Birmingham REP’s programme for this autumn and winter features a “stimulating season of plays in traditional theatre venues and more unusual spaces across the city”.
Continuing its off-site programme while its theatre is closed for redevelopment, the REP will be presenting a programme of new, site-specific, classic and family plays in venues as diverse as caravans, a Territorial Army field hospital and a Chinese restaurant.
As British military casualties continue to return from the war in Afganistan, Wounded (30 October to 10 November), a new play by Jenny Stephens, tells the tale of two soldiers coping with the aftermath of trauma. It’ll be staged at the Territorial Army field hospital in Kings Heath.
Over the past six months the REP and Black Country Touring have gathered dozens of stories about food for a new play, Eat!. Inspired by stories of war, poverty, celebrations, feasts, famines and fasts, Eat! (18 to 27 October) will be “an intimate and unique theatre experience” taking place in a cluster of caravans situated in the courtyard of the Roundhouse, St Vincent Street, Birmingham.
Continuing with the theme of food, Dim Sum Nights (13 to 15 November), the latest production from Yellow Earth Theatre, will be performed at the Ming Moon, a city centre Chinese restaurant. Bite-sized pieces of theatre written by British East Asian writers will be served up with dim sum, tea and a buffet meal.
Throughout the autumn the REP will be returning to its original home the Old Rep Theatre to present the latest productions from a range of touring companies.
Legendary theatre director Max Stafford-Clark and his company Out of Joint will revisit the true story of the first convict colony in Australia in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Olivier Award-winning play, Our Country's Good (25 to 29 September).
Pilot Theatre will be presenting a new adaptation by BAFTA award-winning playwright Roy Williams of Alan Sillitoe's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (2 to 6 October) while Ireland's national theatre company the Abbey Theatre will be coming to the UK with The Plough And The Stars (9 to 13 October).
The REP’s previously announced production of Forests by director Calixto Bieito will also play at the Old Rep (31 August to 15 September) as part of the World Shakespeare Festival.
At Christmas families will be treated to a trip to the riverbank with Alan Bennett's stage adaptation of The Wind in the Willows (28 November to 19 January) at the Crescent Theatre.
The REP will reopen in September next year with the first season of productions under its new artistic director Roxana Silbert.