Youth Theatre Launches 1998 London Season

The National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, the country's premier theatre company for young people, will have three plays running simultaneously in London in September.

A revival of last year's acclaimed Biloxi Blues opened Friday at central London fringe venue, the Arts Theatre. It is joined in repertory this Thursday, 3 September, by Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa, which is just finishing up a run at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. Next Monday, 7 September, a new production of Sophocles' Oedipus the King will open at another central London fringe venue, the Bloomsbury Theatre. Biloxi Blues finishes 18 September with the other two productions closing the following day.

Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues follows Brooklyn youngster Eugene Jerome as he endures the rigours of army life in Mississippi in 1943. Its repertory partner at the Arts Theatre, Dancing at Lughnasa, is set in 1936 Ireland where the lives of the five Mundy sisters are disrupted when brother Jack returns to the family from Africa, after 25 years as a missionary priest. Both productions are directed by Edward Wilson and designed by Anthony Lamble.

The NYT's new production of Oedipus the King, a new translation by Don Taylor, sets out to shed fresh light on parental problems through the classic tragedy. It is directed by William Kerley and designed by Lotte Collett.

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