Park Theatre has announced five new shows for their Summer 2024 season, with additions including two new Make Mine A Double performances exploring themes of identity, desire and lifestyle in small places, a kids comedy show about dreaming for the whole family and a revival of one of August Strindberg’s most famous dramas, Miss Julie.
The venue also welcomes award-winning comedian Ivo Graham with his new theatre show that aims to move or confuse its audience.
The Make Mine a Double programme presents double bills of shows that aims to give theatre makers a lower-cost and lower-risk way of producing new work in the Finsbury Park venue, as well as offering multi-buy tickets to encourage local audiences to see compelling new work. Following The Light House and Sun Bear in April, two new shows have been added for May: Cold Water (14 May – 1 June, Park90) is a play about wanting things so much you can’t do anything about them. After university, Emma moves back with her parents in Hertfordshire, and gets a job at her old school, assisting in the Drama department. Before long, she’s spending every day in the studio with Matt, her boss, and Emma feels her life starting to change. In Sniff (14 – 24 May, Park90) two strangers meet in a pub toilet in a small town that no one cares about. Liam, struggling with addiction and money troubles, and Alex, cloaked in a Hugo Boss suit and the pride of a job in Canary Wharf. However, as the door locks, and time clocks, a dark connection begins to unearth itself.
In Park200, following a sell-out run and critical acclaim at Edinburgh Fringe 2023, Mr Sleepybum (28 May – 2 June) is a high-energy interactive kids show that the whole family will enjoy. Filled with fun and physical comedy, the character explores the most stupid dreams we have at night in a circus of silly sketches, re-enacting dream sequences from swimming with Sharks, to solving the mystery of a stolen chocolate cake, to dodging balls in the guide of the Cowboy Ball-Dodger.
A theatre show from award winning comedian Ivo Graham, Carousel (4 – 7 June) is a searingly direct, exquisitely soundtracked exploration of the places in his life that he aches to revisit again. Inspired by a quote from Mad Men, the show steps away from the frivolity of his stand-up and invites the audience to delve into the story of his life.
Next, long time collaborators Lidless Theatre return to Park90, this time with a revival of August Strindberg’s masterpiece Miss Julie (7 June – 6 July). Grippingly funny and beguilingly dangerous, the drama examines sex, power, gender and control in Sweden on Midsummer’s Eve, 1888. It’s hot, the sun isn’t going to set, and the flowers are in full bloom. While The Count is away, the servants dance through the night. Amidst the festivities is Miss Julie… wilder than the rest. The run follows two sell-out runs of Philip Ridley’s Leaves of Glass at Park Theatre.
The shows join the two previously announced shows in Park Theatre’s summer season: A Song of Songs in Park200 (9 May – 15 June) is a musical play from an unprecedented collaboration of international artists, winner of The San Francisco Critics Award for the best new production. A Song of Songs fuses a world music score, Middle Eastern harmonics, dazzling choreography and an inspiring story of passion and awakening. In The Marilyn Conspiracy (19 Jun – 27 Jul, Park200), Vicki McKellar teams up with Olivier Award-winning director Guy Masterson in a meticulously researched thriller about the five hours after the death of Marilyn Monroe. All the facts are revealed, lies exposed, the myths debunked, and the shocking truth of what happened in those missing five hours is laid bare on stage.
