Spring at Liverpool's Everyman and Playhouse theatres will feature a new adaptation of Madame Bovary, a revival of Frank McGuinness's Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme and collaborations with National Theatre of Scotland and Told by an Idiot.
Artistic Dirtector Gemma Bodinetz will direct The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary! with a cast of five based on Flaubert's novel, "lovingly derailed" by John Nicholson and Javier Marzan of Peepolykus with "vermin, visual absurdity, wild animals and a nun". Following its première at the Everyman, it will transfer to co-producers Bristol Old Vic, Nuffield Theatre and Royal and Derngate.
Headlong artistic director Jeremy Herrin will direct the Frank McGuinness classic war play in June at the Playhouse in a co-production with Abbey Theatre Dublin—where the play premièred in 1985—Citizens Theatre Glasgow and Headlong.
Told By An Idiot’s I Am Thomas, about the last person in Britain to be executed for blasphemy, created in collaboration with poet and playwright Simon Armitage, will première at the Playhouse before touring in a co-production between National Theatre Scotland and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh.
Unsung is the story of a lesser-known Liverpool hero, Edward Rushton, an abolitionist, poet and human rights campaigner, written by Turf Love’s John Graham Davies and commissioned by DaDaFest.
In the Playhouse Studio, Associate Director Nick Bagnall directs I Am Not Myself These Days and Theatre503 returns with a play about a mining town in Wales in the 1970s, Land of Our Fathers by Chris Urch.
There will be visits to the Playhouse from Leicester Curve’s production of The Witches, Regent’s Park Theatre’s acclaimed production of Lord of the Flies, Michael Rosen’s We’re Going On A Bear Hunt and Patrick Barlow's comic take on The 39 Steps.
Eclipse Theatre Company is at the Playhouse in February with A Raisin in the Sun, Mark Simpson’s new opera Pleasure will visit in a co-production by The Royal Opera House, Aldeburgh Music and Opera North, English Touring Theatre returns with The Herbal Bed, Barrie Rutter plays Sir John Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor for Northern Broadsides, Sherman Cymru present Iphigenia In Splott and The Corn Exchange, Ireland presents a stage adaptation of Eimear McBride’s novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing.
Tickets are on sale now except for Observe the Sons of Ulster, which will be on sale in spring 2016.