Director Kate McGrath has announced the new Fuel season for 2020 which she has described as "a clarion call for a decade of empathy and a celebration of unity in difference" after "a time when empathy has been radically eroded in our public life."
Fuel’s first commission for 2020 is Inua Ellams’s first work for children, a radical afro-futurist reimagining of the classic French children’s story The Little Prince by Saint-Exupéry, produced in association with English Touring Theatre. The Body Remembers by Heather Agyepong, created in collaboration with Imogen Knight, explores the effects of internalised trauma on the physical body and "how feelings of extreme visibility within hostile environments and spaces cause the body to conform, particularly for black women across different generations."
In a new partnership with Rambert, dancer and choreographer Hemabharathy Palani will collaborate with director Hetain Patel for Salt and Sugar, which dissects what it means to be an Indian woman in the 21st century. A Dead Body in Taos is a new play by David Farr which will be directed by Rachel Bagshaw. A new project by Common Wealth, Speakers Corner and Bradford Modified Car Club, described as "part theatre show and part car rally", Peaceophobia will explore Islamophobia, racial profiling and modified car culture.
Slung Low director Alan Lane, writer Keisha Thompson and designer Börkur Jónsson will collaborate on a new show for children aged 5+, Izzy, BOSSS and Fractal, which creates a world where children have to work together to solve problems and will be performed in school playgrounds, public spaces and family-friendly festivals.
Existing shows The Day I Fell Into A Book (Lewis Gibson), An Evening with an Immigrant (Inua Ellams), So Many Reasons (Racheal Ofori), The Kids Are Alright (Encounter Productions) will also tour across the UK and internationally from Eastleigh to Kerala and The Hartlepool Monkey (Gyre and Gimble) will be re-imagined with the community of Hartlepool and presented at the Waterfront Festival 2020.