Theatre News

Headlong Tours Hollywood Dream from Feb

Rupert Goold’s Headlong Theatre company is taking a “radical” new version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which transposes the action to 1960s Hollywood, on a UK tour next year, opening at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton on 3 February 2011.

The production, which is directed by Natalie Abrahami, sets the popular Shakespeare comedy on a “a glamour-filled” movie set, where Hippolyta’s turbulent off-screen relationship with her co-star Theseus is fast becoming the love-hate relationship of the century – and it’s not the only romance to have blossomed on set.

Abrahami is the joint artistic director of the Gate Theatre, where her directing credits include How To Be An Other Woman, The Kreutzer Sonata; Vanya, Unbroken, Women in Love, Anne Washburn’s The Internationalist, and Fernando Arrabal’s The CarCemetery. She won the James Menzies-Kitchin Director’s Award in 2005 for her production of Play and Not I at BAC.

After running in Southampton until 19 February 2011, the tour will visit: The New Wolsey, Ipswich (22-26 February); Hull Truck (1-12 March); Salisbury Playhouse (15-19 March); Glasgow Citizens (22-26 March); and Cambridge Arts (29 March-2 April).

Designed by Tom Scutt with sound and composition by Tom Mills, lighting by David Holmes and video designed by Ian Galloway, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is produced by Headlong Theatre and The Nuffield, Southampton in association with Hull Truck.