Stan's Cafe

Stan's Cafe is a theatre company based in Birmingham, United Kingdom, with a long track record in producing experimental theatre, installations and live art. Established in 1991, it has become "one of Britain’s major contemporary theatre exports" with an "international reputation" for devising and touring powerful and "unusual performances." It has been regarded by some critics as "one of the UK's most innovative and exciting theatre companies."Venue and Theatre Production HistoryStan’s Cafe was founded by James Yarker and Graeme Rose in 1991 - both Theatre Studies graduates from Lancaster University. The company’s unusual name was derived from a real café just off Brick Lane in London.The partnership between Yarker and Rose was from the start supplemented by collaborations with associate artists from a variety of backgrounds. With productions of Memoirs of An Amnesiac and Canute The King - the latter premiered in Moseley Road Swimming Baths - Stan’s Cafe established itself as a company of exciting potential. Having rehearsed these early productions in borrowed spaces and a spare room in a rented house in the Balsall Heath district of Birmingham, the company started rehearsing and presenting work at mac (formerly Midlands Arts Centre) once it received its first significant public funding for Bingo In The House of Babel, inspired by theories of artificial intelligence and virtual reality. The company moved its office to the venue in 1997. mac also supported the company by commissioning three shows, namely Voodoo City, a show about urban magic and controlling one's own destiny; Dance Steps, an installation about a love story of two people who meet at mac; and Tuning Out With Radio Z, a three-hour-long improvised show performed in front of a live audience and webcast as a radio show with the audience invited to contribute ideas and text via SMS messages or an online bulletin board. These productions contributed to the company being described as "one of the most tirelessly inventive theatre companies...breaking the mould of what theatre can and might be."