The Pianist musical and more announced in Park Theatre season

The Park Theatre has announced five new productions in its summer and autumn seasons.

The season includes the world premiere of Holy Fool, a new play about composer Dmitri Shostakovich and the pressures of creating art under Stalin’s regime.

Written by Rosalind Adler and Lea Sellers and directed by Kate Fahy, the production runs from 27 August to 10 October in Park200, exploring the tension between public conformity and private resistance.

Also in Park200, Thom Southerland directs a stage adaptation of The Pianist, based on the memoir by Władysław Szpilman.

Running from 15 October to 28 November, the production will feature Szpilman’s own music performed by a cast of actor-musicians, depicting the cultural life of pre-war Warsaw and its destruction during the Second World War. Tunes are arranged for the stage by Simon Lee

Original Theatre returns to the venue with The Importance of Being Oscar from 22 July to 22 August. Written by Micheál MacLiammóir and directed by Michael Fentiman, the solo play stars Alastair Whatley and charts the life and legacy of Oscar Wilde through excerpts from his work.

In the smaller Park90 space, The Talking Drum: Voices of the Andover Estate (19 to 29 August) is a new verbatim play created with residents of the local estate in collaboration with London Metropolitan University. Drawing on interviews conducted over several years, the production examines community identity and challenges narratives surrounding the estate, including comments made by Ann Widdecombe in 2007.

Deafinitely Theatre will present a British Sign Language adaptation of Bull by Mike Bartlett from 30 September to 24 October. Directed by Paula Garfield, the production continues the company’s bilingual approach, combining BSL, spoken English and creative captioning in its depiction of workplace bullying and power dynamics.

Alongside the main programme, the theatre will host another edition of its celebrity-led fundraiser Whodunnit [Unrehearsed], which runs from 11 May to 28 June with a Wild West theme.