New Diorama Theatre and Underbelly, Edinburgh | July-August 2024

Mosinee, Wisconsin, 1950. An idyllic Midwestern town wakes up to find themselves in a nightmare.

Armed Communist forces have taken over; imprisoning townspeople, cutting off communication, marching through the streets with nobody to oppose them. Prices are changed, barbed wire fences erected, and the Mayor is held at gunpoint.

Or so it appears. This is just how it begins.

Plunging into the dawn of the Cold War and back again, The Mosinee Project follows the true story of a fake invasion. A fevered, darkly funny retelling, interrogating why we fear, control and tell tales about the future.

★★★★
‘a compelling piece of theatre’
The Scotsman

★★★★
‘imaginative and thoughtful’
The Stage

★★★★
‘a sideways look at a bonkers moment in time...beautifully staged’
Fest Magazine

★★★★
‘captures shifting ideas of truth and deception with a sly wink of the eye, teetering beautifully between arch humour and authentic horror’
The Arts Desk

★★★★
‘infectious charm and wit’
Entertainment Now

Performer-devisers: Jonathan Oldfield, Martha Watson Allpress, Millicent Wong

Writer and director: Nikhil Vyas
Original co-creator and dramaturg: Aaron Kilercioglu

Additional material devised by: Breffni Holahan, Jessica Layde, Jonathan Oldfield and  Martha Watson Allpress

Set and costume designer: Grace Venning
Lighting designer: Catja Hamilton
Sound designer: Patch Middleton
Video system designer: Dan Light
Research consultant: Emma Jude Harris
Fight director: Robin Hellier
Stage manager: Josh Trackman

Presented by Counterfactual in association with Underbelly, New Diorama Theatre and Concord Theatricals

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, with additional support from MGCfutures and the Unity Theatre Trust.

Images © David Monteith-Hodge

Southwark Playhouse | May-June 2024

“That’s a delicious bloody prize for the beatings”

In a small town with a big sky, a shot rings out and nobody hears.

In a small town with a big sky, a shot rings out and everyone knows why.

In a small town with a big sky, a shot rings out and a man gets his comeuppance. 

Daring, grotesque, and darkly funny, The Bleeding Tree is the story of three women determined to survive - but what if killing violent daddy numbskull is only the beginning of the story? In this intimate drama of epic proportions, acclaimed Australian playwright Angus Cerini explores community, complicity and what it means to look the other way.

The Bleeding Tree premiered in Sydney in 2015, where it won the Griffin Award, the Helpmann Award for Best Play and the David Williamson Prize for Excellence in Writing for Australian Theatre. This UK premiere production is directed by Sophie Drake (Patriots, West End and Broadway).

★★★★★
‘a show which grips you from minute one and doesn’t let go’
All That Dazzles

★★★★★
‘captivating’
West End Best Friend

★★★★★
‘a flawless script, both dark and humorous’
Adventures in Theatreland

★★★★★
‘astonishing’
Stage to Page

★★★★
‘an ageless tale that packs a punch, breathless and compelling from beginning to end’
The Stage

★★★★
‘a beautiful, elegant spectacle of wordplay’
The Reviews Hub

★★★★
‘crucial and radical’
The Spy in the Stalls

★★★★
‘unmissable’
ReviewsGate

★★★★
‘terrific performances, dripping with anger and grief’
Mind the Blog

★★★★
‘relentlessly fascinating’
Paul in London

★★★★
‘brutal, essential, and highly theatrical’
AJHLovesTheatre

★★★★
‘beautifully evocative’
A Young(ish) Perspective

★★★★
‘all three performances are remarkable’
Always Time for Theatre

5 x Offie-nominated for Best Performance Ensemble, Best Director - Plays (Sophie Drake), Best Choreography/Movement (Iskandar إسكندر R. Sharazuddin), Best Lighting Design (Ali Hunter) and Best Sound Design (Asaf Zohar)

Writer: Angus Cerini
Director: Sophie Drake
Set and Costume Designer: Jasmine Swan
Movement Director: Iskandar إسكندر R. Sharazuddin
Lighting Designer: Ali Hunter
Composer and Sound Designer: Asaf Zohar
Associate Set and Costume Designer: Bethan Wall
Production Manager: Adam Jefferys
Stage Manager: Honor Klein
Assistant Producer: Charlotte Vickers

Cast: Elizabeth Dulau, Mariah Gale, Alexandra Jensen

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, with additional support from Stage One, the Golsoncott Foundation and the Unity Theatre Trust.

Images © Lidia Crisafulli

Soho Theatre | March-April 2024

A raucous queer comedy with songs, Pansexual Pregnant Piracy explores the swashbuckling true story of eighteenth-century pirate Anne Bonny. Disguised as a man, Anne soars across oceans searching for booty (treasure) and booty (ass) alongside fellow pirate/partner/captain Calico Jack. But when hot wet babe Mary Read crawls aboard, the ship's course isn't the only thing that's no longer straight. Can they flee the shadow of the Pirate Hunter General who dreams of taking down piracy and pansexuality? And what does it mean for their queer seafaring when their bellies brew more than just rum?!

Outlandish comedy collides with a ne’er-before-seen queer tale in Pansexual Pregnant Piracy, the follow-up to Airlock’s Offie-nominated Lesbian Space Crime.

★★★★
‘entirely inaccurate, completely shameless, and utterly delightful’
All That Dazzles

★★★★
‘absolutely brilliant’
Broadway World

★★★★
‘fantastically ridiculous and uproarious’
The Reviews Hub

★★★★
‘a queer extravaganza that embraces the filthy best of panto and cabaret’
Fairy Powered Productions

★★★★
‘deranged and delightful’
North West End

★★★★
‘non-stop, high-energy comedy’
A Youngish Perspective

★★★★
‘guaranteed fun’
Theatre and Tonic

Creators: Eleanor Colville, Rosanna Suppa, Robbie Taylor Hunt
Director: Robbie Taylor Hunt
Set and Costume Designer: Caitlin Mawhinney
Lighting Designer: Catja Hamilton
Sound Designer: Anna Short
Orchestrators and Musical Directors: Erin Rydal, Simon McKenzie
Choreographer: Sara Green
Fight Director: Enric Ortuño
Stage Manager: Nikita Bala
Assistant Producer: Amanda Chinyanganya

Cast: Elizabeth Chu, Eleanor Colville, Rosanna Suppa, Robbie Taylor Hunt

Presented by Airlock Theatre

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England

Images © Cam Harle

Bush Theatre | January-March 2024

You care a lot, that’s nice. It shows your age.’

Jay’s new. He’s just started as a temp at an NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services office. He arrives with little more than a fledgling desk plant and well-meaning plans to change the broken system.

Angela’s seen it all. She’s been working in this building for over 30 years and nothing seems to faze her – except perhaps this eager new hire who seems determined to challenge her at every turn.

Exhausted by archaic protocol, Jay starts to bend the rules to breaking point in a desperate attempt to help their patients. Trust is shattered, professional boundaries are crossed and Jay discovers the reality of what is truly at stake.

This Might Not Be It unflinchingly confronts the hard truths of our crumbling NHS mental health services. This candid portrayal of human lives at the mercy of the system is written by Sophia Chetin-Leuner, and has previously been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting and longlisted for for Verity Bargate Award.

★★★★
‘speaks in a universal language…intricately calibrated’
The Times

★★★★
’the characters are startlingly vivid, filled with hopes, flaws and intriguing contradictions’
The Stage

★★★★★
‘finally a show that has heart and intelligence’
London Living Large

★★★★★
‘if you only get [a] chance to see one show this year, choose this one’
Curtain Call Reviews

★★★★
‘a curious and precise eye for human behaviour’
Broadway World

★★★★
‘perceptive and devastatingly accurate’
London Theatre

★★★★
‘complex and nuanced’
A Youngish Perspective

★★★★
‘a mirror to our times’
The Reviews Hub

★★★★
‘strikingly honest and human’
West End Best Friend

‘immensely engaging’
The Guardian

‘observed with a quiet, touching truth’
The Telegraph

Writer: Sophia Chetin-Leuner
Director: Ed Madden
Set and Costume Designer: Alys Whitehead
Lighting Designer: Laura Howard
Sound Designer: Max Pappenheim
Associate Sound Designer: Sasha Howe
Production Manager: Chloe Stally-Gibson
Stage Manager: Kanoko Shimizu
Outreach Consultant: Maryam Shaharuddin
Associate Producer: Rory Thomas-Howes

Cast: Denzel Baidoo, Debra Baker, Dolly Webb

Presented by Broccoli Arts and Jessie Anand Productions in association with the Bush Theatre

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England

Also supported by sauveur studios and the Unity Theatre Trust

Images © Ellie Kurttz

Omnibus Theatre | November-December 2023

Alice is grieving and she’s lost her way. Oli is a doctor but he can’t make her better.

Struggling to make rent, they advertise for a flatmate and a mysterious stranger called Tiger arrives: they’re the strangest person you could meet, but to Alice, Tiger makes perfect sense.

Blurring the lines between comedy and tragedy, the real and the imaginary, this moving new play explores the mysteries of grief: how we befriend it, get lost in it, and find a way to live with it.

★★★★★
’It’s pretty amazing how a play about such a sad topic can have such a universal impact’
West End Evenings

★★★★
’Writer Joe Eyre has created something clever and extraordinary’
Everything Theatre

★★★★
’beautifully unique’
The Artiscape

★★★★
’wonderfully perceptive…Meg Lewis is terrific as Tiger’
Fairy Powered Productions

‘thought-provoking and charming’
South London

Writer and Composer: Joe Eyre
Director: Myles O’Gorman
Set and Costume Designer: Hazel Low
Lighting Designer: Cheng Keng
Sound Designer: Jamie Lu
Stage Manager: Emily Darley

Cast: Poppy Allen-Quarmby, Meg Lewis, Luke Nunn

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England

Camden People’s Theatre & God’s House Tower | October-November 2023

Antisemitism is the story of an Israeli Jew’s first 24 hours on British soil. Arriving in pursuit of a calm life, our unsuspecting hero is thrown into a wild journey full of absurd characters — his bickering aunts in Finchley, a drunken lord and a couple of kidnappers who think they’ve captured Uri Geller for ransom.

Will he learn a deep lesson about identity, power and privilege?
Will he find the meaning of Jewishness?
Will he unpack the mysteries of British subtext and euphemism?
Will everyone just leave him alone?

Sure to get under everyone’s skin, Antisemitism tackles one of the most explosive topics in British politics through song and dance. A fast-paced political satire that uses Jewish humour and genre-bending music to produce a nuanced, fierce depiction of new-old hate from the perspective of the eternal outsider/insider: the wandering Jew.

★★★★
‘not only funny, but life affirming’
Jewish Renaissance

★★★★
‘ingeniously infus[es] a comedic twist into a deeply serious issue’
Plays To See

‘offbeat and thought provoking theatre that goes against the grain’
In Common

Writer and Composer: Uri Agnon
Director: Emma Jude Harris
Musical Director: David Merriman
Set and Costume Designer: Cory Shipp
Lighting Designer: Amy Daniels
Video Designer: Adam Lenson
Movement Consultant: Adi Gortler
Production Manager: Andreas Ayling
Sound Engineer: Becks Cleworth
Stage Manager: Zoë Mackinnon

Cast: Hannah Bristow, Amy Parker, Maya Kristal Tenenbaum
Band: David Merriman, Oli George Rew
Pre-recorded singing and voiceover: Peter Falconer, Daniel Millar

Dramaturgical support by Emma Jude Harris
Initial dramaturgical and producing support by Chalk Dramaturgy

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England

Also supported by the Royal Victoria Hall Foundation, the Hinrichsen Foundation, the Parkes Institute, and JW3

Bold Tendencies | June 2023

With an eclectic animal cast of mouse, duck, horse, pig, toad, dog, fish and a beautiful but dangerous black and white cat, this miniature cartoon-opera is the most delightful of Shostakovich’s works for children. The tale of farmyard animals and their unruly offspring will be sung in an English translation, re-framed and presented in a contemporary urban and human context. Young people aged 8 to 14 are invited to become performers and co-creators in an intensive, inventive rehearsal process, from design to choreography to creative translation.

The weekend culminates in a celebratory performance starring acclaimed professionals alongside our young cast.

Music by Dmitri Shostakovich; text by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky after a short story by Samuil Marschak

Director: Polly Graham
Musical Director: Christopher Stark
Set and Costume Designer: Hannah Wolfe
Movement Director: Yael Loewenstein
Associate Directors: Andy Bewley, Ellen Muriel
Workshop Leaders: Sophie Lau for the Stephen Spender Trust, Sophie Shao for Sutton Community Farm
Répétiteurs: Clíodna Shanahan, Evelyne Berezovsky

Cast: Martin Bassindale, Claire Booth, Edward Hawkins, Kate Howden, Oleksandr Ilvakhin, Grace Nyandoro, Tom Randle

Featuring the Multi-Story Orchestra

Presented by Loud Crowd

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England

Also supported by the Genesis Foundation

Images © Lidia Crisafulli

Camden People’s Theatre | April 2023
59E59, New York | May-June 2023

“I'm sick to death of this particular self. I want another.”

Lucy Roslyn's play is the story of a person looking for escape - just as Virginia Woolf imagined her own freedom in the pages of Orlando, a book which strains at the boundaries of identity: are we any one thing? Or are our selves “stacked like dinner plates,” one on top of the other?

A new play that defies labels, directed by JMK Award winner Josh Roche and inspired by Virginia Woolf's legendary novel.

★★★★★
‘A love letter to Woolf's original text and what it can represent… See this play and you will leave changed’
All About Solo

‘a masterful display of wit, word play and compelling physical presence’
Queer Forty

‘Roslyn is an engaging presence, evoking both lovers’ insecurities with pathos yet confidently commanding the stage alone for an uninterrupted hour’
OffOffOnline

Written and performed by Lucy Roslyn

Director: Josh Roche
Set and Costume Designer: Sophie Thomas
Lighting Designer: Peter Small
Sound Designer: Kieran Lucas

Developed with Jamie Firth for BoonDog Theatre

Images © Carol Rosegg

Arcola Theatre (Grimeborn) | August 2022
North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford | September 2022
Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh | September 2022
St George’s Theatre, Great Yarmouth | October 2022

“Fix a date for Dreamland Margate…”

Summer 1953: peace reigns in Europe, and the waters of the English Channel are troubled only by holidaymakers. Young and old alike have flocked to Margate for summer loving and strolls on the promenade.

But at a quiet pub set back from the seafront, the landlady has a nuisance on her hands. She’s confronted with a suitor who simply won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. And, when he comes up with a last-ditch plan to win her heart, our formidable heroine gives him more than he’d bargained for...

Written after a stint campaigning with the Suffragettes, Dame Ethel Smyth’s opera put female emancipation centre stage when it premiered a century ago. With rollicking humour, romantic yearning and a new arrangement for piano trio, Spectra Ensemble’s acclaimed revival brings this neglected gem to a new audience.

★★★★★
‘Josephine Goddard is a revelation’
The Stage

★★★★
’perky, intelligent and well-articulated’
British Theatre

‘superb singing and characterisation’
Opera Today

‘deliciously sassy’
The Guardian

Music and libretto by Ethel Smyth (1913-14), after a short story by William Wymark Jacobs

Director: Cecilia Stinton
Musical Director: John Warner
Set and Costume Designer: Ellie Roser
Lighting Designer: Catja Hamilton

Cast: Shaun Aquilina, Robert Winslade Anderson, Beca Davies, Philippe Durrant, Josephine Goddard, Devon Harrison (cover), Naho Koizumi (cover), Dominic Lee (cover), John Upperton

Band: Emily Earl, Nina Kiva (cover), Meera Priyanka Raja, John Warner

Presented by Spectra Ensemble

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England

Also supported by the Ambache Charitable Trust, the Doris Field Charitable Trust, the Fidelio Charitable Trust, the Leche Trust, the Marchus Trust, the Maria Björnson Memorial Fund, the Opera Awards Foundation and a number of individual donors

Images © Lidia Crisafulli

Finborough Theatre | July-August 2022

A heartrending new play about sisterhood and motherhood; enduring love and regrets many years in the making.

When Daphne is diagnosed with Premature Ovarian Insufficiency at 19, her sister Christine steps in to help in the only way she knows how: by donating her eggs. For a moment, the world seems corrected. But as the years go by and Daphne sets out on the long road of IVF, the sisters’ relationship begins to twist. Pennyroyal explores the things expected of women and what happens when life doesn’t go to plan.

Pennyroyal is inspired by Edith Wharton’s 1922 novella The Old Maid, which was adapted ten years later into a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Zoe Akins. A hundred years on, the story is reimagined by Lucy Roslyn, with direction by Josh Roche.

★★★★★
“wonderful new play”
LondonTheatre1

★★★★★
“lays a strong claim to be considered best play of the year”
AJH Loves Theatre

★★★★★
“absorbing theatre, both poetic in its use of words and exquisite in its execution”
Close-Up Culture

★★★★
“a small, but almost perfectly-formed, triumph”
Broadway World

★★★★
“The intent behind the acting is faultless. The execution of these moments by Roslyn and Clare is quite extraordinary.”
The Spy in the Stalls

★★★★
“a beautifully thoughtful piece”
London Pub Theatres

Writer: Lucy Roslyn
Director: Josh Roche
Set and Costume Designer: Sophie Thomas
Lighting Designer: Cheng Keng
Composer and Sound Designer: Hugh Sheehan
Associate Set and Costume Designer: Kit Hinchcliffe
Stage Manager: Kit Fowler

Cast: Madison Clare, Lucy Roslyn

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England

Also supported by the New Diorama Theatre, the Bryan Guinness Charitable Trust and a number of individual donors

Images © Helen Murray

King’s Head Theatre | March-April 2022
International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival | May 2022
Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Festival Fringe | August 2022

It starts as all good stories do: boy meets boy. But then boy meets end, leaving a huge void and a lot of time to fill before the curtain call…

When Mico loses the love of his life to motor neurone disease, he should begin the slow process of grieving, but instead he does the next best thing: he punches a hole in the universe and travels to parallel worlds, all in the hope of getting his husband back.

Join Mico and James (and a million other Jameses) as they tell you their story of life, death and trying to find decent sausage rolls in a universe that never invented Greggs.

The Silver Bell is a new play about love and loss. It explores the place of care in intimate relationships, and asks what happens when all the time in the universe isn’t enough. This world premiere production is written by Alan Flanagan (Hollyoaks) and directed by Dan Hutton (Barrel Organ and The Yard Theatre associate).

★★★★
‘a heartwarming tale with a clever twist’
London Living Large

Writer: Alan Flanagan
Director: Dan Hutton
Movement Director: Sacha Plaige
Lighting Designer: Amy Hill

Cast: Alan Flanagan, Brendan O’Rourke

Images © Paul Phipps-Williams

Southwark Playhouse | October-November 2021

“There were fish,
And then there weren’t fish.
Simple as that.”

Nobody knows where the fish went, and nobody knows why the fish went – but ever since they did, things just haven’t been the same.

In a committee room on Capitol Hill, three senators have a job to do: they must question a man on charges of trading rare marine commodities, and they must find out what he knows.

Politics and the planet collide in a fiercely original new play by Marek Horn, whose debut Wild Swimming took the Edinburgh Fringe by storm in 2019. Ed Madden (Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons) directs this bitingly funny exploration of the limits of science, the power of myths, and the things we can’t control.

★★★★
‘urgent, astute and persuasive’
The Times

★★★★
‘manages to find the balance of being both urgent and genuinely entertaining’
WhatsOnStage

★★★★
‘this is a playwright to watch’
Broadway World

★★★★
‘Everything about Yellowfin proves that you don't need to go to the West End for intelligent, challenging theatre with first-rate performances’
London Living Large

★★★★
‘a hugely entertaining and engrossing show’
The Spy in the Stalls

★★★★
‘exemplar cast’
The Reviews Hub

★★★★
‘an incredibly funny play – enhanced by excellent performances from the cast’
Mind the Blog

‘sharp, tangy, and truly hilarious’
Exeunt

‘whip-smart dialogue’
The Guardian

‘a triumph in new writing’
Pocket Size Theatre

5 x Offie-nominated for Best New Play, Best Director - Plays (Ed Madden), Best Lead Performance in a Play (Joshua James) and Best Supporting Performance in a Play (Nancy Crane, Nicholas Day)

Writer: Marek Horn
Director: Ed Madden
Set and Costume Designer: Anisha Fields
Lighting Designer: Rajiv Pattani
Sound Designer: Max Pappenheim
Assistant Director: Charlotte Vickers
Production Manager: Zara Janmohamed
Stage Manager: Cassie Harrison

Cast: Nancy Crane, Nicholas Day, Joshua James, Beruce Khan

Supported by the Arts Patrons Trust, the Bryan Guinness Charitable Trust, the Golsoncott Foundation, the Royal Victoria Hall Foundation, the Unity Theatre Trust and a number of individual donors

Images © Helen Maybanks

Arcola Theatre | September 2021

“I want an odyssey of tremendous desire where no act is taken for granted”

A brand new show about dating, destiny and finding Jesus in your bedroom.

Mary is looking for love. She is also trying to write a play about Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth-century mystic who experienced erotic visions of Jesus Christ – and then withdrew from the world to record them in her book Revelations of Divine Love.

As Mary consults tarot readers and follows men in the street, she learns to be braver, wilder, truer... But will she ever find a boyfriend?

MAGDALENE is an autobiographical piece from writer-performer Mary Galloway, directed by Julia Locascio. Combining live sound design with psychedelic projections, MAGDALENE is a surreal reflection on the most universal of human experiences: the search for connection.

Written and performed by Mary Galloway

Director: Julia Locascio
Composer and Sound Designer: Femi Oriogun-Williams
Set and Costume Designer: Charlotte Henery
Lighting Designer: Gabriel Finn
Video Artist: Sapphire Goss
Associate Video Designer: Matt Powell
Movement and Devising Consultant: Nuria Legarda
Stage Manager: Rose Dayan

Images © Marc Brenner

Wilton’s Music Hall | September 2021

High summer in New Orleans: a battlefield tour group has waded through swamps and hurricane damage to see where notorious pirate Pierre Lafitte was imprisoned in 1814. Captivated, one tourist imagines the story of Lafitte’s escape. Could it be that love was his key to freedom? Or is that just wishful thinking from Mary, whose honeymoon is turning out to be less romantic than she'd hoped...?

Incorporating folk and Creole influences, Cabildo is the only opera from pioneering composer Amy Beach, written in 1932 and not performed until after her death. Beach's repertoire and article 'To the Girl Who Wants to Compose' have inspired women in music for over a century.

In this production from director Emma Jude Harris, Cabildo is thrillingly re-conceived for the present to uncover the dark underside of the American Dream. It asks, can we ever memorialise the past without bringing back the things we would rather not remember?

Cabildo arrives at Wilton’s Music Hall after an acclaimed run at Arcola Theatre’s Grimeborn Festival.

Music by Amy Beach (1932)
Libretto by Nan Bagby Stephens (1932)

Director: Emma Jude Harris
Musical Director: Yshani Perinpanayagam
Set and Costume Designer: Zoë Hurwitz
Lighting Designer: Lucy Adams
Projection Designer: Adam Lenson
Assistant Director: Becca Chadder
Assistant Producer: Tanya Truman
Associate Designer: Constance Villemot
Production Manager: Pete Rickards - eStage
Stage Manager: Luke Mason
Deputy Stage Manager: Adam Woodhouse
Répétiteur: Cliódna Shanahan

Cast: Tashinga Bepete, Julieth Lozano, Peter Martin, James Quilligan, Kieran Rayner, Helen Stanley, Zwakele Tshabalala

Accompanied by the Del Mar Piano Trio
Piano: Yshani Perinpanayagam
Violin: Francesca Barritt
Cello: Morwenna Del Mar

Images © Ali Wright

A new work for a new performance world.

Based on Christie Watson’s bestselling memoir of her twenty years as a nurse, The Language of Kindness is an ensemble-style piece of theatre: a joy- filled celebration of nurses and front-line healthcare workers which will resonate with audiences everywhere following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Language of Kindness brings to life the realities, the challenges, heartbreaks and incomparable joys of working for the NHS and supporting families as they face their best and worst moments.

A socially distanced production about the tactile work of nurses where the company never touch.

★★★★★
“this is complete theatre that hits every mark”
LondonTheatre1

★★★★★
“a beautiful love letter to the hearts and souls who save lives on a day-to-day basis”
A Younger Theatre

★★★★
”moving tribute to the grit and skill of nurses”
The Stage

★★★★
“a remarkable piece of theatre”
West End Best Friend

★★★★
“Wayward Productions’ superb ensemble cast needs to be seen”
Morning Star

★★★★
“The ensemble cast, by turns physical and thoughtful, is always engaging, bringing out the highs and lows of life as nurses”
The Reviews Hub

Adapted by Sasha Milavic Davies and James Yeatman from the book by Christie Watson

Co-directors: Sasha Milavic Davies and James Yeatman
Set and costume designer: Zoë Hurwitz
Lighting designer: Jess Bernberg
Sound designer: Gareth Fry
Video designer: Hayley Egan

Cast: Tina Chiang, Janet Etuk, Rina Fatania, Etta Fusi, Keziah Joseph, Clive Mendus

Presented by Wayward Productions
Co-produced with Complicité, Assembly Hall Theatre Tunbridge Wells and Warwick Arts Centre in association with Shoreditch Town Hall and Guy Chapman

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England

Also supported by Didymus Charity, the D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust, Empathy Arts, the Garrick Charitable Trust, the Golsoncott Foundation, the Leche Trust, the Maria Björnson Memorial Fund, the Newby Trust, the Noël Coward Foundation, the Royal Victoria Hall Foundation and the Sylvia Waddilove Foundation

Images © Ali Wright

Arcola Theatre (Grimeborn) | August 2019

Arkansas, 1884: the black community is free from the bonds of slavery, but true self-government has been hard to achieve. Superstition and fake news pervade the fractured community and it falls to the young heroine, Treemonisha, to speak truth to power and lead her elders towards enlightened thinking.

Written by ‘King of Ragtime’ Scott Joplin in 1911, and influenced by his own experience as a young African American during the Reconstruction period, Treemonisha was one of his proudest achievements – but he never saw it staged in his lifetime.

Now, Spectra Ensemble returns to Grimeborn with this all-singing, all-dancing piece which fuses African American spirituals, barbershop and early blues styles to create ‘an entirely new form of operatic art’.

★★★★
‘an absolute winner…rises impressively to the high notes’
The Stage

★★★★
‘the entire company performs with commitment and verve’
The Jewish Chronicle

★★★★
‘as accomplished an account of Treemonisha as you could ever hope to see’
theatreCat

★★★★
‘no weakness in the score at all - and none in the cast…never in my lifetime have we needed to listen to Joplin’s message more urgently’
Broadway World

‘their voices blended seamlessly and they danced with utter commitment’
The Guardian

Music and libretto by Scott Joplin (1911)

Director: Cecilia Stinton
Musical Director: Matthew Lynch
Set and Costume Designer: Raphaé Memon
Lighting Designer: Ali Hunter
Choreographer: Ester Rudhart
Movement Consultant: Caitlin Fretwell Walsh
Assistant Producer: Lizzie Thomas
Production Assistant: Eleanor Burke

Cast: Deborah Aloba, Andrew Clarke, Rodney Earl Clarke, Aivale Cole, Edwin Cotton, Devon Harrison, Samantha Houston, Njabulo Madlala, Caroline Modiba, Grace Nyandoro, Denver Martin Smith

Images © Robert Workman

Arcola Theatre (Grimeborn) | August 2019

‘More'n a hundred years ago, before Prohibition, before Chicago was thought of, when New York was a village – New Orleans had her bullet-holes! Those were the days!'

High summer, 2019: a tour group hailing from across America has waded through swamps and hurricane damage to New Orleans' French Quarter to see where 'gentleman pirate' Pierre Lafitte was imprisoned during the War of 1812. Naïve newlywed Mary falls into a reverie and imagines the story of Lafitte's escape, aided by his love Valerie…

The only opera from Amy Beach, the pioneering female member of the Boston Six school of composers, Cabildo offers a distinctively American style of music which incorporates influences from folk songs and Creole music.

This new production will expose the dirty underside of the ‘American dream’, which Lafitte enabled with his privateering and involvement in the slave trade. How does nostalgia blind us to our past crimes? How do nations misremember their own history?

★★★★
‘Beach’s only opera is a real discovery’
The Guardian

★★★★
‘glows with humanity and joy’
theatreCat

‘a thrillingly sung staging’
The Stage

‘a strong, beautiful sense of despairing romance shoots through the work’
The Reviews Hub

‘feels like a great beacon of hope for the future of opera’
Miro Magazine

Music by Amy Beach (1932)
Libretto by Nan Bagby Stephens (1932)

Director: Emma Jude Harris
Musical Director: John Warner
Set and Costume Designer: Max Nicholson-Lailey
Lighting Designer: Martha Godfrey
Assistant Director: Eva Rosenthal

Cast: Joseph Buckmaster, Alexander Gebhard, James Quilligan, Alys Roberts, Helen Stanley, Alistair Sutherland, Beru Tessema

Supported by the Ambache Charitable Trust

Images © Ali Wright

VAULT Festival | February-March 2019

"My life is where you’re scared something is going to happen and then it does."

It’s 3am in small-town Ireland. The nightclub is closed and Brian's not taking any more fares until tomorrow. But, when his drunk sons show up demanding a lift home, it becomes clear that the night is only just getting started...

Take your seat in the back as Brian's two sons hijack his night. They're going to fix their lives. You're coming with them.

Padraic Walsh's powerfully immersive play, staged entirely within a minibus by award-winning director Cathal Cleary, gets up close and personal with one splintered family in small-town Ireland. Funny and excruciating by turns, Blue Thunder examines manhood and what happens when the people who should be there for you have nothing left to give.

‘absolutely spot on performances, not a blink out of place’
Lyn Gardner, Stagedoor

Winner of the VAULT Festival 2019 Innovation Award

Writer: Padraic Walsh
Director: Cathal Cleary
Production Designer: Martha Godfrey
Stage Manager: Paige Lee Summers

Cast: Jamie Beamish, Gary Lilburn, Niall McNamee

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England

Images © Sam Taylor

VAULT Festival | February 2019
Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Festival Fringe | July-August 2019

“I’m sick to death of this particular self. I want another.”

Have you ever lived outside yourself? Have you ever dreamed of escaping your identity, or yearned to leave behind those definitions handed down to you: loud or quiet, male or female, straight, gay, working/middle/upper class?

Lucy Roslyn's new play is the story of a person looking for escape, a person desperate to leave behind the identitarian bullshit of 2019.

In 1928 Virginia Woolf imagined her own freedom through the character of Orlando. Heartbroken by her affair with Vita Sackville-West, Woolf created a young boy born in Elizabethan England, who lives and loves, writes and rewrites through four hundred years, ending her days as a woman in the twentieth century.

Woolf's novel strains at the boundaries of identity: are we any one thing? Or are our selves ‘stacked like dinner plates’, one on top of the other?

Written and performed by Lucy Roslyn (The State vs John Hayes, Showmanship, Goody) and directed by Josh Roche, winner of the JMK Award 2017 (My Name is Rachel Corrie, Plastic, This Must Be The Place), Orlando is brought to you by the creative team behind Kenneth Emson's Plastic at the Old Red Lion.

★★★★★
‘a self-penned acting masterclass’
LondonTheatre1

★★★★
‘there is no fourth wall, and no chance to take your eyes off her – but you wouldn’t want to even if you could’
Fest

★★★★
‘wholly engrosses the audience’
The Upcoming

★★★★
‘a captivating piece of smooth storytelling’
Broadway World

Written and performed by Lucy Roslyn

Director: Josh Roche
Set and Costume Designer: Sophie Thomas
Lighting Designer: Peter Small
Sound Designer: Kieran Lucas

Images © Helen Maybanks

Arcola Theatre (Grimeborn) | July - August 2018

‘Fix a date for Dreamland Margate…’

June 1953: peace reigns in Europe, and the waters of the English Channel are troubled only by excitable holidaymakers as Britain celebrates the coronation of its new Queen. Young and old alike have flocked to Margate for summer loving, healthy air and strolls on the promenade.

But, at a quiet pub set back from the seafront, the landlady has a nuisance on her hands. She’s confronted with a suitor who simply won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. When he comes up with a last-ditch plan to win her heart, our formidable heroine gives him more than he’d bargained for…

A hundred years since women were first given the right to vote, Spectra Ensemble presents a rare revival of this 1914 opera by Suffragette composer Ethel Smyth, complete with all the quintessential sounds and sights of British summertime.

★★★★
‘a fantastic performance’
Musical Theatre Review

‘disarming, surprising and brilliant’
theatreCat

‘an admirable enterprise’
Planet Hugill

Music and libretto by Ethel Smyth (1913-14), after a short story by William Wymark Jacobs

Director: Cecilia Stinton
Musical Director: John Warner
Set and Costume Designer: Christianna Mason
Lighting Designer: Ali Hunter
Stage Manager: Sara Malik

Cast: Shaun Aquilina, Hilary Cronin, Christopher Foster, Michael T K Lam, Lily Scott, John Upperton

Presented by Spectra Ensemble

Images © Robert Workman

One-off performances at venues including:

Pleasance, Islington
King’s Head Theatre
Tristan Bates Theatre
LOST Theatre (now Stockwell Playhouse)
Wirksworth Festival
Positive East
Review Bookshop, Peckham

HIV Voices employs the power of the individual story to explore what it means to live with HIV today. As a writing and performance project, we present on stage a multiplicity of voices from those living with and affected by HIV. We seek to raise awareness about a condition that still affects millions of people around the world despite no longer making front-page news.

Using the power of theatre to change perceptions, inspire, move and mobilise, we commission writers to give voice to a variety of characters: a gay man talks about his experiences on the London clubbing scene. A girl tells of growing up in Ghana and the culture of silence that surrounds her condition. A disability analyst brings us into his world of points and paperwork where HIV often goes unrecognised. A young woman struggles to be herself in the stressful world of online dating. These monologues exist both as compelling theatrical works in their own right and as part of the wider effort to break down the stigma surrounding HIV.

Director: Hugh Wyld

Writers include: Chris Adams, Amrou Al-Kadhi, Lowell Belfield, Emily Carlton, Ayesha Casely-Hayford, Eve Hedderwick Turner, Allegra Le Fanu, Claudia Marinaro, Brian Mullin, Charlie Parham

Performers include: Shola Adewusi, Paul Adeyefa, Amrou Al-Kadhi, Zora Bishop, Ayesha Casely-Hayford, Shalifa Kaddu, Jack Mosedale, Rozzi Nicholson-Lailey, Tom Rasmussen, Guy Woolf

Greenwood Theatre | Arcola Theatre (Grimeborn)
May 2017 | August 2017

“Collision is ahead of us. The end of the world is near.”

Berlin, 1928: a strange Green Globe is on course to collide with Earth, and panic is rife in the streets. With lovers star-crossed and citizens inciting revolt, only the High Commissioner of Order can organise the final curtain. Irreverent cabaret-opera Collision begs the question: how would you spend your world's end weekend?

Collision started life in 1928 as a libretto by avant-garde visual artist Kurt Schwitters. Part madcap farce and part nihilistic satire, it was Schwitters' first and only foray into the opera world, and was never realised during his lifetime. 90 years on, Spectra Ensemble reinvents Collision as a fully-staged opera set to new cabaret- and jazz-influenced music by Lewis Coenen-Rowe, and with a set inspired by Schwitters' own brand of collage art.

‘jazzily popular and rigorously serious’
The Stage

Music by Lewis Coenen-Rowe (2016)
Libretto by Kurt Schwitters (1928)

Director: Cecilia Stinton
Musical Director: Sean Morris
Designer: Holly Muir
Lighting Designer: John Pham
Production Assistants: Isabella Hubbard, Sophia Stern
Stage Manager: Inés Cufflin

Principal cast: Barnaby Beer, Alexander Gebhard (Arcola only), Bethany Horak-Hallett, Henry George Page, Sharang Sharma (Greenwood only), Olivia Sjöberg, Juliet Wallace

Presented by Spectra Ensemble

By Other Means Gallery, Clapton | December 2016
The Place (Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 2017) | July 2017

Encounter love and loss as the story of the Virgin Mary, and her journey from freedom to constraint, is told through music and dance.

Liturgie was first conceived by Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes as a ballet-opera presenting the Orthodox rite as a total work of art. For a century, it lay unfinished. Spectra Ensemble’s production marks Liturgie’s world premiere, combining designs drawn from Natalia Goncharova’s original plans with new music by Daniel Lee Chappell and new choreography by Camille Jetzer. A contemporary twist on an age-old tale, Liturgie offers a powerful expression of female agency.

Music by Daniel Lee Chappell (2016)
Conceived by Sergei Diaghilev, Léonide Massine, Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov

Director: Cecilia Stinton
Musical Director: Oliver Till
Choreographer: Camille Jetzer
Set Designer: Holly Muir
Costume Designer: Clare McGarrigle

Presented by Spectra Ensemble

Images © Claire Shovelton

Latitude Festival | July 2016
The Dancehouse, Manchester | October 2016
The Wardrobe Theatre, Bristol | October 2016
Southwark Playhouse | November - December 2016

Licensed To Ill is a big-hearted, brash new show about the Beastie Boys, hip-hop’s most notorious pranksters. Join Mike D, MCA and Ad-Rock as they go from teenage punks in 80s New York, via their discovery by legendary producer Rick Rubin, to international rapping superstars.

Featuring hits from ‘Intergalactic’ to ‘Fight For Your Right’, this eclectic theatre-gig mash-up incorporates three MCs, one DJ, and a whole lot of noise. Winning over Beasties fans and cynics alike, Licensed To Ill does to music theatre what hip-hop did to the humble tracksuit: makes it cool.

★★★★★
‘hits the spot perfectly – it’s as gloriously funny, daft and deliberately shambolic as the Beasties themselves’
Time Out

★★★★★
‘this evolution of the Beastie Boys is a revolution for the London stage’
Broadway World

Winner of the 2016 Theatre & Technology Award for Best Sound Design

Offie-nominated for Best New Musical, Best Ensemble Acting and Best Sound Designer

Conceived by Adam El Hagar and Simon Maeder
Created by the company: Adam El Hagar, Daniel Foxsmith, Simon Maeder, Tope Mikun

Consultant Director: Tid
Set Designer: Jemima Robinson
Costume Designer: Jemima Robinson, Ellie Wilding
Lighting Designer: Tim Mascall
Stage Manager: Ina Berggren

Presented by The Corner Shop Events

Originally commissioned by and developed with Camden People’s Theatre

Images © Helen Maybanks

(as assistant producer)

Edinburgh Fringe: Underbelly Cowgate | August 2016

‘Imagine seeing all the stuff that you’ve done played out in your head in glorious fucking technicolour... and then opening your mouth to speak and all that comes out is mixed-up nonsense and spit and dribble.'

Tom’s dad is dead. Mr Chambers needs a funeral director. Tom is not a funeral director.

Conversations become confused. Mr Chambers’ mind begins to disintegrate. As their memories intertwine and unravel, Tom connects to his father in ways he had never expected.

‘Be Prepared is a terrific piece of work - funny and sad by turns and constantly surprising. I loved it.'
Anthony Horowitz

‘Tender, funny, compelling and deliciously unsettling.'
Tamsin Greig

★★★★
‘quietly moving’
The Stage

★★★★
‘sometimes hilarious, often uncomfortable, always gripping’
Broadway Baby

Written and performed by Ian Bonar

Director: Rob Watt
Lighting Designer: Elliot Griggs
Sound Designer: Alex Crispin

Presented by The Corner Shop Events in association with Underbelly Untapped

Images © The Other Richard

C nova, Edinburgh Festival Fringe | August 2014
The Hope Theatre, Islington | December 2014

Christmas at the Lears’. The king is upstaged as Shakespeare’s tragedy is told through the eyes of its female protagonists.

Combining live music with Shakespeare’s original text, Lear’s Daughters tackles the domestic heartbreak at the centre of this much-loved tale. Follow three sisters as they struggle to look after their ailing father whilst asserting themselves in what was once a man’s world.

‘We are his flesh, his blood, his daughters – or rather a disease that’s in his flesh, that I must needs call mine.’

The inaugural production from Footfall Theatre, this is a family drama in which Lear himself is everywhere yet nowhere to be seen.

★★★★
‘they have the audience’s undivided attention’
Plays to See

★★★★
‘an ingenious adaptation’
The Public Reviews

★★★★
‘definitely one to catch’
AllEdinburghTheatre

Winner of the 2014 Owle Schreame Award for innovation in classical theatre

Devised by the company: Olivia Emden, Sophie Grant, Kimberley Jarvis, Isabelle Kettle, Charlotte Quinney
After King Lear by William Shakespeare

Director: Isabelle Kettle
Set and Costume Designer: Pippa Scarcliffe
Lighting Designer: Ali Hunter
Presented by Footfall Theatre

Images © Nick Rutter