Northampton Royal and Derngate’s artistic director James Dacre has announced details of his second season, Made in Northampton 2015, which brings together some of the country’s top theatre-makers to create “original, wide-ranging and bold new productions”.
These include the world première of Arthur Miller’s The Hook, marking the centenary of the playwright’s birth. The season includes new commissions from writers Dawn King, Ron Hutchinson, Georgia Pritchett and Oladipo Agboluaje while Made in Northampton productions will tour to more than 20 venues nationwide.
Dacre said, “our Made in Northampton 2015 season aims to reflect the energy and range synonymous with Royal and Derngate, staging classic stories in imaginative new ways and premiering stories that need to be told today.
“This new season of epic plays looks back to the 12th century Northampton of King John and forward to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World of 2540.
“In the company of some of our largest casts, audiences will enter the Brooklyn waterfront of Arthur Miller's The Hook, the terrifying Victorian world of Patrick Hamilton’s Gaslight, the frozen land of Georgia Pritchett’s The Snow Queen and the Parisian streets of Cyrano De Bergerac.
“Wherever and whenever these plays are set, they have been chosen or commissioned because I believe that each reflects and considers an experience of life in Britain today.”
Dacre will direct Shakespeare’s King John in the 12th century Holy Sepulchre Church in Northampton to mark the 800th anniversary year of the Magna Carta. It will be the first time that Royal and Derngate has co-produced with Shakespeare’s Globe.
King John will play in Northampton from Friday 24 April until Saturday 16 May 2015 before going on a national tour.
On the Royal stage, the season starts with Cyrano De Bergerac, a co-production with Northern Stage of Anthony Burgess’s translation of Edmond Rostand’s play. It will be directed by Northern Stage artistic director Lorne Campbell who said, “this is a play of true scale, and Royal and Derngate and Northern Stage collaborating in this way allows us both to create something ambitious for our stages.
“It’s a remarkable play in a remarkable version, an epic and profoundly human love story about the greatness and weakness that lives in all of us.”
Cyrano De Bergerac runs in Northampton from Friday 3 April until Saturday 25 April 2015.
Arthur Miller’s The Hook was suppressed by the FBI during the political tensions of 1950s America for fear that it could cause unrest in New York's dockyards. To mark the centenary of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright’s birth, Royal and Derngate and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse will co-produce the world première of Miller’s play.
Ron Hutchinson adapts and James Dacre directs the production from Friday 5 June until Saturday 27 June 2015.
Aldous Huxley's ground-breaking novel Brave New World will be brought to life in a new version by award-winning playwright Dawn King. Dacre again directs this 1932 play, a co-production with the Touring Consortium Theatre Company, which will have original music by Essex band These New Puritans.
It runs from Friday 4 September until Saturday 26 September 2015 before going on a nationwide tour.
Lucy Bailey will direct Patrick Hamilton’s psychological drama Gaslight from Friday 16 October until Saturday 7 November 2015.
For Christmas 2015, the Royal will present a new version of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Snow Queen by comedy writer Georgia Pritchett. This co-production marks the second year of a partnership between the Northampton theatres and Nuffield, Southampton. It runs from Wednesday 25 November 2015 until Sunday 3 January 2016.
Further information is available at the Royal and Derngate web site.