Details of Park Theatre’s 10th season for Autumn/Winter 2017 have been announced by Artistic Director Jez Bond. Featuring six world premieres, a very special one man show and a London premiere, the new season includes a plethora of new writing and acclaimed revivals across both spaces in the venue’s fifth year.
Jez Bond says: “I’m excited to be presenting a season peppered with familiar names but also a host of new, up-and-coming talent. With a continued programme of access performances across both spaces and increased diversity on our stages, we’re pushing further, both this season and beyond, to really make Park Theatre an accessible, welcoming venue for everyone.”
Sir Ian McKellen’s exclusive solo performance of Shakespeare, Tolkien, Others & You opens the new season in PARK200, as Jez Bond directs Sir Ian through the most exciting pages and stages from the actor’s past fifty years, with all funds going to support the theatre’s work. Kevin Elyot’s never-before-seen final play Twilight Song follows, in a performance set to overlap with the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act that decriminalised homosexuality. The producers behind Park Theatre’s third West End transfer The Boys In The Band return with a revival of Joe Orton’s seminal black comedy Loot, opening one week after the 50th anniversary of the playwright’s tragic death. Roxanna Silbert (Artistic Director of Birmingham Repertory Theatre) then directs Olivier and Tony Award-winning actor Ian McDiarmid in political powerhouse drama What Shadows. Directed by actress, comedian and playwright Kathy Burke, The Retreat follows; a world premiere comedy drama penned by Peep Show, Fresh Meat & Four Lions co-creator and writer Sam Bain. Concluding the PARK200 season in time for Christmas is a revival of Denise Deegan’s Olivier Award-winning, festive heart-warmer Daisy Pulls It Off, from the team behind the previous Park Theatre hit Almost, Maine, and directed by Paulette Randall MBE.
The PARK90 season opens with the world premiere of biochemical topical thriller The View From Nowhere, from the same creative team behind Warehouse of Dreams (Lion & Unicorn Theatre). New black comedy Rabbits follows with a tale of marital strife and bunny murder, as Skins, The News Quiz & Newsjack writer Joe Hampson make his stage writing debut. A familiar play stripped to the core by three actors from one family, Hamlet stars Gyles Brandreth, along with his son Benet and daughter-in-law Kosha Engler (directed by Simon Evans). Then telling the real life story of survivors of the 1966 Aberfan Disaster The Revlon Girl is a touching and affirming play from Neil Anthony Docking. A trio of haunting monologues from a mysterious fishing community intertwines across eras in Fishskin Trousers, written by Elizabeth Kuti. Centred around an accusation of misconduct in the workplace, The Secondary Victim receives its world premiere with an incisive look at contemporary blame culture, directed by Matthew Gould. Closing the PARK90 season with an epic London premiere about love and redemption from 18th century Canada, White Fang is written and directed by Jethro Compton (director/adapter of the PARK200 hit The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), and based on the novel by Jack London.
