Theatre News

Bunker Theatre announces 2019 autumn season

The south London has unveiled plans for the rest of 2019

A selection of shows from the new Bunker season
A selection of shows from the new Bunker season
© Ali Wright

The Bunker Theatre in south London has unveiled its new autumn season, the second for artistic director Chris Sonnex.

Steven Kavuma, founder of the Diversity School Initiative, will curate new festival This is Black to open the season. The festival will feature four shows presented as two double bills – All the Shit I Can't Say to My Dad by Abraham Adeyemi and Blue Beneath My Skin by Macadie Amoroso as well as …cake by Babirye Bukilwa and The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars by Dipo Baruwa-Etti.

The festival, which will occur from 5 to 25 August, will be accompanied by an exhibition by Sophia Tassew, who recently created Nike's plus-size mannequin campaign.

The Bunker will be transformed into a pub for Sonnex's first production at the venue – We Anchor in Hope by Anna Jordan presented in association with the Royal Court. Running from 25 September to 19 October, the piece is set in a London bar about to be closed for good.

The Bunker's hit show My White Best Friend, created by Rachel De-Lahay and Milli Bhatia, will return to the venue from 25 to 30 November following an initial run earlier this year. The piece will feature previously unperformed letters written for the week and performed blind by a number of guests.

A selection of shows from the new Bunker season
A selection of shows from the new Bunker season
© Ali Wright

From 3 to 21 September, Alice Malseed's play Jade City will be staged at the venue, directed by Katherine Nesbit. The piece features an electronic score and follows two friends who grow up and grow apart.

From 29 October to 9 November Grace Gummer will direct Natalie Mitchell's Germ Free Adolescent, a piece that deconstructs the nature of OCD, while Ava Wong Davies' i will still be whole (when you rip me in half) will transfer from VAULT Festival and run from 12 to 23 November, with direction from Helen Morley.

Harts Theatre Company and the Bunker will present Matilda Ibini's Little Miss Burden from 3 to 21 December, with direction by Debbie Hannan. A mash-up of 90s nostalgia and Nigerian family life, the piece explores what life is like growing up with a physical impairment.

Ann Akin and Anoushka Warden will also join Hannan on the Bunker's team of artistic associates.

Sonnex said: "The individual creates the community, the community empowers
the individual. In The Bunker's new season, we are lucky to welcome incredible artists with plays that explore this link: between individual and community. We're delighted to be continuing our partnership with Black Ticket Project, giving away more than 250 tickets across the season."