A busy week for the Young Vic has seen the Waterloo theatre launch a new wing – The Jerwood Pod – announce its programme until the new year and reveal two new associate companies.
The summer/autumn season includes the return of last season’s hits Fragments and The Brothers Size alongside new productions. The Young Vic collaborates with People’s Palace Projects on two productions: community show Festa (16 August) brings the Brazilian carnival to SE1; and Christmas production Amazônia (27 November-24 January) stars Brazilian comic actor Pedro Cardoso in the tale of an enchanted tree and its effect on a group of dancers. Stage, film and television performer Cardoso is the star of Brazil’s most popular sitcom A Grande Família.
The revival of the Laurence Olivier Award-nominated The Brothers Size (8 October-8 November) runs simultaneously to a second piece from young American playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney, In The Red And Brown Water (2 October-8 November). A European premiere, In The Red And Brown Water is a tale of early womanhood in which star athlete Oya is torn between two men and desperate to bear a child.
Two short runs complete the season. Matthew Dunster, who directed The Member Of The Wedding at the Young Vic in 2007, brings his new show You Can See The Hills (14-18 October) to the Waterloo venue following a premiere at the Royal Exchange, Manchester. A snapshot of growing up in the 1980s, it stars William Ash (Clocking Off, Where The Heart Is) as Adam, a boy who crashes through his teens and haphazardly steers himself out of Oldham and into adulthood.
The season begins with the first UK production in two decades of Kurt Weill’s Street Scene (17-22 July), a co-production between Watford Palace theatre, the Young Vic and associate company The Opera Group. A mix of Broadway musical and American opera, Street Scene is set in a New York tenement building over a long hot summer’s day and night.
Artistic Director David Lan announced yesterday that design-led collaborative theatre company Fevered Sleep and creative digital company B3 media were to join The Opera Group as associates of the Young Vic. All three will find a creative home in the newly opened Jerwood Pod, the final step in the £14 million rebuild of the Young Vic that was unveiled yesterday.
The associate companies’ scheme aims to offer young companies the chance to develop by working with the Young Vic’s artistic and executive directors, and offering support. The scheme will aid a rolling roster of emerging companies.
Currently playing at the Young Vic is The Good Soul Of Szechuan, Brecht’s musical drama about the gods’ search for a good person and the struggle to be truly good in an imperfect and corrupt society. Jane Horrocks leads the cast.
MA