Grosvenor Park has become Storyhouse’s second home – and this summer Chester’s cultural centre is saying a big ‘thank you’ with a special fundraising day for volunteers who help maintain the award-winning green space.
The Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre village will throw open its doors on Sunday 9 July for a fantastic day of fun and entertainment for all the family.
Entrance will be by donation, and money raised will go to the Grosvenor Park and the Groves community group who work tirelessly to support the city’s park team and keep the 156-year-old site beautiful by giving up their time to do planting, weeding and litter picking.
Visitors to the event, which runs from 11am to 5pm, will be able to enjoy live music and comedy, along with delicious food and drink which will be available to purchase on site.
Members of Grosvenor Park and the Groves will also be on hand to meet people and talk about the work they do.
Grosvenor Park is a grade II* listed green space just outside Chester’s historic city walls. It was designed by celebrated Victorian landscape architect Edward Kemp and opened in 1867.
The park includes formal tree-lined avenues, sweeping lawn, statues and sculptures, ornamental shrubbery, Billy Hobby’s Well Community Garden, a Quarry Garden, a miniature railway and play area.
Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre has been staged annually in the park since 2010, and Storyhouse strives to make sure the theatre and its visitors have as little impact on the historic gardens as possible.
The stage space and walkways are covered in wood bark chippings to protect the ground beneath, while in previous years the set has been grown rather than built.
The popular on-site pizzas are cooked in a portable wood-fired oven and drinks are served in compostable containers. All waste from the site is sorted and recycled while audience members are also encouraged to take their rubbish home with them to recycle there.
And at the end of the theatre season, care is taken to return the space to its original condition.
This year Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre season runs from Saturday, 1 July to Bank Holiday Sunday 27 August and includes two unmissable new productions – Shakespeare’s magical A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a new adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age classic The Great Gatsby.
Oliver Hill, Storyhouse Director of Operations, says:
The relationship that has developed between Storyhouse and Grovenor Park is a special one, and we are very aware that we are just custodians of the space the theatre stands on each summer.
We work hard to minimise any disruption to the park and to return it to its original condition as far as we can.
Storyhouse itself is a registered charity, but we felt it was important to dedicate a day to doing something to support a fellow charitable cause.
The volunteers from the Grosvenor Park and the Groves community group do fantastic and often unsung work to support the park’s official staff, and so we wanted to acknowledge that and offer our support through a fun fundraising day on the site this summer.
Donations taken at the gate will all go towards helping them continue their important role in keeping Grosvenor Park looking beautiful for all its visitors.
Find out more here.
ENDS
For more information, contact:
Nancy Davies
Marketing and PR Manager
Storyhouse
07886 743531
LISTINGS
Grosvenor Park and the Groves Fundraising Day
Date: Sunday 9 July
Time: 11am to 5pm
Venue: Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre Village
Tickets: entrance by donation
About Storyhouse
Storyhouse is one of the UK’s foremost cultural centres incorporating a library, theatres and a cinema. It is one of the country’s most successful arts buildings, with more than one million customer visits each year.
The pioneering new library within Storyhouse, where members of the community work alongside city librarians, boasts the longest opening hours of any UK public library and is open every day until 11pm. It runs over 2,000 sessions a year for marginalised communities
The company also runs a highly successful theatre company and the country’s most successful regional open-air theatre, in the city’s Grosvenor Park and Moonlight Flicks open air cinema.
Storyhouse currently holds the official title as the UK’s Most Welcoming Theatre and was the overall national winner in the 2018 Guardian Public Service Awards
About Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre
The award-winning Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre, located in Chester, is a purpose-built venue with an annual summer repertory season. Founded in 2010 by Storyhouse, it is the only full-time, site-specific professional open-air theatre company outside London.
The open-air theatre designed by the company is built each summer in Grosvenor Park, a public park in Chester. Performances are staged ‘in the round’, with the audience seated on all sides of a central stage. In 2011 the theatre switched from a traditional built stage to a more Shakespearean ‘thrust’ stage, made from woodchip. Covered seating to around 40% of terraces was introduced in 2012. In 2015, the original horseshoe shape was replaced by full ‘in the round’ seating.
Website: www.grosvenorpark.co.uk
Twitter: @storyhouselive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Grosvenorparkopenairtheatre/
Address: Vicars Lane Chester CH1 1QQ