A new production of Lee Hall’s The Pitmen Painters and artistic director Theresa Heskins’s new adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island are among the highlights of the autumn and winter 2017 season at Newcastle-under-Lyme’s New Vic Theatre.
Former New Vic artistic director Gwenda Hughes will direct The Pitmen Painters, “an inspiring, funny, feelgood play about ordinary people doing extraordinary things”. It will run at the New Vic from Friday 15 September until Saturday 7 October.
Heskins will direct as well as adapt Treasure Island which will be on the New Vic stage from Saturday 18 November until Saturday 27 January 2018.
Alongside Treasure Island, the theatre will produce Tale Trail to Treasure Island, an immersive theatre experience that will take audiences aged between three and five on an adventure in an introduction to theatre for younger audiences and their families. It runs from Saturday 9 until Saturday 30 December.
Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre will visit the New Vic with Amelia Bullmore’s Di and Viv and Rose from 5 until 9 September. An Alan Ayckbourn double bill follows as the Stephen Joseph Theatre returns with a revival of the farce Taking Steps from 10 until 28 October and the world première of Ayckbourn’s A Brief History of Women from 12 until 28 October.
Northern Broadsides will be back at the New Vic with For Love or Money, a new adaptation of Alain-Rene Lesage’s 18th century comedy Turcaret. Adapted by Blake Morrison and directed by and featuring Barrie Rutter, it runs from 7 until 11 November.
The season is completed with the return of David Graham Productions with Eric of Dock Green in Midwinter Murders, a story about a Christmas party gone wrong, featuring “side-splitting laughs and the very best ’60s hits”. It takes to the New Vic stage from Monday 27 November until Saturday 9 December.