Theatre News

Gate Theatre announces new season

The season will be entitled Too Close to Home

A new season of work has been announced at the Gate Theatre with highlights including a new adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's Diary of a Madman and an examination of identity in the aftermath of a terror attack.

Paines Plough and Tamasha Theatre Company commence the season on 29 June with Come to Where I’m From: London, a continuation of a project, first started in 2010, that sees playwrights from across the UK writing and performing in plays about the places that shaped them.

Anna Coombs directs the UK premiere of Workshop Negative, Cont Mhlanga's response to the backlash of Zimbabwean independence (6 – 9 July).

Following its world premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe, Al Smith's adaptation of Gogol's Diary of a Madman will play the Gate from 28 – 30 July. Christopher Haydon's production reimagines the farcical short story in contemporary Scotland.

Completing the season is I Call My Brothers by Swedish novelist and playwright Jonas Hassen Khemiri. Directed by Tinuke Craig the comic play takes place in the moments following a car bomb.

Talking about the new season, entitled Too Close to Home, the Gate's artistic director Christopher Haydon said: "We often define ourselves in relation to the places in which we live and through the people we are surrounded by. And when a place changes, or a group of people shift, that can be a profoundly traumatic experience. So each of the shows in this season takes a distinctive look at how these processes can deeply affect us at both a personal and political level."