Birmingham Rep Announces Second Off-Site Season
The Birmingham Repertory Theatre has announced its second season of off-site productions. In
order to continue to work whilst their Birmingham Library base is being redeveloped, the REP will
collaborate with nomad companies Stan’s Café, Paines Plough and Fierce Festival.
Next year will see the REP producing both new works as well as classics. In collaboration with Stan’s Café it will present The Just Price of Flowers from 15 to 30 June 2012, which will run at the old metal
pressing factory of A E Harris. The play is an exploration of the 2008 financial collapse and pays homage
to Bertolt Brecht.
There will be six new productions by the Rep next season, including Time Has Fallen Asleep In The
Afternoon Sunshine by Mette Edvardsen (30 March to 7 April 2012) at the Birmingham Central Library and
Berlin Love Tour by Lynda Radley and Tom Creed (30 March to 8 April) – a guided tour of the
city, with a difference.
Further plays have been commissioned and will then embark on UK tours. Gravity is a
contemporary and dynamic new play about provocation by Arzhang Pehzman (23 February to 3 March) and
Mustafa by Naylah Ahmed (17 to 21 April) is about a man who has been in prison for 14 years for the murder of a teenage boy.
Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot will be revived featuring an
all-black cast and runs at The Old Rep from 13 to 17 March 2012, in collaboration with Talawa Theatre and the
Yorkshire Playhouse.
The Rep will also continue to involve itself in theatre for young people and the community. The Young Rep will
perform Kidnapping Cameron from 18 July to 21 July 2012, whilst the Moving Hands Theatre Company
will perform Hip Hop Hero from 30 May to 2 June 2012. Stephanie
Dale’s site-specific community project. The Witches Promise will be performed in the medieval ruins of Weoley Castle.
The Rep will also be taking part in the RSC’s World Shakespeare Festival with their performance of Forests
which is inspired by the woodland imagery in Shakespeare. The world premiere of will be on 31
August 2012 and will run to 15 October at the Old Rep theatre, before it begins a European tour.
Stuart Rogers, executive director of Birmingham Repertory Theatre, said: “Our first year off-site has been an exciting and rewarding one. Exciting as we’ve produced some great shows in a very different way to before and rewarding as our audiences have followed us around the city. The next year is very much about building on the successes of 2011, increasing what we have to offer audiences and ensuring that we are match fit for our return home in 2013.”
Further details and a full list of productions for the upcoming season can be found at www.birmingham-
rep.co.uk.
– Katherine Graham
