Theatre News

Bristol Old Vic announces 2020 season featuring Mark Rylance, Gatsby and Sally Cookson's Wonder Boy

The venue has announced its plans for 2020

Mark Rylance
Mark Rylance
© Dan Wooller for WhatsOnStage

The Bristol Old Vic has announced a year of programming for 2020.

Mark Rylance will make his venue debut in Semmelweis in June, co-produced with Sonia Friedman, National Theatre and Shakespeare Road. Based on the life of a radical member of the medical profession, the show is based on an idea by Rylance and written by Stephen Brown, all in collaboration with the venue's artistic director Tom Morris.

A new version of The Great Gatsby, called Gatsby, will be performed in September of 2020, co-produced with Northern Stage, English Touring Theatre, Royal & Derngate, Northampton, Oxford Playhouse, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and Birmingham Rep. It is adapted by Maria Aberg and Joel Horwood.

Sally Cookson will direct Wonder Boy alongside Bristol-based writer Ross Willis in October, while Cookson's production of A Monster Calls will return to the venue after winning an Olivier Award following its world premiere. Miranda Cromwell (Death of a Salesman) will direct The Little Mermaid as the venue's Christmas show.

Old Vic regulars The Wardrobe Ensemble will present hit show The Last of The Pelican Daughters (co-produced with Complicité and Royal & Derngate, Northampton), while Kneehigh will perform karaoke satire Ubu! A Singalong Satire after its run at Shoreditch Town Hall.

Previously announced shows include Emma Rice's hit musical Romantics Anonymous, Frantic Assembly's I Think We Are Alone and Headlong, Birmingham Rep and Lyric Hammersmith's Faustus: That Damned Woman, with other returning shows including Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort Of) and Bryony Kimming's I'm a Phoenix, Bitch.