Theatre News

Hedwig and the Angry Inch and A Little Night Music announced in Leeds Playhouse season

The venue has unveiled plans for 2022

Dame Josephine Barstow (Madam Armfeldt), Ivan Sharpe (Frid) and Agatha Meehan (Frederika) in A Little Night Music
Dame Josephine Barstow (Madam Armfeldt), Ivan Sharpe (Frid) and Agatha Meehan (Frederika) in A Little Night Music
© Sharron Wallace

Leeds Playhouse has unveiled its spring and summer season for 2022.

The season kicks off with a new revival of Macbeth from 26 February to 19 March, directed by associate director Amy Leach. Tachia Newall will take on the lead role in the production, which will also feature integrated audio description.

Leach said: "Macbeth is one of the most thrilling plays ever written, and I am delighted to be staging it in our Quarry theatre next season – an epic play for an epic space. I can't wait to collaborate again with the talented Tachia Newall who I know will make a superb Macbeth, and to welcome audiences to share in this visceral new production."

After this, Leeds artist Tess Seddon will present a tale of activism and Yorkshire grit in Say Yes to Tess from 24 March to 2 April as part of a major tour.

Co-produced with HOME Manchester, the venue will revive hit rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2 to 23 April). Featuring drag queen Divina De Campo in her first leading role as Hedwig, John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask's musical explores notions of gender expression and identity.

Director Jamie Fletcher said today: "I'm really excited to be bringing to life this iconic rock musical with other queer, trans and non-binary creatives. I can't wait for audiences to see a powerful genderqueer character leading the show with humour and ferocity accompanied by an awesome live band. I am thrilled to be teaming up with Divina De Campo – we have a long history of working together and I know Hedwig is the perfect role for her. It's exciting to be able to tell this story now; it's a very timely story for anyone who's ever felt different, for anyone who has felt they've had to hide a part of themselves or felt they've had to look or behave in a certain way in order to be accepted."

Frances Poet's Maggie May, disrupted by the pandemic, will play from 7 to 21 May in a co-production with Curve in Leicester and Queen's Theatre Hornchurch, while Zia Ahmed's I Wanna Be Yours explores how relationships can exist between cultural divides.

Claudia Rankine's The White Card will have its UK and European premiere, in a co-production between Leeds Playhouse, Northern Stage, Birmingham Rep, and Soho Theatre. Penned in 2019, it explores the invisibility of whiteness and runs from 24 May to 4 June.

Opera North's hit co-production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's A Little Night Music will return, playing from 1 to 16 July. Josephine Barstow will once more appear.