The 2014-2015 season at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton, David Thacker's sixth as artistic director, will include eight homegrown productions and a new Jim Cartwright play.
The first two plays contribute towards the commemorations of the start of World War I, with R C Sherriff's popular First World War drama Journey's End followed by a revival of local writer Les Smith's Early One Morning, telling the true story of a Bolton soldier who was charged with desertion, which was first produced at the Octagon in 1998.
As already announced, the Christmas production will be a new adaptation of Alice in Wonderland from the same writer-director team of Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Elizabeth Newman as last year's Robin Hood.
Thacker opens 2015 with a playwright on whom he has become something of an authority, Arthur Miller, as he directs A View from the Bridge. He said of this play, "It left me stunned after I saw it for the first time and Arthur Miller rapidly became my favourite playwright after Shakespeare."
Thacker follows this with a return to a Manchester School playwright after this year's Hobson's Choice with a production of Stanley Houghton's Hindle Wakes, and then Elizabeth Newman has declared that she is "thrilled" to be directing a revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives.
The Ancient Secret of Youth and the Five Tibetans is a new play by renowned Bolton playwright Jim Cartwright about three old friends who have know each other for 40 years who discover an ancient book that offers up the secret of youth through a series of rituals that, if followed, promise to turn back the clock.
The season wil close next summer with Michael Frayn's backstage farce Noises Off.
Thacker said, "One of the most satisfying aspects of our current season is that we have been able to present productions that have sold out like An Inspector Calls, Hobson’s Choice, This May Hurt A Bit and Brassed Off, alongside plays that will inevitably play to smaller audiences, like Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Duet for One and Separation.
"This is part of what makes the Octagon so distinctive, and we are proud that we can offer the people of Bolton and the North West such a rich variety of high quality plays."