Library Theatre stage Arabian Nights, Mother Courage & Heretic in New Season

The first UK production outside London of Richard Bean’s smash-hit comedy The Heretic, a production of Dominic Cooke’s acclaimed adaptation of Arabian Nights and a revival of Bertolt Brecht’s epic war drama Mother Courage and her Children are the three Autumn 2012/Winter 2013 productions in the Library Theatre Company’s third season at The Lowry in Salford.

The Heretic, which won the prestigious Evening Standard award for Best New Play in 2011, sharing the prize with Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors, is a hilarious black comedy in which a leading light in the earth sciences department of a major northern university has opinions on global warming which conflict starkly with those around her.

A series of events take place which threaten serious consequences for her in a play where science, academia, and the chaos of family life collide in a wonderfully irreverent drama. The Heretic, which will be directed Library Theatre Company Artistic Director Chris Honer and runs at The Lowry from 27 September – 13 October 2012.

The Heretic is followed by Arabian Nights, which will be sponsored by Manchester Airport. The production is directed by Amy Leach, who is well known to Manchester theatre audiences as the director of Dr Korczak’s Example, which won the Best Studio Production Award at the 2008 Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards.

Adapted by Dominic Cooke, the Artistic Director at the Royal Court Theatre in London, Arabian Nights is at The Lowry’s Quays Theatre which will be specially converted to an in-the-round space for the production, and runs between 30 November 2012 -12 January 2013.

The Lowry’s spring 2013 production will be a revival of Bertolt Brecht’s anti-war epic Mother Courage and her Children, directed by Chris Honer. The bloody battlefields of the 1618-1648 Thirty Years’ War provide the setting for this astonishing tragedy of war, considered by many to be one of the most powerful dramas of the 20th century. Brecht’s gripping story of war and business, with its rich mixture of narrative, incident, music and dry humour, is as clear-eyed and provocative as ever. The production runs from 21 February – 9 March 2013.

The Library Theatre Company also presents the sixth annual re:play Festival (14 – 26 January 2013) which brings together under one roof the best productions seen in Manchester and Salford’s non-theatre spaces over the previous 12 months, as well as presenting a range of developmental opportunities for new writers, and new work commissioned specifically for the festival.

The Library Theatre Company’s third site-specific production, following Hard Times in 2011 and Manchester Lines, currently playing at Number One First Street, will be Manchester Sound – The Massacre, an immersive experience drawing together the story of the Peterloo Massacre in the city of August 1819 and the heyday of Rave – Madchester 1988-1991. The production, which will mark the silver anniversary of the start of the Madchester era, will be written by Polly Wiseman, directed by Paul Jepson, and is scheduled for June 2013 at a venue to be confirmed, in Manchester city centre.

Tickets for all the productions at The Lowry are on sale at theatre’s website at www.librarytheatre.com, or via Quay Tickets on 0843 208 6010, from Monday 25 June.