The runaway success of Inua Ellams’ highly acclaimed play Barber Shop Chronicles continues as Kate McGrath at Fuel today is delighted to confirm that Barber Shop Chronicles will tour the United States and Canada this autumn. Dates will be announced in due course.
Newsroom, political platform, local hot-spot, confession box, preacher-pulpit and football stadium – for generations, African men have gathered in barber shops to discuss the world.
This dynamic play journeys from a barber shop in London, to Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos and Accra. These are places where the banter can be barbed and the truth is always telling.
Kate McGrath, Director of Fuel, and Inua Ellams met in 2008, after Kate saw what became Inua’s first theatre show, The 14th Tale, at BAC. Fuel helped Inua develop his debut play and produced it, premiering it at the Edinburgh Festival, winning a Fringe First, touring it in the UK and internationally and presenting it at the National Theatre. Since that first meeting, Fuel has worked closely with Inua, producing Untitled, Knight Watch, Long Song Goodbye, Black T-shirt Collection, The Spalding Suite, and now Barber Shop Chronicles. Fuel is also currently touring Inua’s An Evening with an Immigrant where with poems, stories and extracts from his plays, he tells about his life through the lens of immigration.
“Having worked with an extraordinarily talented writer and creative team, in a very happy and fruitful collaboration with our co-producers the National Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse, we have been overwhelmed by passionate audience responses to Barber Shop Chronicles, and are thrilled to be extending its life. It speaks to our collective humanity in a way which on the one hand feels urgent and contemporary, and on the other transcends both time and borders. After England, Australia and New Zealand, we can’t wait to share this story with audiences in the USA and Canada for the first time.” Kate McGrath, Fuel.
Further details, including casting information about the autumn tour of Barber Shop Chronicles will be announced in due course.
The production is directed by Bijan Sheibani, designed by Rae Smith, with lighting design by Jack Knowles, movement direction by Aline David and sound design by Gareth Fry.
