Barn Theatre unveils 2022 season including Rodgers and Hammerstein and Million Dollar Quartet
The Barn Theatre has unveiled its 2022 season, including a variety of musical revivals, adaptations of hit novels and stagings of Pulitzer-winning plays.
The season will open with a new production of Kellen Blair and Joe Kinosian's thrilling two-hander musical Murder For Two. Directed by Bryan Hodgson, it runs from 4 February to 5 March.
Following this will be Vicki Berwick's theatrical adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's The Mozart Question from 21 March to 30 April. Featuring actor musicians, it tells the tale of violinist Paolo Levi and is directed by Jessica Daniels with composition, arrangements and musical supervision by Rudy Percival.
Morpurgo said today: "It is the most important story I have ever written, about the best and most beautiful and most heavenly that is in us, and the worst and most wicked and most hellish too. I have no doubt the Barn are creating a play worthy of the immensity of the tragedy, a play that reflects the power of music to heal, to bring reconciliation and peace in a troubled world."
The piece is co-produced with Anthology Theatre and Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham.
Playing from 6 to 28 May, Cheltenham's Everyman Theatre Paul Milton will direct a new production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein revue Some Enchanted Evening – The Songs of Rodgers and Hammerstein''.
Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux's Million Dollar Quartet will play from 6 June to 16 July. Featuring the music of Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley, the show is set in a 1950s recording studio.
Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning Driving Miss Daisy will be revived in a new staging from 19 August to 17 September. The show follows the relationship between an elderly Southern Jewish widow Daisy Werthan and her African American chauffeur.
Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel's adaptation of The Girl on the Train will play at the Barn Theatre from 26 September to 29 October, with the thriller seeing a daily commute evolve into a nightmare of suspense.
Alan Pollock will return for his fourth annual Christmas production – The True Adventures of Marian and Robin Hood. Staged from 21 November to 7 January, the show is a twist on the classic Robin Hood tale.
Iwan Lewis, chief executive and artistic director said of the season: "In March 2020, our team at The Barn Theatre were preparing for our second birthday celebrations and had just opened our most ambitious season to date. It is difficult to now comprehend that it won't be long before we will be planning to celebrate our fourth birthday and we will have spent half of the theatre's existence in a pandemic.
"Our 2022 season is a sign of the theatre's ambitious, innovative, and resilient nature. It comprises of new work, family entertainment, musical theatre, and new productions of beloved work that we are thrilled to share with our audiences.
"This season would not have been possible without the support from the Culture Recovery Fund from the DCMS and Arts Council England or from our loyal supporters. I will be forever grateful for the lifeline our theatre has been granted over this difficult period. This has enabled us to come out fighting in 2022 as we go into a new phase of rebuilding. The ambition remains the same, remarkable theatre for our remarkable community."
