said: “I’m delighted to be rebranding and working with the new moniker of Hours. Our work is innovating circus and theatre practice, creating memorable and unique experiences. What drives our identity as a company is seeing live performance as time shared, our Hours. This new chapter solidifies this approach.
“Circus offers a kinesthetic empathy – when you see bodies go through an extreme experience you feel it in your own body. If you marry the physical experience with a narrative frame it elicits a stronger more visceral reaction from an audience, moving people more deeply to understand a story emotionally and intellectually. We think marrying a circus and theatre as it offers a different route into understanding the story and understanding the experience – This empathetic phenomenon can only happen in a room with a live audience.”
Previously, Hours (as Orange Skies Theatre) toured nationally and have been programmed at venues such as Norwich Theatre, Jacksons Lane, Royal and Derngate Northampton, Pleasance Theatre, Exeter Phoenix, Camden People’s Theatre, Assembly Edinburgh, and Underbelly.
Awards for Orange Skies Theatre/Hours include being shortlisted for the Pleasance Charlie Hartill Award 2023, shortlisted for the Untapped Award 2022, and Les Enfants Terribles Award 2018.
About The Artistic Director
Daisy Minto is a queer, neurodiverse theatre/circus director and writer. Regarded in the industry as a rising talent, Daisy’s work uniquely combines narrative theatre with high-level circus arts. Daisy is currently funded by the Arts Council through a Developing Your Creative Practice Grant to further develop her circus and theatre directing practice.
Daisy lectures and teaches regularly at leading arts institutions including the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Norwich University of Arts, and the National Centre for Circus Arts.
She trained with Gecko, Regional Theatre Young Directors Scheme, and at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in Advanced Theatre Practice 2019.
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
