West Yorkshire Playhouse announces 2016 Bronte season
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The West Yorkshire Playhouse have announced their autumn 2016 season will be entitled Bronte Season to coincide with the bicentenary of Charlotte Bronte's birth.
The season will centre on three new West Yorkshire Playhouse commissions which explore the works of the literary family. Villette, a new adaptation from Yorkshire writer Linda Marshall-Griffiths, will reimagine Bronte's novel Jane Eyre and will run in the Courtyard Theatre.
Up next will be a work in progress staging of a new musical. Wasted updates the Bronte family and brings them into contemporary society; 'the kids from Haworth' as you've never seen them before. The production is written by Christopher Ash (musical director on Olivier Award-winning Showstoppers) and Carl Miller.
Lastly will be Know Your Place, an interactive digital arts project mapping the lives, locations and work of the Brontes 200 years ago and created by BAFTA-winning team Rocket.
Elsewhere in the season, Northern Ballet presents Wuthering Heights, choreographed by David Nixon with an original score by Les Mis composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and a series of screenings and panel events will take place over the autumn to promote debate on the classic works.
West Yorkshire Playhouse artistic director James Brining said:
"The Brontes are synonymous with Yorkshire and their impact and influence on our culture and heritage is phenomenal. In this 200th year of Charlotte's birth, the Playhouse's Bronte Season reimagines the work of these extraordinary women and invites artists and audiences to re-examine how their stories speak to us today.".
