Headlong has today announced details of their 2024 season featuring new writing from exciting new and established voices and a thrilling contemporary take on a classic work.
In the pioneering company’s 50th year, Headlong continues to build upon its long-standing ambition and reputation of championing early-career artists, presenting innovative new work and bringing timely reimaginings of classics to the fore. Collaborating with partners right across the country, Headlong creates and distributes bold, world-class drama firmly rooted in the immediate questions of our time to audiences throughout the UK. From Enron to Best of Enemies, People Places and Things to untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play, 1984 to Jitney, over the past five decades Headlong has been instrumental in shaping the UK’s theatrical landscape.
Always moving forward, Headlong has platformed and collaborated with industry disruptors. Since 1974, the company has championed writers and artists such as Roy Alexander Weise, Chris Bush, Tinuke Craig, James Graham, Lucy Kirkwood, Kimber Lee, Duncan Macmillan, Chloe Moss, Lucy Prebble, Moi Tran, and Lyndsey Turner and worked with artists such as Katie Mitchell to pioneer new eco approaches to theatrical touring. Through their talent development opportunities, such as the Headlong Origins programme for emerging directors and in-house artists in residence, Headlong remains an engine room for presenting high quality, contemporary Drama on UK stages.
Holly Race Roughan, Artistic Director of Headlong says: “People say you know yourself at 50 – we’re finding this true at Headlong. We stand firm on a programme of classics that we approach like new plays, and new plays that we believe to be tomorrow’s classics.
“Our mission is to make the political and social questions of our time engrossing – I’m proud to say it’s in our DNA. It’s a privilege to lead a company at 50 that consistently punches above their weight, and exists to distribute high quality drama across the nation.
“Headlong is only as vivid as the formidable imaginations of the freelancers we work with. This season, Tinuke Craig returns to direct an American classic and playwrights Laura Lomas and David Edgar stretch our muscles with two new political dramas.
“Being 50 means nothing without knowing where you’re headed. I’m also thrilled to introduce another cohort of Origins – our artist development scheme that extends our passionate commitment to supporting the next generation of theatre-makers.”
To begin the 2024 season, Headlong in a co-production with Chichester Festival Theatre will present The House Party by writer Laura Lomas (Metamorphoses, The Blue Woman, Chaos) – a reimagining of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie for today’s generation. Produced in association with Frantic Assembly, The House Party will be directed by Headlong’s Artistic Director Holly Race Roughan (A View from the Bridge, Henry V, Hedda Tesman) playing from 3 May – 1 June 2024 at CFT’s Minerva Theatre.
Writer, Laura Lomas said; “Headlong is a company that continues to challenge and inspire with their bold and radical work. It’s a delight and honour to be part of their 50th anniversary season.”
It’s Julie’s 18th birthday, and she’s throwing a party in her father’s extravagant townhouse. Her boyfriend has just dumped her and her long-suffering best friend Christine is trying to pick up the pieces. As the revellers pile into the booze, down in the kitchen Christine and her boyfriend Jon – son of Julie’s cleaner – clear up and dare to dream of the future. But as the volume goes up and the shots go down, Julie concocts a twisted cocktail of privilege, desire and destruction. The cast includes Rachelle Diedericks (Our Generation, A View from the Bridge) as Christine and Nadia Parkes (Kidnapped, The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself) as Julie.
Continuing Headlong’s commitment to distributing high quality drama nationally, a fresh new staging of A Raisin in the Sun by director Tinuke Craig (Trouble in Butetown, Jitney, Crave, The Color Purple) will play in nationwide venues from 13 September 2024 in a Headlong, Leeds Playhouse, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and Nottingham Playhouse production, also visiting Oxford Playhouse.
Groundbreaking, pioneering and challenging, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun broke barriers as the first play by a Black woman on Broadway. This classic play remains relevant and powerful in a world still divided by inequality.
In a rented apartment on Chicago’s South Side, the Younger family is full of hope, dreams, grief, and big plans. Their beloved father has died, and the money from his life insurance policy could change their lives. Mama wants to put down roots in a home of her own. Her daughter Beneatha has her heart set on becoming a doctor. But her son Walter Lee thinks the money is his to spend — and he’s willing to sacrifice his values and his family to get what he wants. Each must face what it means to escape the confines of a segregated society. How do you create a meaningful life in a world designed to keep you down?
Director Tinuke Craig said: “It is a privilege to once again work alongside the creative powerhouse that is Headlong in their 50th year after collaborating on Jitney in 2021 whilst continuing my ongoing Artistic Associate role with Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. Now, the time is right to bring Lorraine Hansberry’s classic A Raisin in the Sun back to the stage in a relevant, fresh new production for today.”
Artistic Director Holly Race Roughan will direct the Royal Shakespeare Company’s world premiere of acclaimed playwright David Edgar’s (Nicholas Nickleby, Pentecost, Maydays) major new political play The New Real produced in association with Headlong at the RSC’s The Other Place playing in October and November 2024.
“So here’s the offer. To run a highly ethical campaign for a candidate you really can believe in, actually. In a place that needs you. Now.” It’s the 2000s. We’re in a distant country. Rachel, a stellar American political strategist, and Caro, her British data whizz, have been hired to fight a ferocious election. Their fax-machines don’t work, the voting is rigged, and it’s proving impossible to tell what’s real and what’s fake. They think they’re here to teach the Eastern Europeans how to do democracy, but it turns out they’re here to learn. And when Rachel’s former political partner Larry rocks up on the opposition side, their next showdown threatens to change global politics from Warsaw to Wisconsin. Forever.
In a year of epoch-changing elections, David Edgar’s The New Real is an epic, panoramic play about how the political fault-line was redrawn. An origin story. For right now.
Writer David Edgar said: “2024 sees probably the biggest-ever battle between mainstream politics and populist insurgents, around the world. I’m delighted that the RSC are presenting my new play about the origins of this titanic struggle, in the most tumultuous of times. And that Headlong’s brilliant Holly Race Roughan – whose View from the Bridge was a highlight of my 2023 theatre-going – is directing it.”
Headlong is committed to exploring how it can commission and work with artists in a different way, such as bringing freelance artists into the heart of the organisation. Rhashan Stone (City Hall for SKY, The Several Lives Of Solomon Pride for BBC, Black Teacher for Netflix) is Headlong’s current writer-in-residence for 23/24.
Now in its fourth year, the Headlong Origins scheme continues the company’s ambitions of nurturing talent within the heart of the organisation. Origins aims to celebrate and develop early career theatre directors from across the UK, outside of London. Directors are invited to work closely with the company for 12 months, during which they will receive mentorship from leading industry professionals and Headlong’s producing and creative team. The artists will join Headlong’s R&D sessions and workshops, engage with rehearsal processes and see work from theatres across the UK, as they develop their own work and artistic vision. Headlong Origins is supported by the Backstage Trust.
Announced today, the Origins 2024 cohort will include Helena Ascough, Jen Malarkey, Sonny Nwachukwu, Lexie Ward and Corey Weekes. Mingyu Lin and Jude Christian will be this year’s Project Leads. Full biographies are in the link above.
Previous Headlong Origins Artists include: Anna Berentzen, Callum Berridge, Gitika Buttoo, Maria Crocker, Mandeep Kaur Glover, Nyasha Gudo, Sam Hardie, Alix Harris, Julia Head, Fionnuala Kennedy, Maisie Newman, Jack Nurse, Ellie Taylor, Sita Thomas and Emily Ling Williams. All have gone on to direct further work, with some directing their first mid-scale productions for theatres such as the Bush, Bristol Old Vic, Leeds Playhouse, Exeter Northcott, Octagon Theatre Bolton, Manchester Royal Exchange, and Leicester Curve. Others have gone on to direct or assist on shows for larger stages such as the National Theatre, Almeida, Royal Shakespeare Company, Birmingham Hippodrome and the Lyric Theatre; landed roles in artistic leadership and received or been shortlisted for bursaries and awards such as the Nicole Kidman bursary from MGCFutures, the 2023 JMK Director Award and The Stage Debut award for Best Director.
Tickets for The House Party at CFT’S Minerva Theatre go on public sale Saturday 2 March. Tickets for A Raisin in the Sun go on public sale for Leeds Playhouse Thursday 22 February, for Lyric Hammersmith Theatre on Monday 19 February, for Oxford Playhouse on Tuesday 27 February and for Nottingham Playhouse on Monday 19 February. On sale dates for The New Real at the RSC’s The Other Place will be released later this year.
Further information and announcements regarding Headlong at 50 will be revealed later this year. For more information on Headlong at 50 visit headlong.co.uk.
