Award winning Rebecca Lenkiewicz's new play Jane Wenham: The Witch Of Walkern will have its première at Watford Palace Theatre next month.
The play is inspired one of the last major witch trials in England, and director Ria Parry said of it, "it resonates with issues we are still facing today. In many areas of the world, women are still horribly oppressed, and even closer to home there is a tendency to ‘witch-hunt’ not just women, but anyone we fear or don’t understand.
"Jane Wenham is set in 1712, but it is disturbingly relevant to now".
Lenkiewicz received a BAFTA award for Ida, co-written with Pawel Pawlikowski, which also won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. She received a Fringe First Award for Soho: A Tale of Table Dancers, and her plays The Night Season and Her Naked Skin both premièred at the National Theatre, making her the first living female playwright to have her worked produced on the Olivier Stage at the NT.
Patti Love, whose credits include The Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Glass Menagerie and Henry IV parts I and II, leads the cast made up of David Acton, Judith Coke, Tim Delap, Hannah Hutch, Andrew Macklin, Rachel Sanders and Cat Simmons.
Original music and sound design is by Max Pappenheim and puppetry is by Matt Hutchinson.
Jane Wenham: The Witch Of Walkern is presented by Out of Joint, Watford Palace Theatre and Arcola Theatre, in association with Eastern Angles. It opens at Watford Palace Theatre on 23 September and then tours, playing Arcola Theatre from 5 to 30 January.