Five premières and three re-imagined classics will form the basis of the spring and summer 2017 season at Birmingham REP.
The theatre’s artistic director, Roxana Silbert, said, “this season we focus on stories about bringing people together, from a whole country united through Bob Marley’s music in One Love and individuals united by their love of football in Stadium to a teacher and his pupils looking for acceptance in To Sir, With Love and a loving family whose unity rapidly unravels in What’s In A Name?
“It’s a programme that we hope will spark conversations that continue long after the show has finished.”
The season opens on the main stage with the UK première of What’s In A Name?, a “beautifully crafted play that hilariously captures a particularly awkward family dinner party conversation”. Adapted and directed by Jeremy Sams from the award-winning French play and movie Le Prenom, this new production will feature Nigel Harman and Sarah Hadland. It is a co-production between the REP and Just For Laughs Theatricals and runs from 27 January until 11 February.
As previously announced, One Love: The Bob Marley Musical will focus on a defining period of the music legend’s life and career in the 1970s. Written and directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah, this new musical features Marley’s greatest songs performed live including “No Woman No Cry”, “Exodus” and “Jamming”. It runs from 10 March until 8 April.
The Young REP takes over the main stage for a new production of E R Braithwaite’s To Sir, With Love, adapted for the stage by the writer of East Is East, Ayub Khan-Din, and directed by Gwenda Hughes. It runs from 28 April until 16 May.
The second Ramps On The Moon production—the ground-breaking collaboration between the REP and six regional theatres which puts deaf and disabled artists and audiences at the centre of their work—will be The Who’s Tommy. Featuring a cast of 22 performers and musicians, Tommy is the story of the pinball-playing boy who triumphs over adversity. All performances from 17 until 27 May will be fully accessible including a creative combination of British sign language, audio description and captioning.
More than 50 football fans will unite for the world première of Stadium from 9 until 17 June. French theatre maker Mohamed El Khatib puts Aston Villa, Birmingham City and West Bromwich Albion supporters centre stage to shine a light on their passion for the beautiful game. The play is part of the REP’s Furnace programme which makes and creates theatre with communities.
Touring productions visiting the REP’s main stage include the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (Abridged) on 14 and 15 February, Sally Cookson’s staging of Fellini’s La Strada (8 to 13 May) and the West End comedy The Play That Goes Wrong (19 to 24 June).
In the Studio, the REP will present three world premières. Roxana Silbert directs a new adaptation of Eugène Ionesco’s Amédée by writer and director Sean Foley. This is the first new adaptation of Ionesco’s surreal comedy in 40 years and runs from 23 February until 10 March.
Choreographer Rosie Kay premieres her latest work, MK Ultra, which tackles the world of conspiracy theories and mind control, on 17 and 18 March.
The première of Winnie and Wilbur, Mike Kenny’s adaptation of the best-selling picture books by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul, will be staged in the Studio from 31 March until 22 April.
The Bristol Old Vic production of Owen Sheer’s Pink Mist visits the Studio from 23 until 25 March. Inspired by 30 interviews with returned service men, Pink Mist tells the story of three young men deployed to Afghanistan. Returning to the women in their lives who must now share the physical and psychological aftershocks of their service, the three men find their journey home is their greatest battle.
In the days after the European referendum, the National Theatre began a listening project to create a verbatim archive of conversations from across the UK. Rufus Norris will collaborate with Carol Ann Duffy as he directs a performance based on the material gathered in My Country; A Work in Progress in the Studio from 16 until 20 May.
A programme of “fresh new plays” can be seen in The Door, the third space at the REP, including Touretteshero’s Backstage in Biscuit Land (17 to 21 January), Eurohouse—a “darkly comic look at the EU’s founding ideals”—from 26 until 28 January, Action Hero’s Wrecking Ball (2 to 4 February) and a “searing” story of three girls slipping through the cracks in Jane Upton’s All The Little Lights (22 to 28 February).