Lucy Bailey to direct The Graduate in new season at West Yorkshire Playhouse
© Dan Wooller for WhatsOnStage
West Yorkshire Playhouse have announced their Spring/Summer season with highlights including Lucy Bailey directing Terry Johnson's adaptation of The Graduate.
The season kicks off with a co-production by WYP, Headlong and the Nuffield. Sam Pritchard directs a new staging of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (4 to 25 Feb), aimed at addressing class identity and social mobility in a world where we can be digitally altered within seconds.
This is followed by a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet directed by Amy Leach and transported to a northern estate (3 to 25 March).
Lucy Bailey will direct The Graduate (28 April to 27 May). A co-production with Curve, Leicester, Terry Johnson's coming-of-age adaptation is based on the novel by Charles Webb and the 1968 film starring Dustin Hoffman. It premiered in the West End in 2000 starring Kathleen Turner.
Catherine Wheels Theatre Company presents Lifeboat (2 to 13 May), a true story about two 15-year-old evacuees left clinging to the remains of an upturned lifeboat.
In a co-production with Nuffield, Nottingham Playhouse and the Royal & Derngate, The Grapes of Wrath (24 May – 10 June) is based on John Steinbeck’s classic novel and tells of an American family in crisis when their farm crops turn to dust before their eyes.
Following her debut play Boi Boi is Dead, Zodwa Nyoni returns to WYP with Ode to Leeds (10 June – 1 July). A piece that fuses music and spoken word to celebrate five young poets on a journey from Leeds to New York City, directed by artistic director James Brining.
Inua Ellams‘ new play, Barber Shop Chronicles (12 – 29 July), places audiences into the chair of barber shops across Africa and the UK. Directed by Bijan Sheibani.
Visiting productions in the new season include Babe the Sheep Pig (15 – 18 Feb), Cyrano (28 Feb – 4 March), Pink Mist (28 Mar – 1 April), A Passionate Woman (4 – 8 April) and First Hippo on the Moon (5 – 8 April). Followed by Running Wild (11 – 15 April), La Strada (24 – 29 April), The Who’s Tommy (4 – 13 May) and The Gruffalo (25 – 30 July).
