New work from local writers, three stage premieres and interpretations of three of Shakespeare’s greatest works feature in the spring and summer 2016 season at Birmingham REP.
Artistic director Roxana Silbert said, “it’s thanks to our audience that we’re able to offer another ambitious and diverse season of work in our three spaces.
“It runs alongside our extensive city-wide learning and participation work and our ongoing support for local writers, directors and theatre makers. I'm very proud to be working in partnership with some of the finest artists and companies in the country to deliver world-class theatre to our audiences.”
The REP’s 2014 production of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men returns from 4 until 13 February before going on a 15-week UK tour.
One of the early highlights of the season is Alan Bennett’s Single Spies which chronicles the lives of Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt. Nicholas Farrell plays Burgess. Rachel Kavanaugh directs the play from 17 until 27 February.
Roxana Silbert will direct David Harrower’s adaptation of Gogol’s The Government Inspector. The production is the first in the Ramps on the Moon touring project that signals a change in disability arts provision in the UK. A collaboration between seven of the UK’s leading regional producing theatres, The Government Inspector will feature a cast of deaf, disabled and able-bodied actors. It runs from 19 until 26 March.
Jonathan Coe’s 1970s coming-of-age novel The Rotters’ Club (2 until 9 April) will be brought to life on stage for the first time in an adaptation by Richard Cameron. Set in Birmingham, The Rotters’ Club follows Benjamin Trotter through the “hilarious and, at times, touching trials and tribulations of growing up in an era of IRA bombs, industrial strife and punk rock”.
Another Birmingham REP commission, Folk (14 to 30 April), is written by former winner of the Critics’ Circle most promising playwright award Tom Wells. It features Winnie: a swearing, Skoda-driving, Guinness-drinking nun.
Four hundred years after the death of Shakespeare, Don Warrington will play the title role of King Lear (19 until 28 May).
Two other Shakespeare plays also feature in the season: Macbeth (26 until 30 January), featuring John Heffernan and Anna Maxwell Martin and Filter’s radically cut, fast-paced version of Twelfth Night (12 until 16 April).
Infertility, IVF and the taboo that surrounds the subject is explored in the world première of Gareth Farr’s The Quiet House (26 May until 4 June). It will be presented by Echo and Park Theatre, London where the play will run after its première in Birmingham.
More details are available at the Birmingham REP web site.