A wartime musical drama, an American classic and the return of a Jules Verne adaptation are among the summer highlights at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme.
The Staffordshire theatre-in-the-round will be staging a new production in May of I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire, Bob Eaton’s work which won best new musical in 1991.
Bursting with music of the 1940s, it tells the story of the women who worked in a Staffordshire munitions factory in World War II. It runs from 2 until 24 May.
A cast of more than 30—the biggest production ever seen on the New Vic stage—will bring to life Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee’s American drama Inherit the Wind.
It is set in 1925 when a Tennessee high-school teacher is charged with teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution to his pupils. In an epic courtroom battle two legal giants go head to head when a community puts freedom of speech on trial. It runs from 31 May until 14 June.
One of the biggest New Vic hits of recent years was 2013’s Around the World in Eighty Days, Laura Eason’s adaptation of the Jules Verne classic. It returns to the New Vic from 20 June until 5 July before racing off for a run at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre.
A boy-meets-girl love story with a difference, James Graham’s A History of Falling Things gets the New Vic treatment from 11 until 26 July.
Two lonely people meet online and fall in love. They live only five minutes apart. But there’s a problem: both are afraid to leave the house. The play asks how they are going to stay together if they can’t find the courage to go through their front doors.
Visiting productions include London Classic Theatre with Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane from 15 until 19 April and John Godber’s Teechers from 23 until 26 April.
No New Vic summer is complete without a visit from Uncle Eric and his hapless gang of musical misfits for their annual ‘60s show. His latest adventure, Eric and Cleopatra, features Eric’s ancient British ancestor who goes to Rome for a fateful meeting with Queen Cleopatra. It runs at the New Vic from 18 until 30 August.
One-night events at the New Vic include Honor Blackman as Herself on Monday 12 May. Ballet Cymru with Beauty and the Beast on Wednesday 25 June and Tangomotion on Wednesday 16 July.