Exclusive: Line-up announced for biggest ever HighTide Festival
Five main productions are programmed this year, up from the usual three, and all of them will transfer to other venues following the festival.
Speaking to Whatsonstage.com, artistic director Steven Atkinson said: “This is the first time that all the main shows from the festival will transfer elsewhere, which is testament to the quality of the writers, most of who are only on their first or second play.”
The five in-house productions are:
Neighbors by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, which will be directed by Atkinson and transfer to the Nuffield, Southampton
Pastoral by Thomas Eccleshare, directed by Soho Theatre artistic director Steve Marmion and starring Anna Calder-Marshall, which will transfer to Soho
Smallholding by Chris Dunkley, which is directed by outgoing Nuffield artistic director Patrick Sandford and transfers to Southampton as his final production at the venue
Declan Greene’s Moth, directed by Prasanna Puwanarajah, which as previously announced will transfer to the Bush
Bottleneck by Luke Barnes, which was first staged as a reading at last year’s HighTide and is currently on a UK tour, directed by Atkinson
These will run alongside a range of work by visiting artists and companies, including Eastern Angles, Mark Borkowski, Michael Cole and withWINGS.
There will also be readings of work in progress including Jack Thorne‘s new adaptation of Alexander Masters’ Stuart: A Life Backwards and My Name Is… by Sudha Bhuchar, directed by award-winning playwright Ella Hickson (Boys).
“HighTide is all about seeing the work first, and we focus on plays that are specific to their location” said Atkinson, who co-founded the festival in 2007. “This is our seventh year and our biggest programme to date, with over 80 events; I certainly didn’t expect we’d be in this position back on day one.”
