The Old Red Lion Theatre has announced their Spring Season 2020, titled Where Are We Now? This will be the first full season under new Artistic Director, Alexander Knott.
Asking bold questions about how we face personal, social and environmental devastation, and where we go from here, the season is a greatly varied curation of pieces, which complement each other in their breadth and variety of voices.
Opening the season is a festival of emerging artists, in shorter runs, enabling the stage of the ORL to be accessible to as many new companies as possible, and a huge number of new stories to be told.
The theatre’s main shows are a thrilling mix of world premieres of new plays by dynamic young voices, work from ORL’s new Associate Company, Ginger & Blonde and award-winning European premieres of vitally important stories from across the world. The season also includes transfers by popular demand from the London Horror Festival and Maiden Speech festival.
In February, Award winning West End & Broadway production team, Take Two Theatricals, team up with actor and writer, Rosie Day, to stage Instructions For A Teenage Armageddon, an unconventional coming of age story.
In March, Simon Stephens’ heartbreaking and soul-stopping piece for movement is revived in a collaboration between multiple award winning and critically acclaimed theatre collectives, BoxLess Theatre, Bag of Beard, Grindstone & Take Two Theatricals, it will be accompanied by Buried and Graceland, the premieres of two new pieces of theatre in what promises to be an unmissable triple bill production in association with the Old Red Lion Theatre.
Old Red Lion Artistic Director, Alexander Knott, said: “Being faced with the prospect of programming a season within my first month in the job was a daunting one, but I could not be more delighted with the range and breadth of stories and voices that the ORL is staging with Where Are We Now? I wanted to see companies on our stage in a more accessible, more affordable way, and so I’m delighted to have programmed a festival of new work to open the season. I’m also very proud to have multiple European and World Premieres, ensuring that the Old Red stays at the forefront of London’s theatre scene and international conversation.
Finally, being able to bring Nuclear War by Simon Stephens, having developed a cult following after its premiere at the Royal Court, paired with two new plays, is going to be a thrilling and cathartic theatrical experience. I hope there’s something for everyone, and plenty to encourage repeat booking, as the pieces really do reflect and complement one another. I can’t wait to see them come to life.”
The season at a glance:
DAWTA By Dionne Draper, 3 – 5 Feb 2020
CHRONIC By Catherine Bensley, 3 – 5 Feb 2020
MOTHER MUST DIE?! By Fantastic Garlands, 6 – 8 Feb
SHADES OF MEDIOCRITY By Good Friends for a Lifetime, 6 – 8 Feb
THE LESSON By Gracia Rios Calderon, 9 – 11 Feb
THE GOOD DAD (A LOVE STORY) By Gail Louw, 12 – 15 Feb
OPHELIA By Emma White, 12 – 15 Feb
INSTRUCTIONS FOR A TEENAGE ARMAGEDDON By Rosie Day, produced by Take Two Theatricals in association with Emily Lunnon productions, 17 – 29 Feb
NUCLEAR WAR BY SIMON STEPHENS, WITH BURIED BY DAVID SPENCER, & GRACELAND BY MAX SAUNDERS-SINGER, 3 – 21 March
IS THAT ALL THERE IS? By Rosie Sharp & Anna McKelvie, 23 – 28 March
WHEN SWALLOWS CRY By Mike Van Graan, 26 – 28 March
SNOWFLAKES By Robert Boulton, 31 March – 18 April
