The Macbeth Curse was written by Terry Deary, famed author of over 280 books including the gory but rollicking Horrible Histories series. Written for and performed by the Prime Theatre company with a cast so streamlined you could fit it in a match box, the play was authored to commemorate the 400 year anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. After touring schools for a week, the play premièred to an audience of all ages on Sunday the 5th of March.  Performed in the Victorian Trowbridge Town Hall, which itself opened in 1889, the transformation of the audience into bona fide time travellers was complete.    

Theatre Fest West returns this Easter and is bigger and better than ever with events taking place at arts venues across Wiltshire. Celebrating theatre makers from across the south west, the festival runs from 18 March to 2 April with events at Salisbury Playhouse; Salisbury Arts Centre; The Pound Arts Centre, Corsham; Wiltshire Music Centre, Bradford on Avon and Trowbridge Arts. 

Trowbridge Arts news season of professional performance, visual arts exhibitions and workshops has been launched at Trowbridge Town Hall.

We kick off the season on Friday 5th February at 7.30pm with the world premiere of 'Reel Life' by Folio Theatre, written by critically-acclaimed playwright Alys Metcalf. Trowbridge Arts hosted their first ever show 'Unearthed' last year, which received 5* reviews and was chosen as one of the Guardian readers top shows of 2015, If you missed it don't worry we have that one back in April.

Last Saturday saw the Teenage Market take over the market place opposite Trowbridge Town Hall. It kicked off the fesival with a range of stalls stocking handmade goods by young local entrepreneurs, and was accompanied by live music from local young musicians and acoustic band Light Garden, plus a visual feast of dancing, circus skills and acrobatics.

The event was organised jointly by the Trowbridge Town Team, Trowbridge Arts Festival and the Trowbridge Chamber of Commerce, the event is now in its second year, and chairman David Baker said it was "a huge success and a brilliant way to showcase the talents of the people involved in the Arts Festival".

Michele Whiting and Linda Khatir are half each of the artistic duo ‘Quilos and the Windmill’. Linda is based in Sala in Sweden and her art group are going to be making a quilt made up of drawn panels by many artists and non-artists who want to be part of this creative process.

Michele is leading a group from Trowbridge and surrounds who want to take part in producing the UK ‘drawn quilt’ which will be made up of 160 small pieces of paper with drawings created while moving around Trowbridge Town Hall, and if the weather is with us around the town as well.

Whether you are an artist or just want to take part, please come and be part of The Big Draw movement – make a panel and have the finished work displayed in Trowbridge and Sala.

Workshops run from 2-4pm and 6-7.30pm on Thursday 22 October. Cost £5.

If the Town Council is to be able to contribute to the development of the Campus and the provision of Sports and other facilities in the town then they need the new houses being built off West Ashton road to be brought into our town’s boundary.

You can support them in their aim by taking part in an online survey here.

Or by attending a Wiltshire Council consultation meeting in the Atrium at County Hall between 6pm and 9pm on Tuesday 13th October.
 
Bob Brice is the leader of Trowbridge Town Council and he asks you to 'support Trowbridge Town Council’s proposals for the enlargement of the town so that the people living in the new housing will contribute to the maintenance and improvement of the facilities that they will use that are provided by the town.’

Trowbridge Arts invite you to ‘ShiftWorks’, an exhibition from the contemporary textile collective, Seam. The group of nine makers are based in Bath and cross a broad range of textile techniques including print, embroidery, knit, weave, dye, fashion and eco-design.

Looking for a way to demonstrate the many different working methods within the group, they took inspiration from the concept of the shift dress. This straight-lined simple dress shape has become ubiquitous since its emergence in 1965. Each member of Seam has taken the basic pattern and used their own unique processes to showcase textile design. The dresses, not all of which are wearable, have become a canvas for their ideas.

To celebrate the fifty years since the mainstream adoption of the shift dress Seam invited members of the public to send in photographs of their favourite shift dresses. Fifty of these collected photographs accompany the dresses in the exhibition.

Four Somerset-based artists; Donna Vale, Joy Merron, Amanda Boyd and Jon England are working alongside conservation scientist Matthew Bjerregaard from Visual Persistence and Melinda Watson from the RAW Foundation to bring together an art work called Sense of Place.

Each artist responds to the life and history of Brean Down Fort through large and small-scale installations.

Brean Down Fort is owned by the National Trust and situated close to Weston-super-Mare in North Somerset. Permission was granted for the use of the site for the duration of Somerset Art Weeks, which runs from Saturday 3rd October to Sunday 18th October 2015.  

The aim of this project is to respond to the stories of the people, landscape and buildings on the site.  Forming connections with those who lived and worked at Brean Down.  The place itself is key to the work. Past histories are brought to life through art - capturing the imagination of visitors.  Audience engagement will be an important part of the exhibition within the fort. 

Promotion of this years Trowbridge Arts Festival is in full swing with 10,000 brochures going out across Trowbridge and the surrounding area. It features over 50 events for the Arts Festival which runs from 16 October to 1 November, with new events being added to the website as they’re confirmed.

There are even more opportunities for people to take part this year, many of them free; including Bell Ringing at St James’ Church, Open stage at Trowbridge Town Hall, a Big Weave Day at Trowbridge Museum, Poetry reading, and arts workshops. There is also a chance to take part in the Photo Marathon organised by Leykers Coffee Central, an Acting Masterclass with professional actress Lizzie Stables, Zumba on a chair, drawing and dance workshops and many more, for a small fee.

Following the success of Allunder1Roof exhibition at Trowbridge Town Hall, which was organised by the Friends of the Town Hall, for last year's Trowbridge Arts Festival the Friends are staging another exhibition for this year’s festival which will focus on the Town Hall as a theme for the work.

The building has tremendous importance in the town and this is a chance to celebrate its place at the heart of the community; past, present and future. The exhibition will feature artwork of all types and will celebrate the growing role of the Town Hall as the creative heart of the town.

This year’s exhibition, will open at 7.30pm on Tuesday 20th October and continues until Saturday 31st October, 10am until 4pm each day (excluding Sunday).