The Regent’s Park Open Air theatre has announced that new productions of All My Sons, Hobson’s Choice, Porgy And Bess and Twelfth Night will complete the three-time Olivier Award-winning venue’s 2014 season.
The quartet of shows will join the previously announced return of To Kill A Mockingbird following its critically acclaimed run at the alfresco venue earlier this year.
Directed by Artistic Director Timothy Sheader, All My Sons will kick off the season from 15 May to 7 June. A tale of love, loyalty and guilt, Arthur Miller’s 20th century tale about Joe Keller, a man alleged to have supplied fighter planes with defective engines during World War II, is the second Miller classic to play at the venue in recent years, following Sheader’s production of The Crucible in 2010.
Based on a true story found in an Ohio newspaper, All My Sons focuses on Kate Keller, wife of Joe and mother to one of the pilots killed in action. Overcome by grief, Kate struggles to cope when her late son’s fiancée begins to show feelings towards her second son, leading to the discovery of a family secret that will change their lives forever.
All My Sons will be followed by Nadia Fall’s production of Hobson’s Choice, which plays at the acclaimed venue from 12 June to 12 July. The director, who has recently taken the helm on productions including The Doctor’s Dilemma and Home at the National Theatre, and Disgraced at the Bush, will lend her theatrical touch to Harold Brighouse’s unlikely love story about the lives and loves of boot maker Henry Horatio Hobson and his three daughters.
Following the success of The Winter’s Tale Reimagined, which brought William Shakespeare’s enduring tale of a lost princess to young audiences at the Regent’s Park Open Air theatre this summer, Twelfth Night Reimagined will play daytime performances alongside Hobson’s Choice from 21 June to 12 July.
Directed by Max Webster, the Bard’s timeless comic tale of mistaken identities and misguided hearts is aimed specifically at children aged six and older and will be accompanied by in-school workshops for children aged between three and six-years-old.
The season is completed by Porgy And Bess, which follows in the footsteps of this year’s smash hit production of The Sound Of Music to form 2014’s musical offering. Directed by Sheader and featuring a book adapted by Suzan-Lori Parks, the powerful story of love and betrayal charting crippled beggar Porgy’s devotion to taming Bess in an attempt to save her from a life of ruin will play from 17 July to 23 August, bringing the season to a close.
The newly announced season has a hard act to follow after it was announced last month that the venue’s 2013 season, which also featured Price And Prejudice, marked its most successful season to date with record attendance figures of more than 180,000 people.