The Bush Theatre today announce their 2019 season, the last programmed under the Artistic Directorship of Madani Younis who after seven years at the theatre will become Creative Director at the Southbank Centre in January 2019.
2018 has seen the Bush celebrate a West End transfer for Arinzé Kene’s Misty, which has now been seen by almost 30,000 people and been nominated for an Evening Standard award for ‘Best Musical Performance’, an Olivier award nomination for Monica Dolan’s The B*easts and the ongoing world-wide success of its touring production of NASSIM which opens in New York in December. Other celebrated work including Winsome Pinnock’s Leave Taking, Vinay Patel’s An Adventure and Ben Weatherill’s ground-breaking Jellyfish, re-affirm the theatre’s commitment to discover, nurture and produce the best new playwrights from the widest range of backgrounds. The 2018 programme has seen a 40% increase in attendance on the previous year and 52% of the audience being first-time visitors to its Shepherd’s Bush home.
With their 2019 season the Bush continues to challenge the unspoken rules of who writes theatre, how they write it, and who it is made for. From the UK premiere of Going Through, which tells the story of a young girl’s journey across borders while seamlessly mixing English and British Sign Language to Caryl Phillip’s Strange Fruit continuing the ground-breaking Passing The Baton initiative; from BABYLON: Beyond Borders, an international collaboration between four theatres that will be simultaneously live-streamed across four different cities, to And The Rest of Me Floats, a bold exploration of gender in collaboration with LGBTQ+ company Outbox..
It also continues its commitment to showcasing both home-grown and international talent. 4 out of 7 of the 2019 productions have been written or co-written by International writers, and 3 out of 7 have been written or co-written by writers from the UK.
Madani Younis said, ‘My time at the Bush Theatre is undoubtedly one of my proudest achievements to date. The Bush invested in a vision that celebrated not just the best of theatre but the best of our country’s inherent culture.
With its global outlook, I feel this season shows the best of who we are and stands for the values that we have attempted to build over the past seven years. It’s a season of creatives who have inspired me, continue to inspire me and I hope will inspire our audiences. ‘
The Bush also today announced UNWRAPPED, a holiday season of cabaret, comedy and theatre including Richard Gadd, Sh!t Theatre, Harriet Kemsley and Gingzilla which runs for a two-week season this December.
Full season details can be found here.
