The Playground Theatre, a multidisciplinary performing arts incubator and one of London’s newest off-West End venues, announces its upcoming season of newly incubated works, including Well Made @ The Playground – a mini-season of new theatre, opera, and contemporary dance from developing artists – and Ida Rubinstein: The Final Act, a play with music and dance that chronicles the untold story of dance’s Forgotten Diva.
The Playground is also co-producing compelling new works at other venues this Autumn, including Value Engineering: Scenes from the Grenfell Inquiry, which sets out to discover why the devastating fire of 14 June 2017 happened after the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, and who was responsible for the deaths of 72 people. This verbatim play is edited by Richard Norton-Taylor and directed by Nicolas Kent, and will run at The Tabernacle and Birmingham Rep. To support the local community in W10 through meaningful and necessary conversations surrounding Value Engineering, The Playground is producing VALUED – a trauma-informed education and community programme.
Elsewhere, The Playground presents Damage Control at Riverside Studios, an interactive, sonic sculpture exhibition that explores the language of emergency – by artist Josie Spencer with an accompanying audio play by Polly Wiseman that includes the testimony of residents from The Playground’s local community of W10.
Under the leadership of Co-Artistic Directors, Peter Tate and Anthony Biggs, The Playground serves as a dynamic and experimental West London-based theatre that offers a unique development space for artists and the arts community to explore new ideas.
Peter Tate & Anthony Biggs, joint Artistic Directors of The Playground Theatre said:
“This season, we are proud to introduce an array of exciting new works that have been uniquely incubated with us — including Well Made @ The Playground, a three-show series of theatre, opera, and contemporary dance, and Ida Rubinstein, the untold story of dance’s forgotten early-20th-century Russian diva.
These shows have all been developed and consciously shaped here at The Playground in partnership with some of our most inspired artists, who we have actively invited to explore new concepts. True to our ethos of embracing the joy of play, we are standing up these evolving works so that we can welcome our audiences into the thick of the creative process — and hopefully share in something unexpected together.”
