Dromgoole Directs 1999 Oxford Stage Season

The Oxford Stage Company announced its 1999 season this week. Under the leadership of new artistic director Dominic Dromgoole, the company will expand dramatically upon its touring circuit success. From 1999, it aims to tour at least four new productions annually, playing in the countries premiere venues and regularly transferring work into London. It also plans to continue touring internationally.

The 1999 season includes Chekhov's Three Sisters, Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida and two 20th century revivals.

First off the block next month is Robert Holman's Making Noise Quietly, directed by Deborah Bruce. First produced in 1986, this trilogy of short plays depicts three chance encounters between strangers, each overshadowed by a war. Holman has written a number of plays for the RSC, Royal Court and elsewhere. His latest play, Bad Weather, opened last year at the RSC in Stratford and transfers to the London Barbican this month. Making Noise Quietly runs at the Oxford Playhouse 4 - 13 February before touring to Cambridge, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Three Sisters, in a new adaptation by Sam Adamson, follows. Directed by Dominic Dromgoole, the play about the three Russian sisters stuck in a garrison town and dreaming of Moscow will run 9 - 17 April at the Royal Theatre, Northampton before touring to Cambridge, Salisbury, Coventry and Oxford.

Touring in September and October is John Whiting's comedy A Penny for a Song, directed by Peter Brook. In a Dorset garden in the summer of 1804, the Bellboys family await the Napoleonic invastion. First staged in 1951 and twice revived by the RSC, this is the play's first national tour. In October and November, the company will tour Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. The comedy, set during the Trojan war, will be directed by Dromgoole.

Before joining the Oxford Stage Company, Dromgoole was the New Plays Director at the Old Vic in London where he worked with Sir Peter Hall and directed six new plays. Prior to that, he was the artistic director of leading London fringe venue the Bush Theatre, producing 65 world or British premieres in six years and receiving 32 major theatre awards. His West End transfers include Hurlyburly, Trainspotting, Beautiful Thing and Killer Joe.

For more information, visit the Oxford Stage Company web site.

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