Nadia Fall has announced the programme for her inaugural season as Artistic Director at Theatre Royal Stratford East.
The season will start in September opening with The Village. The powerful play is April de Angelis’ new adaptation of Lope de Vega’s masterpiece Fuenteovejuna. Transported to contemporary India, the play about community and solidarity has a renewed poignancy for today’s audience. Nadia will direct The Village which opens on 7 September.
Cassa Pancho’s highly-acclaimed Ballet Black will return to the Theatre Royal Stratford East with a double bill. The dance company will perform a narrative ballet for Can Themba’s South African fable The Suit, and Arthur Pita’s Olivier nominated A Dream Within a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Performances start from 10 October.
Sarah DeLappe’s award-winning debut play The Wolves will make its European premiere. The play about teenage girls from middle America who gossip, joke and try to answer the big and small questions of our times, all while trying to remain unbeaten in their high school soccer league. The Wolves opens on 24 October and will be directed by Artistic Director of the Gate Theatre, Ellen McDougall.
Hosting the annual pantomime will be Matthew Xia, returning to Theatre Royal Stratford East who has not only directed there previously, but was a member of the theatre’s young company, too. He’ll be directing Sleeping Beauty which opens on 1 December.
2019 will see Frantic Assembly and Theatre Royal Plymouth’s production of The Unreturning. It’s the play’s London premiere and comes to London as part of the show’s UK tour. Written by Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting winner Anna Jordan and directed by Neil Bettles, The Unreturning celebrates Frantic Assembly’s Ignition training programme’s 10th anniversary. The Unreturning opens on 16 January 2019.
The season will also include the previously announced production of Equus directed by Ned Bennett in February.
May will see Naomi returning to the director’s chair for August Wilson’s King Hedley II. This touching and angry play set in Regan-era America will be the penultimate production of the season.
The 2018/2019 season concludes with an ambitious production with large-scale community and school participation to be directed by Lyndsey Turner.
Find out more about Theatre Royal Stratford East, here.