Theatre by The Lake—Cumbria’s only producing theatre—has a bold 2017 season, the first under the leadership of new artistic director, Conrad Lynch.
It marks their move to becoming a producer-led venue for the first time and features world and regional premières, new collaborations and new writing.
Paying homage to the “great British play” is at the heart of the season, kicking off in March in the main house with William Wordsworth, a Theatre by the Lake and English Touring Theatre co-production, written by award-winning playwright Nicholas Pierpan.
The theatre’s much-lauded summer season will feature a two-company ensemble for the first time. It opens at the Main House with a revival of Terence Rattigan’s After the Dance. This is followed by a collaboration with Shared Experience creating a new production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. This show will then embark on a UK tour in November.
Completing its summer season line will be a regional première of Handbagged by Moira Buffini the wickedly funny play that speculates on what Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher talked about behind closed palace doors?
Launching the theatre’s Studio season is a production of Two-Way Mirror by Arthur Miller, directed by John Dove who most recently directed Mark Rylance in Farinelli and The King at Shakespeare’s Globe and in the West End.
The Studio summer season also hosts a programme dedicated to new writing—the venue’s first—marking another gear change for 2017. First up, is a Theatre by the Lake, Royal Exchange and Sherman Theatre co-production of How My Light is Spent.
This season of firsts continues with the world première of Howard Brenton’s adaptation of Strindberg’s masterpiece Miss Julie. It concludes with the world première of Remarkable Invisible by award-winning American writer Laura Eason.
Families should be enthralled in the Main House at Christmas next year with a new production of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett adapted by Jessica Swale, recent recipient of the 2016 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy for her play Nell Gwynn.