The line up for the 2008 Almeida Summer Festival has been revealed as an exciting mix of art forms and cultures. Among the productions are the London premiere of new opera An Ocean Of Rain, the European premiere of Adam Rapp’s one man play Nocturne, a week long residency for British African theatre company Tiata Fahodzi, concerts by Barb Jungr and Ensemble MAE, and the Almeida’s fourth collaboration with the Tate Modern.
An Ocean Of Rain, which features music by Yannis Kyriakides and text by Daniel Danis, opens the season on 10 July and runs for three performances. Directed by Cathie Boyd, it follows three women taking their annual break to help at a Haitian orphanage. They find their souls re-awakening until their comfort is shattered by the arrival of a girl on the run for murder. A concert by Ensemble MAE on 12 July, which features Kyriakides’s Dream Of The Blind, complements the short run of An Ocean Of Rain.
Nocturne follows An Ocean Of Rain, running from 16-26 July. The solo piece, which transfers to the Edinburgh Festival after its Islington outing, tells of a decade and a half of a teenager becoming a man and dealing with the guilt he feels for the accidental death of his younger sister. Rapp’s previous work includes Ghost In The Cottonwoods and Gompers (Arcola) and Blackbird (Bush).
Between 28 July and 2 August, new writing initiative Tiata Delights presents the work of six playwrights including Bola Agbaje whose play Gone Too Far! won the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. The week culminates with a concert of British African music at 21:00 on 2 August.
Barb Jungr returns to the Almeida, following last year’s sell out success, on 22 July. Jungr, who won the 2008 New York Nightlight Award for Outstanding Cabaret Singer, presents a chanson repertoire including the work of Jacques Brel, Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan.
In collaboration with the Tate Modern’s exhibition of Cy Twombly, a concert entitled Theatre Of Possibilities will be performed on 20 and 21 July. The Almeida Ensemble and soprano Sally Burgess perform a set including the UK premiere of John Cage’s Fourteen and Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento De Tancredi E Clorinda.
Currently playing at the Almeida is Stephen Adly Guirgis’s spiritual courtroom comic-drama The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot, which runs until 10 May. It is followed by the final play before the Summer Festival, Henrik’s Ibsen’s Rosmersholm, from 15 May.
MA