Maxine Peake’s new play Queens of the Coal Age and a new adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows are highlights of the autumn and winter season at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Queens of the Coal Age is a “powerful play full of northern wit”. Directed by Stoke-born Bryony Shanahan, the New Vic and Royal Exchange Theatre co-production tells the story of four women who take a stand against the closure of a colliery. It will run from Friday 7 until Saturday 29 September.
For Christmas, New Vic artistic director Theresa Heskins will adapt The Wind in the Willows which will be directed by Peter Leslie Wild. It will run from Saturday 17 November until Saturday 26 January 2019.
The New Vic will also produce Tale Trail to The Wind in the Willows, an immersive theatre experience for three- to five-year-olds, from Saturday 8 until Saturday 29 December.
Touring productions at the New Vic include London Classic Theatre’s presentation of Charlotte Keatley’s My Mother Said I Never Should from Tuesday 2 until Saturday 6 October, the Stephen Joseph Theatre double bill of Alan Ayckbourn’s Joking Apart from Tuesday 9 until Saturday 27 October and Ayckbourn’s new play Better Off Dead from Thursday 11 until Saturday 27 October, Tobacco Factory Theatres in association with The Dukes Lancaster with Jonathan Harvey’s Beautiful Thing from Tuesday 30 October until Saturday 3 November and the return of Northern Broadsides with They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay!, a new adaptation of Dario Fo’s comedy by Deborah McAndrew from Tuesday 6 until Saturday 10 November.