With Zadie Smith’s critically acclaimed sell-out The Wife of Willesden currently running, Kiln Theatre’s Artistic Director Indhu Rubasingham announces today that Chinonyerem Odimba’s Black Love will launch the theatre’s 2022 season.
With Book and Lyrics by Chinonyerem Odimba, Music by Ben and Max Ringham and directed by Chinonyerem Odimba and Katie Posner, the production opens at Kiln Theatre on 1 April with previews from 28 March and runs until 23 April, following a successful tour as part of Paines Plough’s Roundabout season earlier this year.
Indhu Rubasingham said today, “It is a pleasure to bring Black Love to the Kiln stage – it’s a beautiful, theatrical piece that will resonate with many. Chino, Katie, Ben and Max all met here in 2019, collaborating on our fabulous community play The Seven Ages of Patience. So, to have them back on their next collaboration feels very fitting, especially with this special show.”
Chinonyerem Odimba, writer and co-director of Black Love, and Artistic Director of tiata fahodzi commented, “Working with Kiln Theatre and Paines Plough to bring this very special musical show back on stage is a wonderful opportunity for us at tiata fahodzi. Black Love has already engaged so many audiences across the UK in important conversations about family, joy, and race in contemporary Britain, and I can’t wait for more audiences in London to share the love!”
Meet Aurora and Orion. Sister and brother. Constellations in time. More than blood. More than just fam.
Inside their small London flat, memories of their parents’ Black love surrounds them. When that love is threatened, they must first find understanding and connection before they can begin to find a way back to one another.
An explosion of form-busting storytelling, Black Love celebrates and investigates the Black experience through music, real-life stories and imagined worlds. This ‘beautiful ode to black society and home’ (The Guardian) is not to be missed.
The Kiln Theatre auditorium will be transformed into the round. Casting will be announced in the new year.
