Director of Nuffield Southampton Theatres (NST), Samuel Hodges, today announces full casting for the world première of Women in Power. NST Associate Director Blanche McIntyre directs Lydia Bewley, best known for The Inbetweeners, Plebs and E4’s comedy Drifters, Elizabeth Boag, Anna Fordham, Lisa Kerr, Anne Odeke and Alicia Mckenzie.
The production, in association with Oxford Playhouse, sees some of the UK’s most influential female voices, Wendy Cope, Jenny Eclair, Suhayla El-Bushra, Natalie Haynes, Shappi Khorsandi, Jess Phillips MP and Brona C Titley, come together to write this musical comedy based on the Greek classic, The Assemblywomen. The production opens on 13 September at NST City, with previews from 6 September and runs until 29 September. It will then run at Oxford Playhouse from 3 – 6 October.
The country is in political turmoil. Recent wars and alliances have left Athenians no option but to take the most extreme action. The most radical: a government of women!
Strategia masterminds and leads a daring coup d’état, outlining her utopian vision of total equality to her crowd of cross-dressing collaborators. A world where power imbalance is eradicated and with it debt, greed and theft. But this has unintended and hilarious consequences.
Women in Power is a raucous new musical comedy, and a reimagining of the original, by a team of leading female writers from the world of poetry, broadcasting, theatre and stand up. Combined with an exceptional comic cast and led by NST Associate Blanche McIntyre, Aristophanes’ Women in Power is turned into a celebration of sketches with songs, dance, music and women taking the lead.
Women in Power will open the Bungalow Café Festival – a new arts festival in Southampton to celebrate 100 years since the first British Women won the right to vote.
