Sheffield Theatres today announce Robert Hastie’s final season as he steps down after eight years as Artistic Director, with new productions running from summer 2024 to spring 2025 in the Crucible Theatre and Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse.
Robert Hastie will direct a new production of Chariots of Fire by Mike Bartlett, celebrating the 100th anniversary of record-breaking races at the 1924 Paris Olympics and the true story of two athletes’ support of each other’s beliefs.
A brand new version of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is adapted by Chris Bush and directed by Elin Schofield – reuniting after their previous success with ROCK / PAPER / SCISSORS.
A new Sheffield Theatres production of Little Shop of Horrors, the out of this world rock musical, will be the 2024 winter musical, with book and lyrics by Howard Ashman and music by Alan Menken.
In 2025, a new co-production with Utopia Theatre to present Death and the King’s Horseman, by Wole Soyinka and directed by Mojisola Kareem.
Passions ignite and illusions are shattered in Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Josh Seymour
Sheffield Theatres and Theatre Centre collaborate again presenting Dizzy, a fantastical teenage odyssey of grief, love, unexpected heroes and street art by Mohammed Zain-Dada.
Western, true crime and music come together in KENREX, from the makers of Olivier-nominated hit Cruise.
Malorie Blackman’s award-winning book Pig Heart Boy, adapted by Winsome Pinnock, directed by Tristan Finn-Aiduenu, and co-produced with Unicorn Theatre and Children’s Theatre Partnership comes to Sheffield.
Robert Hastie, Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres, said: “It has been an honour to lead this wonderful group of theatres for the last eight years, and to work alongside such a committed, talented and kind collection of people. There is nowhere like it – the range of theatre spaces, and the multiplicity of local and national relationships Sheffield Theatres enjoys, make this place a whole cultural ecosystem, and it’s been a joy and an education to work at its heart. The bumper season we announce today reflects the variety and quality of great nights out and opportunities to join in that our audiences rightly expect of us.
I have loved working here. I will miss crossing Tudor Square and bumping into actors on a break from rehearsal, young artists on their way to an R&D workshop in our Talent Development space, lines of schoolkids queuing noisily for a matinee in the Lyceum, passers-by keen to stop me and tell me what they thought of last night’s show in the Crucible. The immense privilege of working in a city that loves its theatre is something I will never forget. Every time I’ve introduced a new director, actor or designer to our stages, it has been with an enormous sense of pride in the warm welcome I know they’ll receive from our staff and audiences. It’s inspired me to programme adventurously and eclectically, to invite world-class talent whose work I admire, to make productions of my own that I’m hugely proud of, and to dedicate resources to nurturing the next generation of local artists who are already beginning to make their presences felt on stages in Sheffield and beyond. Above all to see no useful distinction between the value we place on work that connects with our local neighbourhoods and that which achieves national and international acclaim. I’ve had the great good fortune to have been supported in all these endeavours by a dedicated board of trustees chaired by the great, much-missed Bob Kerslake, and by successive Chief Execs Dan Bates and Tom Bird and Deputy CEO Bookey Oshin, true champions of the theatre who have taught me so much about compassionate leadership, and who have become dear friends. I’m beyond excited to see where Tom and the splendid senior team take the theatres next, as they begin the search for a lucky Artistic Director who is about to discover that this is one of the best jobs in British Theatre.
For now, I’m looking forward to a thrilling final season that mixes bold new voices with global classics, risk-taking work for younger audiences with innovative new musical theatre, and family entertainment with chances to get involved in an inclusive participatory programme. I’m delighted to fire the starting pistol with a new production of Chariots of Fire, adapted by Mike Bartlett from the iconic film about the Paris 1924 Olympic Games, as we countdown to Paris 2024. It will be an epic way to say goodbye to the stage – the best of its kind in the country – that I’ve been lucky to call home for the last eight years.”
