New Spring Seasons Announced - Finborough Theatre and Southwark Playhouse
December 9, 2008
South London venue the Sothwark Playhouse have announced their new spring season line-up which will follow on from a successful autumn season which saw the venue play host to a diverse range of shows including Moll Flanders, Unstated and Shakespeare’s R & J.
The new season will include the return of new writing theatre company Nabokov with further instalments of their Present Tense series in February and April. The series unites top talent from across the theatre industry to create a response to a particular topic in current affairs in just seven days. In previous years artists have tackled a wide range of news stories including the Brixton McDonalds shootings; the schism in the Anglican church over homosexuality, the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and the Baby P case. Past participants have included comedians Mark Thomas and Josie Long; playwrights April De Angelis and Adriano Shaplin; directors Josie Rourke and Matthew Dunster and poets Luke Wright and [verb]swish.
Other highlights of the season will include Last Dog Theatre’s Love in (3) Parts (12-31 January), a touching look at the emotions and complexities of a love affair, from first date to last love, accompanied with a live soundtrack from James Day. This year’s annual Shakespeare offering will be a ninety minute re-imagining of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (4-28 February) set is Samurai Japan, directed by innovative British Chinese director Jonathan Man, winner of 2008’s Better Bankside Shakespeare Award.
Wildbird theatre company will present Chris Lee’s Fall of the Peacock (5-28 March), the story of the 1953 CIA led coup in Iran which is thought to have strangled fledgling Iranian democracy and been a contributory factor in the so-called war on terror. The season ends with About Tommy (31 March – 25 April) from Brother Tongue theatre company, which tells the story of a young soldier trying to preserve his humanity as he is forced to fight.
Meanwhile, the Finborough Theatre have also announced their line-up for the start of 2009, which begins with the first full professional UK revival of Captain Oates’ Left Sock (7-31 January), and continues with new play Untitled (3 February – 14 March) by Lena Farugia which explores the love story of King Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson. The season will also see Oscar and BAFTA nominee Michael Craig return to the London stage in the UK premiere of Trying (17 March – 11 April) by Joanna McClelland Glass.
The Finborough’s Sunday and Monday night productions for the New Year will include Blue Heaven (8,9,15,16,22 and 23 February), a selection of three rarely performed short plays about hope and despair by Tennessee Williams, and Oohrah! (22, 23, 29, 30 March and 5, 6 April), which will mark the London debut of the award-winning new American playwright Bekah Brunstetter.
-Kate Jackson
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