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Dateline:
16th December, 2001
RSC's Last Barbican
Season Begins
The Royal Shakespeare Company has begun its last season at the Barbican
with its production of Hamlet, starring Samuel West. The season
will end on 11th May, and with it almost twenty years of RSC tenure
at the theatre, with a new production of A Midsummer Night's Dream,
directed by Richard Jones, his first production for the RSC. Dream
will open on 17th April.
Also in the season are Twelfth Night (directed by Lindsay Posner)
and Edward Hall'sproduction of Julius Caesar.
Productions in the Pit are King John (dir. Gregory Doran), The
Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh, Prisoner's Dilemma
(David Edgar), A Russian in the Woods (Peter Whelan) and Night
of the Soul, a new play by David Farr.
LaBute to Direct Premiere
at the Almeida
Neil LaBute, the American author of The Shape of Things, is to
direct the world premiere of his latest play, The Distance from Here,
at the Almeida, King's Cross, in the new year.
Re-opening in Stratford
East
The Theatre Royal Stratford East re-opened this week after a £7m
refurbishment. Its first production is the pantomime Aladdin.
The theatre attained almost legendary status in the fifties and sixties
when it had a major impact nationally under the direction of Joan Littlewood
with productions such as O What a Lovely War!
Singin'
on Tour
Jude Kelly's production of the classic musical Singin' in the Rain
is to embark on a national tour in February, after a revival at the
West Yorkshire Playhouse. The show opened last week and will run until
23rd February, after which it will go to the Alexandra in Birmingham,
opening on 27th.
It will then visit Sunderland, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Stoke, Southampton,
Bristol, Oxford, Manchester, Plymouth, Eastbourne, Woking, High Wycombe,
Aberdeen, Nottingham, Wolverhampton and Milton Keynes. This leg of the
tour will finish in NOvember 2002, by which time it is expected further
dates and venues will be announced.
Eden
Will Not Come to London
The Abbey Theatre, Dublin, has abandoned plans to bring Conor McPherson's
production of Eugene O'Brien's first play Eden to the West End
next year. It was scheduled to open at the Arts Theatre for ten weeks
on 25th February.
It is not known what will replace it in the theatre's schedule, but
rumours abound of an extension of The Vagina Monologues.
Planer for Queen
Musical
Nigel Planer is to play the lead in the new musical We Will Rock
You at the Dominion. The play, written by Ben Elton, is about an
evil Queen who, in the future, tries to ban music - a "Killer Queen!,
in fact!
It will be directed by Christopher Renshaw and choreographed by Arlene
Phillips.
Sweeney Todd
Back Next Year
Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd returns to the West End next year when
Sadler's Wells presents a short run of the Opera North's production
from 7th to 15th June.
Royal Court Spring
Season
The Royal Court has announced its Spring 2002 season
- Theatre Downstairs
The York Realist (Peter Gill)
Nightsongs (Jon Fosse)
Face to the Wall (Martin Crimp)
- Theatre Upstairs
Bedbound (Enda Walsh)
Push Up (Roland Schimmelpfennig) (International Playwrights
Season)
Steps to Siberia (Theatre Lozhe and Babii) (Int. Playwrights)
Plasticine (Vassily Sigarev) (Int. Playwrights)
Bloody Sunday Onstage?
Kilburn's Tricycle Theatre is considering making a stage play of the
"Bloody Sunday" inquiry, the hearing set up to investigate
the events of Sunday 30th January, 1972, when thirteen people were shot
dead, allegedly by security forces, in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
No final decision has been reached, but the theatre continues to monitor
the inquiry.
This would be the second such production from the Tricycle, which put
onstage (and on TV) the Stephen Laurence Inquiry, the invstigation into
the killing of the black teenager, which led to allegations of "institutional
racism" in the Metropolitan Police.
Another Ravenhill
at the RNT?
According to a report in "The Stage", Mark Ravenhill will
writing another play for the National Theatre, he has said. He will
write in in 2003 to be performed that year or in 2004 and it will be
directed by Nicholas Hytner, who has just directed his Mother Clap's
Molly House. Ravenhill has already been commissioned to write another
play for Out of Joint in 2002.
Narnia Classic at
Sadler's Wells
The RSC's production of C.S.Lewis' classic children's story The Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe opens at Sadler's Wells on 14th December.
The cast includes Sylvester McCoy as Mr Beaver and Maureen Beattie as
the White Witch.
Index
A-F
Index G-K
Index L-Q
Index R-Z
News
Archive A-L
News Archive M-Z
Production News Archive
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