Two new plays exploring global questions of truth, corruption and freedom will feature in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s month-long spring 2018 Mischief Festival.
The festival, led by deputy artistic director Erica Whyman, will be held in the company’s 200-seat studio theatre, The Other Place, in Stratford.
#WeAreArrested is the true story of journalist Can Dündar’s commitment to “expose the truth in the face of huge personal risk”. His book of the same name documents his account of receiving a critical piece of evidence confirming the illegal shipment of weapons to Syria by the Turkish government, his newspaper's decision to publish that evidence and his subsequent arrest and imprisonment.
Dündar is one of the best-known figures in Turkish media. He has received many awards including the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists and was named European journalist of the year in 2017.
The book has been adapted by Sophie Ivatts who also directs and RSC literary manager Pippa Hill.
Created by Darren Clark, Amy Draper and Juliet Gilkes Romero, Day of the Living is a response to the 2014 “forced disappearance” of 43 students in Ayotzinapa, Mexico. This unsolved crime will be the source of this “devised anarchic, musical tribute to life and the Mexican spirit with urgent, global issues at its heart”.
#WeAreArrested and Day of the Living will play as a double bill from Thursday 31 May until Saturday 23 June.
As well as those two plays, Three Letters joins the festival for two performances on Wednesday 6 June and Friday 8 June at 1:30PM. Nell Leyshon performs her own story of how her reinvention of herself after having had children was halted by illness.
The festival will also include research-and-development work in progress readings of Redefining Juliet which is being developed by Storme Toolis and Alice Knight. It is a “frank and feisty retelling of the greatest love story of all time”, Romeo and Juliet, with six diverse Juliets. It will be staged on Friday 22 June at 2:30PM.