Two new shows have been announced at Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre in spring 2024 including a co-production of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie.
The Belgrade will team up with Rose Theatre and Alexandra Palace Theatre in association with the Royal Exchange Theatre to present The Glass Menagerie. Atri Banerjee’s production of the semi-autobiographical masterpiece was staged at the Royal Exchange Theatre in September 2022. Geraldine Somerville will again play Amanda. It will run on the Belgrade’s main stage from 16 until 23 March.
Swim Aunty Swim! by Siana Bangura is part of the Critical Mass Emerging Writers Programme at the Belgrade. It has been developed with support from director and dramaturg Madeleine Kludje as well as English Touring Theatre.
It is the story of three West African women who learn to swim. Set across Lagos, Accra, Freetown, London, Birmingham and Coventry, it is a “profound, poetic story of friendship, loss, sisterhood, motherhood, ageing, starting again and the sublime power of water”. It will run in the B2 auditorium from Monday 20 May until Saturday 1 June.
Other drama on the main stage includes Tess, Ockham Razor’s “groundbreaking” circus adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, from Wednesday 10 until Saturday 13 April.
In the B2 auditorium Coventry’s Declan Bennett will present his “electric and funny” debut play Boy Out the City from Monday 25 until Thursday 28 March, and audiences can see As SHE Likes It, Chloe Wade’s debut play about #MeToo pioneer Patricia Douglas, on Saturday 16 March.