The musical Adventure on Christmas Night brings more than 130 unique young people to the stage of Studio Pasila
ShedHelsinki’s new musical for the whole family, Adventure on Christmas Night , will premiere at the Helsinki City Theatre’s Studio Pasila on 8 December. Following the example of London’s Chickenshed Theatre, the musical project offers children and young people from different backgrounds the opportunity to be seen and fulfil themselves in a safe and equal environment.
The musical, which is based on the script of the Chickenshed Theatre, is driven by children and young people aged 9–19 who participate in ShedHelsinki’s musical theatre clubs. Many of them are on the big stage for the first time, while others are already more experienced performers. Some of the young people use wheelchairs, others have sign language as their mother tongue – and everyone has the courage and desire to put themselves on the line.
The musical is produced by the teachers of StepUp School’s Skene musical theatre school, led by director Marco Bjurström . The musical features more than 130 children and young people from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area together with musical theatre professionals.
Adventure on Christmas Night is a musical for the whole family, which is flooded with good music, humour, speed and just the right amount of excitement. The future of Christmas is threatened when Santa Claus makes a fatal mistake while distributing presents. To avoid a catastrophe, a resourceful group of children embarks on an exciting Christmas rescue trip with the help of a couple of reindeer and elves. The adventure takes children to three different worlds, and along the way, we meet a whole bunch of bizarre characters, some of whom are strangely familiar from classic fairy tales.
This year, for the first time, the musical will use Finnish and Finnish sign language side by side. Noora Karjalainen is responsible for the guidance of sign language expression and Karjalainen is responsible for the sign language translation together with Netta Keski-Levijoki . The conductor of the six-piece orchestra in the performances is Tuomas Kesälä. The Finnish translation of the fast-paced musical is by Sami Parkkinen.
For the second time, Helsinki City Theatre is involved in supporting diversity and child and youth work that takes special needs children into account by offering a performance venue for the musical theatre production of the ShedHelsinki Foundation, founded by Elisa. The Christmas musical is already the third ShedHelsinki performance that deviates from the mainstream and is a continuation of the acclaimed musicals Sleeping Beauty – Back to the Future and Peter Pan that have been performed in previous years.
The London-based Chickenshed Theatre, which serves as a model for ShedHelsinki, has been making art out of diversity together with children and young people for more than 40 years. Theatre activities began in an old hen house, which is where the name Chickenshed was born. Since then, the theatre has gained well-known supporters and its own building, but the name has remained.
Adventure on Christmas Night premieres 8.12.2018 and performances until 28.12.2018 at the Helsinki City Theatre’s studio in Pasila (Ratamestarinkatu 5) Tickets: 39 €
Age recommendation: 5 years and up
A taste of the performance at Elisa Kulma (Aleksanterinkatu 19) on 17 November at 13.00 and 14.00
Further information:
Kaisa Pelkonen, Communications Officer, Helsinki City Theatre, tel. 040 5523 788, kaisa.pelkonen@hkt.fi
Katiye Vuorela, Senior Vice President, Communications, Elisa Corporation, tel. 050 66997, katiye.vuorela@elisa.fi
Riikka Kannas, Project Director, ShedHelsinki, tel. 040 354 6331, riikka@shedhelsinki.fi